Demagogue

I hate to agree with Southern Appeal but, following up on my post regarding Bush's decision to renominated a handful of his judicial nominees who have been stalled by Democratic filibusters, I have to wonder when filibustering nominees has come to mean "rejecting" them.

From Harry Reid's statement

"Last year, the Senate worked to confirm 204 of the President's judicial nominees and rejected only the 10 most extreme. This confirmation record is better than that achieved by President Clinton, President George H.W. Bush and President Reagan. Despite our unprecedented effort to work with the President in discharging our constitutional duty to advise and consent to his nominees, today he renominated 7 of the 10 rejected nominees. We should not divert attention from other pressing issues facing this nation to redebate the merits of nominees already found too extreme by this Chamber."

Had these nominees actually been "rejected" (i.e, received a majority "nay" votes on the Senate floor) then Reid would be appropriately outraged. But the fact is that these nominees never received a floor vote because giving them that vote would have led to their confirmation, which the Democrats opposed. As such, they filibustered in order to prevent them from receiving such a vote.

Preventing a vote on a nominee is not the same as rejecting a nominee. I realize that Reid is trying to win the spin war here, but this attempt to redefine the word "rejected" is completely disingenuous.