'Bipartisan' is the worst word in politics. I think in time it will probably just come to mean the same thing as 'corrupt'.
You know after sleeping on it for a night, I might change my position on this. Congressional Republicans as clearly, dangerously, and legally insane people who can't be held accountable for their actions because their minds are fundamentally broken in ways that make it impossible for them to exist harmoniously in society and who need to be carefully watched by caretakers so they don't pose a danger to themselves or others does sound about right.
In this case I'd compare it more to a psycho with a knife, and you failed to take it from him. But still, let's not blame the stabbing victims here: the psycho is still at fault for doing all the stabbing. The GOP are responsible for the gridlock. The Dems are just being pretty shit enablers and making a lot of excuses for everyone's behavior.
I'm liking the knife analogy. "Okay! Final offer! You can keep the knife, but we're going to have to insist that you only stab us with the knife if we ask you, 'Do you want to stab us with that knife?' and you answer 'Yes!' Then you can stab us. Agreed? All right, how about this: you can go ahead and stab us when you're in a hurry, but you should still say that you wanted to stab us after you're done with that particular stabbing. I am a master negotiator!"
Reid's basically focused on the knife and has asked if they'd please use a slightly less sharp brand to stab them with. It's sort of funny, everyone's expectations from Reid are so low that we heap praise on him the second he even sort of shows promise. Then right back to the dog house.
Part of me is very angry about this but there's another part of me that thinks that the nuclear option plays right into the Republican party's hands. Clearly the republicans love the ability to tell their base that Obama ("non citizen", "non christian", "socialist") is ramming his agenda through by whatever means necessary. I see the absurd Hastert Rule as being a much bigger problem. The idea that bipartisan compromise is verboten is a far worse problem than the idea that the Senate is a quagmire. At least the weak reforms we got makes some attempt to preserve the idea of legislative compromise. The republicans are absolutely the cause of almost all problems our country currently faces IMO, but I think there's a very significant chance that backing them up against the wall is a far worse solution than continuing to try to work with them even though they're all crazy.
Their base already believes that Obama is ramming his agenda through. The only difference this would make is that that his agenda might actually get through.
When the hell is he due to not be in charge anymore, by the way? It feels like it's been forever that he's been gumming up the works. He's been the leader since what? Reconstruction, right?
This is the second time this month that something awesome is on the table but people said this and it got killed. Guess what, everybody: Republicans are going to say whatever the hell they want to say regardless of what anyone else does. You say it in your own post: they're willing to say, either outright or through dog whistles, that Obama is a Muslim socialist foreigner, all things that are made up out of whole cloth and obviously untrue at this point to anyone who isn't a seriously notable moron. It doesn't matter to them; they say it anyway. Being afraid to do actual substantive things because of what the Republicans might say about it afterward makes no sense.
Well, it didn't take long for the chickens to come home to roost on this one. McConnell has now made it clear that nobody gets confirmed as head of the CFPB unless dems agree to structural changes to the agency. SNAFU.
If they were so timid that they couldn't bear to get rid of the filibuster entirely, they should have at least changed the rules to eliminate it for appointments. The president nominates, the senate votes to give or refuse consent, and bam, it's over one way or another. It seems like that would have been something that even the most craven Democratic senator could defend on a Sunday morning talk show. But Harry Reid keeps finding new depths of cowardice. Fuck Harry Reid. Gosh darn Harry Reid. edit: to be more appropriate for Debate & Discussion
The lack of Filibuster reform bears easily foreseeable fruit. Here's a nice bit of Orwellian Bullshitspeak - Um.
Sadly predictable. :( Josh Marshall has some background: apparently the issue is that Harry Reid isn't inclined to honor a hold on the nominee, the sort of which has been traditionally honored in the past.
Yeah, actually as a "hold" is essentially an informal filibuster enforced by Senate custom, Reid forcing the GOP to actually take a cloture vote can be seen as progress. Or at least the smallest indication of a possible willingness to someday, if they are feeling up to it, maybe, to actually start, sort of, standing up to GOP malfeasance. Sargent notes that part of the supposed unease about Hagel is his connection to a group called "Friends of Hamas". Weigel's original reporting is pretty revealing about how Right Wing media and politicians work hand in glove to perpetuate even the most ridiculous, and in this case apparently completely untrue, stories. At least Bill Ayers was a real person. Kenya a place. Socialism a thing.
It's time for the nuclear option. The Senate Republicans have made clear they absolutely intend to abuse all the levers at their disposal to rule from the minority, and the process is clearly broken.
Pretty much everyone saw this coming when Reid backed down. NPR had clips of him on Morning Edition this morning and I practically shouted at the radio. WTF did you expect?
Yeah. Just to keep it in perspective: The means in this case is "using a democratically elected majority to pass legislation." If the GOP has a problem with that, then I think it's safe to say that there is no circumstance under which they will not freak out about the "Democrat agenda," and the best way forward is to simply ignore them. After eliminating the Filibuster.
I'm tired of talk about unity and bipartisanship. Fuck it. Do as much as you can that Republicans think is unpopular and ram it down their throats.
