1115.org

A hugely successful Republican filibuster day, yesterday. By the time the dust settled and the cows came home, John McCain, John Warner and other defenders of everything American had successfully filibustered two bills from coming to a vote.

Victim number one: Patrick Leahy and Arlen Specter’s habeas corpus bill, which sought to restore to Guantanamo detainees the habeas corpus right that has been part of the fabric of civilized society since the Magna Carta was signed in 1215. The vote was 56-43, four votes short of the magic 60 needed to bring up the bill for an up-or-down vote. Every Democrat in the Senate supported Leahy-Specter. So did these 6 Republicans: Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe, Chuck Hagel, Richard Lugar, John Sununu and Gordon Smith. The remaining Republican Senators are jumping up and down in glee at the great victory they won today. Joe Lieberman did exactly what you would expect Joe Lieberman to do. He wagged his tail, panted a bit, drooled a lot and then peed on the carpet.

Victim number two: Jim Webb’s troop-support amendment, which mandates that after every tour of duty troops must get an equal amount of non-combat time at home. Feel free to stop me anytime you feel you’ve heard this before. The vote was 56-44, four votes short of the magic 60 needed to bring up the bill for an up-or-down vote. Every Democrat in the Senate supported the amendment. So did these 6 Republicans: Chuck Hagel (co-sponsor), Olympia Snowe, John Sununu, Susan Collins, Norm Coleman and Gordon Smith. The remaining Republican Senators are jumping up and down in glee at the great victory they won today. Joe Lieberman did exactly what you would expect Joe Lieberman to do. He wagged his tail, panted a bit, drooled a lot and then peed on the carpet.

And just the previous day there was another victim: a proposal to add two more seats to the House of Representatives, one for Utah (to fix perceived census problems) and one, for the first time ever, for the District of Columbia. The citizens of the District of Columbia are destined to remain disenfranchised for now, since the vote was 57-43. The difference between representation and taxation without representation was apparently “three Republican senators who had indicated support for moving the bill forward (who) changed their minds: Gordon Smith (Ore.), John McCain (Ariz.) and Thad Cochran (Miss.).

Popular support for a bill doesn’t seem to matter to Republicans any more. For example, the habeas corpus bill enjoys almost 2-to-1 support. 63% of Americans support granting habeas corpus to Guantanamo detainees, 32% oppose it. However, Bush’s I-don’t-care-about-polls disease is obviously contagious, and he has infected almost the entire Republican caucus. Senate Republicans don’t care. Not about polls, not about public opinion. Which is a strange position to embrace in a democracy, to be sure, but that hasn’t kept the Republican party from embracing it very wholeheartedly.

But maybe

Don’t care was made to care,
Don’t care was hung

doesn’t happen just in nursery rhymes?

Right now the Republicans are basking in the glow of what they’re regarding as success. What exactly they are succeeding in, though, may not be clear for another 14 months. I suspect a very large number of chastened Republicans — especially those whose names appear on a Senate ballot in November 2008 — will then be reflecting without any real relish on the meaning of the phrase penny-wise pound-foolish.

Pleased as punch as they are at what they obviously regard as their little legislative victories every time they filibuster yet another Democratic initiative, it doesn’t seem to have occurred to them to consider the probable public reaction to their filibustery.

How many Republican voters (who will be voting in Senate elections next November) are starting to say to themselves: “I’m still a Republican at heart, and I have nothing against my Republican candidate for Senate. In other circumstances, I would have happily voted for her. But I’m damned if I’m going to contribute to any more of this goddamned filibustery. I’m damned if I’m going to be responsible for Republicans having even close to 40 seats in the Senate.”

I’m not pretending that I know. But we sure as hell are going to find out, aren’t we?