I mean, naturally Bush is now going to select an arch conservative for the bench. And I personally don’t believe for a second that he nominated Miers in order to make his subsequent pick more palatable. More palatable to whom? The conservative base? They were going to love him anyway. The liberal base? That wasn’t going to happen no matter what. Miers or no Miers, the Democrats were still going to object.
Not that it will make any difference.
You know what the main problem the Democrats have right now is? No sense of blood lust. If a Democratic president were hemorrhaging support and mired in as many failures as Bush currently is, the GOP would be massing like sharks around a wounded dolphin, and then they would be tearing in from all directions. The Democrats still sound and feel like exactly what they are: The party out of power. The GOP is already making noises about eliminating the judicial filibuster. The Democrats should be right in their face, shouting, “Do it! C’mon, do it, you sum’bìŧçhëš. Get rid of the filibuster, I double dog dare you. Because if you do, then sooner or later–probably sooner–the balance of power will be reversed, we’ll be in charge, and we’re going to make you eat whatever changes you make now to benefit yourselves, you hypocritical, smug, power-hungry jáçkáššëš.”
‘Cause if the situation were reversed, that’s what the GOP would be doing.
Because the GOP fights fire with fire, while the Democrats fight fire with popcorn, and they’d be well-advised to get with the program and make the most of the opportunities that the sanctimonious smugness of Bush and company are handing them before it all slips away again.
PAD
• 
I like that: Fight fire with popcorn. Although, you have to give them credit for also tossing in a few stern words here and there.
I’d type more, but I’ve got butter and salt all over my fingers.
Nowhere in this is the question of whether or not Alito is competant to serve on the court even mentioned. Doesn’t this matter? Or is it no a given that any pick by a president will result in the opposition party doing whatever they can to tear that person down, by whatever means necessary?
At any rate…the Democrats may be using a bit more forward thinking than you are. If Justice Stevens were to retire in the next 2 years Bush’s pick could tip the balance of power on Roe V Wade (ie. the only issue most of the partisans seem to care about). At that point it will be easier and more popular with the public to threaten a filibuster against anyone not seen as a centrist consensus choice.
Besides, what do the Republicans have to lose? They have pretty much let Democratic presidents have their picks for the court go through with little opposition–witness the near unanamous support for Ginsburg–so losing the option of filibuster will be hardly missed.
In order for the Democratic party to regain any type of real influence over the American public, they need only keep two simple factors in mind when responding or challenging their adversaries:
1) Be specific with criticisms.
2) Be specific with propsals.
I am one who believes that they react, rather than respond to situations, attacks, crappy nominees. Forget the popcorn, they need only take just enough time to read the “ABC” label on the extinguisher before fighting the fire. A skill that the party seems to have forgotten in their reactionary mindset.
Fred
If Justice Stevens were to retire in the next 2 years Bush’s pick could tip the balance of power on Roe V Wade (ie. the only issue most of the partisans seem to care about).
Well, when you see the abortion groups (those for and against) being the first ones to comment on a judicial nominee, you know the system has gone to šhìŧ.
These people act like that’s the only type of case the Supreme Court will hear these days.
I’d find it rather amusing if, for some reason, one of these anti-abortion groups found themselves in front of the Supreme Court for something other than abortion and lost with Alito as the deciding vote.
Ahh, I can hear the cries of “judicial activism” already.
If you see yourself as the good guy, it’s hard to summon up bloodlust because that’s not what the good guys do. They try to persuade and reason with people, to sway them with logic and reality. I don’t think it’s bloodlust that they need, I think it’s a clear and cohesive vision, a charismatic leader or three, and a final acknowledgement that there’s no longer a “center” to move to so they should once again consider speaking for the majority of US citizens who generally have much more liberal views than they (the Congresscritters) do.
If you see yourself as the good guy, it’s hard to summon up bloodlust because that’s not what the good guys do. They try to persuade and reason with people, to sway them with logic and reality.
*********************************
That’s not what politicians do. What was the line from the American President about Shepard being the “most loved economics teacher” at a university or something like that? That’s what happens to brilliant people who aren’t stategists. Politics is war, as Garafalo said in a recent West Wing. It’s often not about nice guys. Yes, there’s a difference between low blows but there’s also a difference between George Washington and Ghandi. The latter is a great man but he wouldn’t have won the Revolutionary War.
Bill Mulligan posted:
Besides, what do the Republicans have to lose? They have pretty much let Democratic presidents have their picks for the court go through with little opposition–witness the near unanamous support for Ginsburg–so losing the option of filibuster will be hardly missed.
Bill, exactly how many members of the Supreme Court have been nominated by a Democratic president in the past 33 years? I’ll tell you exactly how many–TWO! That’s it. TWO. Ginsburg (whose nomination was supported by that oh-so-liberal member of Congress, Orrin Hatch, before Clinton formally put forth the nomination) and Breyer. That’s it. No one else. All SEVEN of the other members sitting on the Court this past January 20th had been appointed by Republican Presidents, largely with the support of the Democratic Senate (O’Connor and Scalia were the only justices whose nominations were approved by a GOP-controlled Senate). Until Ginsburg’s appointment and confirmation, the last Democratic-appointed justice was Thurgood Marshall (by LBJ).
