In its typical liberal fashion, the New York Times editorialized against the "nuclear" option March 6. "To block the nominees, the Democrats' weapon of choice has been the filibuster, a time-honored Senate procedure that prevents a bare majority of senators from running roughshod. Republican leaders now claim that judicial nominees are entitled to an up-or-down vote. This is rank hypocrisy."
But 10 years ago on Jan. 1, 1995, when Democrats controlled the Senate, the Times took a different view. "The U.S. Senate likes to call itself the world's greatest deliberative body. The greatest obstructive body is more like it," said the paper. "In the last session of Congress, the Republican minority invoked an endless string of filibusters to frustrate the will of the majority. This relentless abuse of a time-honored Senate tradition so disgusted Senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat from Iowa, that he is now willing to forgo easy retribution and drastically limit the filibuster. Hooray for him."
