Disease Or Cure?

The New York Times has a pretty silly editorial about the Alito nomination (see ColumbusGuy's take below). It's one thing to oppose Alito, it's another to hang it on the separation of powers argument going on today.

1) It's tone deaf. The public (and therefore politicians) just can't get excited about Bush fighting terrorism by listening in on calls to Afghanistan (without first getting rubber stamp permission--that's what this fight is over!).

2). It's trendy. The NYT doesn't really care that much about this issue, and has never cared that much about this issue--not compared to abortion or First Amendment freedoms, for instance--it's just something that seems big now.

3) It's false. The relative power of the branches of government change through time and the NYT, like most entities, tends to opportunistically support power for whichever branch agrees with at the moment.

4) It's contradictory. What does the Times want? A filibuster. In other words, to protect the Constitution, they want to Senate to avoid doing its Constitutional duty with respect to the Executive and Judicial branch, a threefer.