"It seems as though there are Members in this body who want to filibuster just about everything we try to do, whether it is stopping judicial nominations, the Energy bill, or this Medicare bill"
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The line lands like a weary dispatch from inside a jammed machine: not a grand theory of governance, but a complaint about a Senate where obstruction has become the default setting. Bunning isn’t arguing the finer points of Medicare or energy policy; he’s indicting a behavior pattern. The word choice does the work. “It seems as though” poses as modesty, but it’s really a prosecutorial feint, inviting listeners to share an “obvious” conclusion without the burden of naming names. “Members in this body” sounds decorous, even collegial, yet it also functions as a distancing move: the problem isn’t the institution, it’s certain people abusing it.
The key subtext is that the filibuster has shifted from a tool of last resort to a routine veto. “Just about everything we try to do” frames the majority (or leadership) as industrious and public-spirited, while casting opponents as reflexive saboteurs. The list that follows isn’t random. Judicial nominations evoke raw partisan stakes and the long game; the energy bill signals big money and regional interests; Medicare is the cultural third rail, the kind of legislation you can paint as either salvation or socialism. By stacking them, Bunning widens the charge: this isn’t a single policy fight, it’s a governing crisis.
Context matters: mid-2000s Senate warfare, with filibusters and “nuclear option” talk normalizing procedural brinkmanship. Bunning’s intent is less persuasion than mobilization - to shame obstruction publicly and justify procedural retaliation. It’s an argument about legitimacy: if everything is filibusterable, nothing is governable.
The key subtext is that the filibuster has shifted from a tool of last resort to a routine veto. “Just about everything we try to do” frames the majority (or leadership) as industrious and public-spirited, while casting opponents as reflexive saboteurs. The list that follows isn’t random. Judicial nominations evoke raw partisan stakes and the long game; the energy bill signals big money and regional interests; Medicare is the cultural third rail, the kind of legislation you can paint as either salvation or socialism. By stacking them, Bunning widens the charge: this isn’t a single policy fight, it’s a governing crisis.
Context matters: mid-2000s Senate warfare, with filibusters and “nuclear option” talk normalizing procedural brinkmanship. Bunning’s intent is less persuasion than mobilization - to shame obstruction publicly and justify procedural retaliation. It’s an argument about legitimacy: if everything is filibusterable, nothing is governable.
Quote Details
| Topic | Justice |
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