Columnist Paul Greenberg suggests that our solons in the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body are behaving veddy veddy strangely:
“Where do these people think they are, the House of Commons? The other day the U.S. Senate, sometimes laughingly referred to as the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body, considered a motion of no confidence in the country’s attorney general.
“To what end? There is no constitutional provision for a vote of no confidence. It’s a parliamentary, not congressional, maneuver. And should remain so. Let’s leave it to the Brits — like cricket, haggis and toad-in-a-hole.
“In a parliamentary system, a government that loses a vote of no confidence is toppled and may even have to face new elections. Here our chief executive serves for a fixed term — four years, for all you civics students out there — and the members of his Cabinet, including the attorney general, and, yes, all those federal prosecutors who just got fired, serve at his pleasure. Not at the pleasure of the U.S. Senate. So what was the point of this motion of no confidence? The short answer: none at all.”