So, the Republicans, who crave a quick fix for everything these days, are willing to destroy a tradition that once allowed a political figure to stand up for something? Literally. They could stand up for hours and hours about something.

Sigh. Jimmy Stewart rolls in his grave.

If the Republicans are successful at eliminating the filibuster, we at the Pepper predict that they will come to regret that move. Eventually, the Democrats will return to power, and the Republicans will feel like they can't express their opinions either. They'll wish they had that filibuster back, if only to stick a needle in the side of the donkey, if only to give their opponents a really late night.

This debate over the filibuster smacks of the do-it-today, worry-about-it-tomorrow mentality of the George II Republicans. If we're not careful, we'll all be thinking of a functional democracy as something expressed only in movies.