It's hard to see how this doesn't move the clock a lot closer to doomsday in terms of killing the 60-vote requirement in the Senate. I can only imagine that the Republicans see Reid as so impotent that they can act with impunity at this point.
To be fair, they may only think that because he's so impotent that they can act with impunity at this point.
The nuclear option? We saw them back off any meaningful filibuster reform when it was on the table and they had a chance to make a real difference (and demonstrated they were all talk, no real desire to do anything.) They aren't about to do anything as radical as the nuclear option when they showed no desire to significantly reform the filibuster.
In terms of the psychology of Senate Democrats, the things I wonder are: 1) Do they imagine that this is just a phase that the GOP is going through? Do they think that in a couple of years they'll be able to move legislation again? 2) Do they intend to resort to relentless obstruction when they're in the minority? Personally I think the answer to number one is "no," and given that the answer to number two must be "yes," otherwise you're basically giving up on the Democratic project and you might as well just give the GOP the keys to everything.
You're assuming they're motivated by anything other than crippling terror at the thought of taking any action which might upset someone somewhere.
You shouldn't underestimate the extent to which "very serious people" logic, to borrow Krugman's language, impedes the "obvious" conclusion you expect they've already drawn in your point number 1 there. And the Senate is full of would-be super-congressmen, failed Presidents and other blimp-sized egos. The idea that senators, individually or collectively, should have the ability to throw a monkey wrench into the workings of government looks a bit different when you're the failed president with a monkey wrench in your back pocket.
Pretty much. I don't think Reid et al's reluctance to change the filibuster is because they're afraid of upsetting someone, I think it's a combination of a) bias against institutional change b) fear of screwing themselves when they're in the minority. The problem is - and everyone knows this - that the world where the GOP takes over the House, Senate, and White House in 2016 and the Democrats engage in even half the level of obstruction the GOP has is the world where the GOP eliminates the filibuster without hesitation. They're simply not bound by any sense of institutional norms and they'll happily flip their opinion on the nuclear option the moment it's in their best interest to do so. Which is why I suspect the answer Harry Reid has to 1) is that this is just a phase the GOP is going through, and they'll grow out of it. I don't think he appreciates the extent to which things are permanently different.
No offense, Jeff, but this is pretty silly. Reid is up to his neck in Republican bullshit day in, day out. He sees the dysfunction of Washington in much greater detail than you or I do, and he sees it on a daily basis. I'm sure he "appreciates the extent to which things are permanently different."
Seems like a mistake to me. Ok more seriously, this explanation makes sense in a vacuum but the situation looks different when viewed in the context of Team Reid's consistent unwillingness to take any bold action at any point.
This. The first time the Democrats threaten to filibuster, the GOP will threaten the nuclear option and see if they can peel off some Democratic votes. That tactic has proven effective for them in the past. If it doesn't work next time, then poof, the filibuster will be gone, baby, gone.
Keep something in mind: Reid is an old guy. Old people generally aren't amenable to changing the things that have defined their lives. He's straight up in old man denial mode, I think he was genuinely surprised by te Hagel filibuster.
You're describing someone who is senile to the point of being incompetent to hold public office. Then he's also a grade A sucker. Were you surprised by that? I know I wasn't. I don't think anybody was. But the guy whose job it is to get things done in the Senate, who should be more of an expert than maybe anybody else on Earth about this stuff, is the one guy who doesn't see it coming? If that's true that is an amazing level of failure even for him.
I really think you're underestimating the degree that wishful thinking plays in this. I agree that not going further on filibuster reform when he had the chance was a mistake, I just think the dynamics of the situation are a bit more complex than the oversimplification you offered upthread, which was why I replied. :)
To reiterate a previous comment, to think that a person who has spent their life in Washington politics, who knows all the backroom deals and Georgetown bar handshakes, who is completely immersed every day in what goes on on The Hill, is somehow less aware of the politics than we rank outsider amateurs - well, that is crazy. If we all saw it coming, and Reid didn't, or was confused, or naive, or whatever, then he truly is mentally unfit to serve in his role. My cynical mindset is that all of these guys, both sides of the aisle, have a lot more in common than we want to believe, and there's some good ole boy agreements that they aren't gonna make any real changes such as filibuster reform.
Jethro have you ever worked on a failing project before? One that you were sure was going to be successful, only to have it turn out shitty? I did, at Microsoft, more than once. Once of which was Zune. Which was obviously destined for failure. It's very easy to get tunnel vision when you're an insider. I have no doubt that there's some good ole boy agreement not to change the filibuster. The "changes" we got a few weeks ago were borne out of Reid and McConnel negotiating. I think that what happened is that McConnel was negotiating in bad faith (duh) and Reid still believes that maybe the mores of the Senate hold; that if he cuts a deal with the other side they'll honor it.
I think that's incredibly generous, jeffd . Senior Democrats are complicit in perpetuating the system-level procedures that make them the slightly lesser evil versus a source of any genuine leadership, if indeed they are even capable of doing more than dulling the Republicans' edge on occasion. It's clearly what they keep telling us, again and again. That's enough to get my vote when push comes to shove, but it's not enough to make me build elaborate constructs that explain away their horrible bullshit as well-intentioned missteps when the answer is right in front of you, over and over.
