What's so good about the filibuster anyway?

Jimmy Stewart, from the classic filibuster scene in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

With the election of Scott Brown as U.S. senator from Massachusetts, Democrats lost their filibuster-proof majority. There's a lot of debate at the moment about the filibuster – is it a useful tool or a political tactic to stall legislation?  We’ll devote this hour of Radio Times to a conversation about the history and the use (and perhaps over-use) of the filibuster. Our guests are congressional scholar SARAH BINDER and DON RITCHIE, historian of the U.S. senate.
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