We Are Ruled By Total Morons
by matt at 8:47 pm on November 20th, 2009 in
Bad Dems,
Congressional Man Date,
Depends on the Definition of Change,
Obama Uber Alles
“A Senate Democratic Chief of Staff” writes in to TPM:
So, what we might end up with is a Senate Democratic Caucus that holds 98% of its members but still fails to pass healthcare reform,1 AND a mob of angry progressives who are screaming for the heads of “the Democrats.”2 This isn’t fair,3 but more importantly, it’s self-defeating.4 If progressives REALLY want to transform America,5 they’ll make an issue of the anti-democratic rules of the Senate which make real change virtually impossible.6 Blasting their elected Democratic officials, the vast majority of whom will vote for the Senate bill (and would also support a more robust public option if we didn’t need 60 votes to achieve cloture7), may make folks feel good, but is both short-sighted and stupid.8
Now I’m going to pretend for a minute that Josh didn’t just post this tripe without comment. It’s possible that he doesn’t agree and is only giving all of us plebes a rare look behind the scenes. One would hope so, anyway.
But on to our SDCoS, a man clearly plugged directly into the thinking of our smashingly effective Congressional leadership.
1 I guess this is the close-but-no-cigar method of Senate leadership. Back when Democrats lost more elections than they won, we would always hear about how close they kept the score. Now they’re on to celebrating 98% when only 100% will do.
2 What are progressives supposed to do, be happy when buffoons like Nelson, Landrieu, Lincoln, Bayh, etc., are coddled when they choose the interests of their big campaign contributors over the interests of the country?
3 Fair? Since when is fair a consideration? Fair is making sure that everyone has access to proper health care. Fair is not rewarding Wall Street for wrecking the economy. Fair is marriage equality. God forbid the Senate do its job if they’re so worried about fairness.
4 Self-defeating is running on change and then not delivering. Congressional Democrats are going to pay one hell of a price for their lack of action, and they will have earned it.
5 Americans were sold a bill of goods. They voted to transform the country, and were rewarded with a man who will never risk anything for what is right.
6 Progressives outside of the Senate can’t do anything to change the rules of the Senate, that’s what Senators are for. If Democratic Senators are interested in passing health care, there are several things they can do: They can use the reconciliation process which requires 50 votes plus VP Biden to break the tie. They can enforce party discipline by stripping recalcitrant Dems of chairmanships and withholding campaign funds. And if they wanted to actually address the anti-democratic rules, they could just end them. But they won’t because they are all egomaniacs who love the possibility of bringing the whole place to a halt on a whim. Beyond this, I don’t remember Obama, a US Senator for four years, adding a passage to his stump speech about how nothing was going to happen until there were 100 Democrats in the Senate. Presumably he was aware of the anti-democratic rules when he intervened to save Lieberman’s seniority and chairmanship after Joementum spent the entire campaign appearing at McCain events and slamming Obama. But we’re gonna hang this all on progressives.
7 See above, no real need for 60, plenty of leverage to get there, clear way to change the rules anyway.
8 Go fuck yourself.
sarabeth wrote:
I think we are supposed to jump up and down, and make a lot of noise about “the anti-democratic rules of the Senate”. This will allow Senate Democrats to publicly realize that anti-democratic rules are choking Progress. They will then be able to fight the good fight to, for example, kill the filibuster. So that we can be invited to cheer as they once again manage to fall just short, not so much because of Republican opposition but because of dissension within the ranks.
And presumably respected SDCoS is referring not just to the filibuster but also to things like secret holds? Which is not a written rule that has to be voted out, but just one of the hallowed unwritten conventions of the Senate that Harry Reid has to honor because he just has to, that’s the Senate way. The will to fight “the anti-democratic rules of the Senate” is so self-evident, isn’t it?
Posted 21 Nov 2009 at 5:55 am ¶