Chuck Schumer: “I am going to move on now. I will be happy to yield. But the bottom line is that there is a lot of sophistry going on…”

“I am going to move on now. I will be happy to yield. But the bottom line is that there is a lot of sophistry going on here in terms of argument--not in terms of individuals. When you are forced to invoke cloture to get a vote, if that is not a filibuster, I don't know what is. It seems to me it is. When you don't allow a nominee to come to the floor and get a vote and you don't even bring them before the Judiciary to bring a vote, that is OK. But when they get the vote in Judiciary and then they come to the floor and large numbers of Members feel so strongly that in only 2 cases out of 119 they say this is the only method we can use to stop it, that is wrong. It makes no sense. Finally, I would say this: It is obstruction when you stop any one of the President's nominees, because what our friend from Utah says he must do when he says just have them come up for a vote is to pass every nominee because, for whatever reason, the discipline on that side is such that they will always get 51 votes. I am proud of what we have done. I believe we are upholding the Constitution. I believe we are checking the arrogance in the White House, particularly with Miguel Estrada and his refusal to even answer any questions. I believe history will look very kindly on this effort. They will look at it as courageous. They will look at it as right. They will look at it as judicious because it has not been used willy-nilly. They will look at it as fair.”