Now, let’s also not forget that the GOP was a very strong factor in leading the filibuster against LBJ’s nominee (Abe Fortas) for Chief Justice when Earl Warren informed LBJ of his decision to retire, and one of the strongest opponents of Fortas’ elevation to Chief Justice was none other than Strom Thurmond who used Fortas’ “liberal” record as the sole reason for the filibuster. That, mon ami, was way back in 1968! A Democratic President’s nominee was thwarted by a GOP-led filibuster. (This, in fact, was at a time when the motion for cloture required a solid 2/3 majority, rather than the current 3/5 vote. The reduction didn’t come until 1975.)
I am so bloody sick of these lies being spewed by the far-right extremists who simply choose to ignore those facts which don’t support their ridiculous assertions. What’s even more astonishing is the way that those lies are being swallowed so willingly by a media and public which simply doesn’t want to take a few minutes to verify the historical record.
The Senate NEEDS the filibuster because it is such a small body. There is plenty of time for debate on important issues in the Senate as opposed to the House, but the current GOP leadership doesn’t seem to want an open debate. When you dare assert that a mere 50 members of the Senate (remember that a tie enables the Vice-President to cast a tie-breaking vote) should be able to hold the power to put a person in a post from which they can sit for life, you fall for the trap that the party you support will remain in power indefinitely. But, just remember that any drastic changes made by one party can remain in place when the other party makes a return to power. (In other words, you may not like the Democrats being able to filibuster, but will you feel so generous when the GOP loses *its* ability to filibuster?)
When Governor Granholm was the state attorney general, the Republican-controlled state legislature tried to greatly reduce the attorney general’s power . Granholm successfully fought back against that effort.
Today, the state attorney general _is_ a Republican, one who enjoys the same powers Granholm had when she held the office. But if the Republicans’ short-sighted effort to reduce the attorney general to a paper tiger had succeeded, then their guy would now be essentially under the thumb of the Democratic governor.
I find it truly bizarre that the Republicans even contemplated such a move (and the same would apply if it had been the Democrats trying to do it). Did they think they would have a permanent lock on the governor’s office? Did they believe that if their efforts had proven successful, that “success” wouldn’t have one day come back to haunt them?
Sometimes I wonder what planet politicians are from.
Rick
For the record, here’s a fairly informative article concerning the filibuster against Fortas from a man who’s not exactly reknowned as a liberal, John Dean.
http://hnn.us/articles/11753.html
“What was the line from the American President about Shepard being the “most loved economics teacher” at a university or something like that?”
The line is from the scene when a pìššëd Shepard is shooting pool with Chief of Staff A.J. (Martin Sheen, ironically). A.J. makes it clear that he’s not happy with the way Shepard is handling things, and Shepard challenges A.J.’s right to criticize him considering that–as he points out angrily–he’s never seen A.J.’s name on a ballot for anything. And he says, “Why is that? Why are you always one step behind me?” To which A.J. shoots back, “Because if I wasn’t, you’d be the most popular history professor at the University of Wisconsin.” And the president shouts back a rather explicity profanity and slams down his pool cue.
PAD
Actually, Joseph, yes, I do think that the next Democratic president should have the right to nominate a qualified person to the Supreme Court and expect to have that nominee voted on by the Senate, without fear of the Republicans denying them the chance by fillibuster threat. It would have been wrong to do it to Ginsberg. It would be wrong to do it to Alito, unless some damaging information comes out. Just my opinion, but at least it’s consistant.
One other thing–it isn’t that the Democrats don’t go for the jugular–they often just aren’t good at it. Too arrogant. Using the corpse of Rosa Parks to attack Alito before she has even been buried is hardball blood in the water politics. It also comes across s crass and ugly to a lot of non-partisan folks.
Obviously I don’t want to condemn all Democrats for the actions of Schumer and jackson, but it would be nice if some of the saner ones told them to cool it
It would be wrong to do it to Alito, unless some damaging information comes out.
Eye of the beholder.
To many, being anti-abortion is “damaging information” enough.
The problem is that too few on either side care any more.
The filibuster will get the “nuclear option” treatment (I saw some Republican calling it the “constitutional option” the other day… what a crock), Alito will be confirmed by simple majority, and then the Republicans will šhìŧ a brick when they lose the majority while blaming the Democrats for forcing the “nuclear option” to begin with.
“Because the GOP fights fire with fire, while the Democrats fight fire with popcorn”
The analogy I’ve been using for years is that the Democrats are out for a sporting day of fencing, unaware that the Republicans are waging a brass-knuckle brawl.
“Nowhere in this is the question of whether or not Alito is competant to serve on the court even mentioned. Doesn’t this matter? Or is it no a given that any pick by a president will result in the opposition party doing whatever they can to tear that person down, by whatever means necessary?”
