The Political Spectrum

Via How Appealing, I thought it appropriate to post Senator Bob Bennett's (R-UT) remarks on the floor of the U.S. Senate last week. The remarks in full can be accessed here, but there are a couple of excerpts I would like to share:

I remember sitting in the family gallery one evening listening to the debates.
In those days, there were debates. There was not the situation we find now where
senators come to the floor to posture for the television cameras. They came to
the floor to have a clash of ideas. I remember a particular debate where a
senator on the Democratic side of the aisle was holding forth. He seemed to be
winning the argument and the senators on the Republican side of the aisle sent
up the call for the chairman of the Finance Committee, who entered the back of
the chamber. I remember the Democratic senator saying, I see the Republicans
have brought up their heavy artillery. Then there was an exchange between these
two senators which the chairman of the Finance Committee clearly won.

I couldn't agree with the Senator more, C-SPAN and 24 hour news cycles have, as most things do, an upside and a downside. True, more people watch C-SPAN and are better informed, however, the presence of TV cameras has led, in my opinion, to more posturing, pontificating, and grandstanding than it has led to honest, intellectual policy debate. This result was preventable and is not beneficial to either our political institution's or the policies that come out of them.

First, what are we talking about? We are talking about changing a Senate
tradition. We are also talking about changing a Senate rule. I want people to
understand the two are not the same. Indeed, we have formal rules in the Senate
governing the way we do business. We have created traditions and, quite frankly,
the tradition trumps the rule. If somebody invokes the rule, they can overturn
the tradition, but the tradition that has taken hold trumps the rule. ...
However, those who say it is a violation of the Senate tradition to use the
filibuster to block a circuit court judge are also exactly right. By tradition,
we have always held in the Senate that a nominee who gets out of committee and
comes to the Senate is entitled to an up-or-down vote. By invoking the rule in
the last Congress, the then-Democrat leader overturned the tradition. By talking
about changing the rule now, the Republican leader, the majority leader, is
entirely within his rights. Neither one should be demonized for the position
they took.

True, all true, but what is worse is that these respective positions, while both valid, get so distorted and misrepresented by the press and the advoacy groups on both sides of the issue.

Finally, Senator Bennett said,

I hope we will not see any more press releases attacking the president's
nominees as "right-wing whackos," that we will not see any more radio ads
attacking senators who are examining this matter as being people of no faith,
that we will stop the politics of personal destruction on both sides of this
issue, and we will look at it in its historic pattern.

Me too.