Rant

Does anyone else feel this dull black cloud of apprehension hanging over the impending political conflicts in the Senate? We have a President who was put into office by a bare majority of Supreme Court Justices, having lost the popular vote and with uncounted votes from citizens in Florida. Now, the President wants to appoint new Supreme Court Justices who would be approved without the normal majority required by the Senate.

It is probably true -- and somewhat heartening -- that this collapse of the seperation of powers could play well to Democratic electoral ambitions in 2006 and beyond; just as the Terry Schiavo case was repudiated so quickly by most Americans. But, at the same time, this will only take place because we will witness such a collapse: the Senate *will* no longer be a minority-rights Body; the President *will* transform the courts even as the conservative Court chose the President in 2000. And it is *our* party -- the Democratic party -- who will be trampled on. Even the one vestige of power we have left, those votes of the 45 senators (who represent, of course, a *majority* of citizens, since they are from disproportionately populous states) will mean nothing.