Bill Bennett: “The New York Times said: ``Time to Retire the Filibuster.'' That is the headline on the editorial. It says: The U.S.…”

“The New York Times said: ``Time to Retire the Filibuster.'' That is the headline on the editorial. It says: The U.S. Senate likes to call itself the world's greatest deliberative body. The greatest obstructive body is more like it. And they go on to attack filibusters and give a little of the history. And then this is their summary of the filibuster, four paragraphs down: One unpleasant and unforeseen consequence has been to make the filibuster easy to invoke and painless to pursue. Once a rarely used tactic reserved for issues on which senators held passionate convictions, the filibuster has become the tool of the sore loser, dooming any measure that cannot command the 60 required votes. Well, you would think, then, that when the Republicans are saying, ``Well, we don't want to eliminate the legislative filibuster, but we do want to re-enthrone the Senate tradition that the filibuster is not used on circuit court judges,'' the first cheerleader would be the New York Times. Having labeled the filibuster ``the tool of the sore loser,'' and saying that it is obstructionist, the New York Times ought to be cheering the idea that finally a majority is about to follow their advice offered in their editorial pages.…”