Houston Chronicle On Filibusters -- 2005.

At stake is whether senators of the minority party will be allowed to play any role in the Senate's constitutional duty to advise and consent. . . . Without the right to unlimited debate so long as 41 senators desire it, the Senate could cease to be the world's greatest deliberative body and become another rubber stamp for the party in power and the interests that fill its campaign coffers.

Houston Chronicle on Filibusters -- 2007.

Reid was right to force opponents to filibuster or allow the matter to go to a vote. At the end of the exercise, the withdrawal amendment failed to get the 60 votes needed for closure, but the public is now clearer as to which lawmakers prevented the Senate from doing its job.

In other words, the Houston Chronicle doesn't believe the filibuster is all that essential to making the US Senate "the world's greatest deliberative body" when it is used to prevent a vote on policies the paper supports. When Democrats use the filibuster, it is part of the Senate doing its job, but when Republicans use it, is is "lawmakers preventing the Senate from doing its job." I suppose that is true -- but only if one operates on the premise that the job of the US Senate is to enact the policies of the Democrats in all circumstances whatsoever.

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