Judges: Unclear, now that Owens is on the federal bench, what "extraordinary circumstances" means? This might help. As to Owens, the vote was predictable, except that Senator Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island was the only Republican to vote against Justice Owen. Two Democrats voted for her: Senators Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana. All the paeans to the dignity of the Senate should include a point that push comes to shove, senators do not really vote on principle ... except if "D" and "R" is the final (and sole) determination.
As to the importance of the "advise" part of the compromise, see here. A final word in respect to those who point out that the filibuster (and Senate itself) is an anti-democratic institution that helps block progressive legislation because interest groups can more easily take advantage. Putting aside that the Seventeenth Amendment was supposed to help stop this sort of thing, there is a point there. My thought is that like the veto, the filibuster should be sparingly to defend senatorial privilege. Thus, the Senate should not generally block funding bills, but confirmations to lifetime appointments is somewhat different.
Re-Districting: Meanwhile, a conservative Democrat from Texas (DeLay Country) put forth a non-starter piece of legislation that would call for a principled method of re-districting. The account addresses an important area in which the Republicans have cheated of late, while threatening basic constitutional principles in the process. [Real elections, for one.] These things do tend to add up, don't they?
Stem Cells: One bloggist bluntly noted: "So he's ginned up a nonsensical compromise position. Fair enough; he's a politician and a liar." More news [from federal sources] that the Koran abuse allegations were quite credible show that pretty clearly. Yes, we are talking about the President. The immediate issue is his opposition to a bipartisan stem cell bill using bad science and illogical moral reasoning to help things along.
A truly comic example of this was the photo-op involving babies that apparently were born from in-vitro fertilization or somewhat. Follow me here. Apparently, funding of stem cells from embryos (fourteen day old) voluntarily supplied is immoral destruction of human life, though allowing the same people to destroy them in the pursuit of a baby is not.
Furthermore, since the law does not force parents to give unused frozen embryos up for adoption (no Brave New World here) against their will, if not used for stem cell research, they can very well be destroyed anyway. In fact, only if they were planned to be anyway, would the request be made under the legislation just passed in the House! Finally, stem cell research itself will not be illegal.
This plus the fact that there is some real hope that the research will save and improve the lives of many leads quite a few strongly pro-life members of Congress (including the likes of Orin Hatch, and previously, Strom Thurmond) to support this legislation. Not Dubya. There is some semblance of a point to his opposition, but the blatant comparison with babies is just so over the line as to be downright amusing, especially given the destruction of "life" involved in such in vitro parenting.
And Viagra: Anyway, this entry makes a good point involving an issue that has led to local editorial hysteria around my way: Viagra, as with any other sort of medicial sources, is quite rightly given to "sex offenders," if medically indicated. I assume, if said offenders found a means to struggle through their enjoyment of children (and many are not pedophiles, given the breadth of the label) and got married, it would be deemed wrong to help sexual malfunction arising in the marriage?
The principled argument, by someone who is no fan of federal funding of Viagra per se, suggests just what we are missing these days: logic over blind emotion.