Yet another sign of the deep divisions of our times in the US. The lack of respect for Daschle somehow bothers me a great deal. Not that I think great things about Daschle (I hardly know what he's done in Congress), but it reminds me of when a worker leaves an office environment. A party might be thrown to say goodbye. People show up. It's just the polite thing to do. Well, it is to me... From AlterNet: Election 2004: In GOP We Trust?:

But no congressional party has governed like this in modern American history, because today's Republicans are less interested in the will of the people than in awarding their large contributors and pursuing their ideological crusades. They'll use their majority for those purposes far more than they will for thinking seriously about the will of the majority and acting on that. And they'll rub the opposition's face in it to boot, as they did in such tawdry fashion last week when not a single Republican bothered to show up during the floor speeches bidding adieu to Tom Daschle, who gave a quarter-century of his life to the body.

Legislative action confers popular legitimacy that judicial action does not. But that's only true if the legislators are legislating responsibly. I seem to recall the idea being that the legislators were supposed to respond to the people. With this bunch, it's the other way around.