All you folks so unhappy with President Obama, let me ask you a question...

[AnotherMcIntosh]

154. Actually, the usual excuse is that there are not enough votes to satisfy the Senate Rule 22 cloture

requirements. There are those who reason that in the absence of having advance knowledge that they will have such votes, they have essentially taken the position: "Why even try?"

The Senate has not amended its rules to redefine the word "filibuster" to mean anything other than what it has meant. The word has not morphed to mean something else. It certainly doesn't support a "Why even try?" attitude when someone claims that there are not enough votes to invoke cloture under Rule 22.

Instead of trying, even a little bit, there are those who excuse the non-action on the grounds that there were somehow filibusters. Or would have been filibusters which could not have been stopped.

At any time, Senator Reid could have stood up in the Senate before the cameras and announced something along the following lines, "As soon as I finish talking, we are going to begin considering passing Senate Bill xxx. We have been informed in advance that our efforts will be obstructed with a filibuster and that we do not have enough votes under Senate Rule 22 to invoke cloture to shut off a filibuster. I say to my friends on the other side of the aisle, what you say may be true. So if you do interrupt the process, you can talk and we will not be able to stop you. But as soon as you stop talking, we will resume the consideration of the Bill. You don't have to read a phone book. You don't have to say anything in particular. But as soon as you stop, we will continue forward with the Senate's business."

This is not the only approach that could have been used.

Why even try? Why require an actual filibuster? Why not just say that the Republicans have been holding filibusters? Or that the modern filbusters don't require anyone to engage in the process of "reading the phone book" for hours?

Why even try? The answer is that the Senators in leadership positions were sent to Washington to represent us and the country as a whole.