Well, if Bush had actually consulted with Democratic Senators before nominating an extremist like Alito, then this entire issue could be avoided. Just take Ginsberg as an example: Clinton actually had the audacity to get her approved by Senate Republicans before he officially nominated her, which is why her nomination went through so seamlessly…
…Not that you’ll hear that inconvenient fact from the right-wing insta-pundits.
–R.J.
I think it’s always been known that Orrin hatch was instrumental in getting Justice Ginsberg in–and why not, since i contrasts nicely with what Senate Democrats are doing today. He knew that the President would want to nominate someone who shared his political philosophy and helped to find someone who was competant.
meanwhile, Senator Reid was one of the one’s who suggested Ms. Meirs. Bush may be forgiven for not wanting to go back to that particular well of advice.
For what it’s worth, today’s Washington Post — no bastion of conservative activism — has a big feature profile on Alito that quotes a long roster of his liberal friends who suggest he’s a good judge, a good man, and an honest strict constructionist, not an ideologue like Scalia.
“No sense of blood lust.”
Jeez. You really are an arch liberal, or is it arch socialist? Which do you prefer?
Anyway, I find it kind of sad that people feel the need to talk about politics in such terminology.
This, unlike other things, isn’t a life and death war. It’s politics. When you talk about blood lust in reference to what should be civilized debate it kind of dilutes the time when blood lust is actually warranted.
As far as the SCOTUS is concerned, I never understood the hubub.
If the people disagree with SCOTUS there’s ways to get around it.
Ever heard of an Ammendment? SCOTUS can’t do jack if enough people want something changed.
Not that you can get 2/3rds of Americans do agree on anything these days. But that’s more to do with the kind of politics that’s been practiced in this country for the past fifty or so years.
Heck, early in this century enough Americans agreed that alcohol was a bad thing that it was banned.
And enough of them were smart enough to realize their mistake and change it.
If only people would realize the way to get things done is not through political parties, it’s through demanding the parties speak for you, not blindly following their lead and voting for them just because that’s how you have always voted.
You want things to get better, more civilized?
Boot all of these politicking crooks out. Democrat, and Republican.
Then we’ll be able to get some šhìŧ done.
Peter — it seems that the CBLDF, for one, might have reason to hope that Alito could be an ally in free-speech matters:
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/analysis.aspx?id=16003
“Washington Post — no bastion of conservative activism…”
Oh, yeah, the Post would never carry water for the Bush White House: Wash Post Distorts Level Of Congressional Interest in Downing Street Memo
–R.J.
Oh, yeah, the Post would never carry water for the Bush White House:
This is why it’s hard to take some liberals seriously when they talk about the “conservative media”; if a magazine or newspaper or Tv show ever A- says something nice about a Republican or B- says something bad about a Democrat they are suddenly part of the of the Vast Right Wing Machine.
The Post is a left of center paper. And a generally good one. What do you you think qualifies as a genuinely liberal paper…Pravda? The Village Voice? (No, they were once owned by Rupert Murdoch. Also, they print stuff by that right to lifer Nat Hentoff, so you KNOW they are part of the Bush Regime).
This is why it’s hard to take some liberals seriously when they talk about the “conservative media”
Oh, c’mon now, Bill. That phrase is rarely used outside of FauxNews.
Especially compared to the usage of “liberal media”, which is used to describe just about anything left of Bill O’Reilly.
C’mon Craig, I’ve seen it or variations of it used right here in this blog!
And using the “logic” that people use to call a liberal newspaper or TV show “conservative”, since I’ve seen Fox News having segments about how badly Bush did with Katrina and the Miers nomination, they must, in fact, be liberal! Hey, and their polls have shown him doing poorly! Would a “conservative” media outlet let that happen?
Not sure I like Alito for the court…but at least I know he’s a competent jurist with a well thought out judicial philosophy, that’s consistent with a major part of mainstream America. That’s more than I can say about Bush, who seems far more results oriented–the thinking that underlies the results is far less important to him (which actually explains his previous pick).
Alioto’s confirmation wouldn’t necessarily sit well with me (he’s a tad too derential to Executive power), but it’s something I could live with, based on what I’ve read about him.
Would a “conservative” media outlet let that happen?
Not even FauxNews can deny the truth every time the šhìŧ hits the fan with the Bush Administration. Every now and then they have to give the impression that they are, indeed, supposedly “fair and balanced”.
Ann Coulter even went off on Bush over the Miers nomination, but that doesn’t mean that she suddenly isn’t a psychotic ultra right-wing bìŧçh. 🙂
Bill: Nowhere in this is the question of whether or not Alito is competant to serve on the court even mentioned. Doesn’t this matter?
The social conservatives put the final nail in that coffin when they decided to sink Miers for not being enough of a blatant ideologue.
Craig:Well, when you see the abortion groups (those for and against) being the first ones to comment on a judicial nominee, you know the system has gone to šhìŧ.
I’ve been saying that for weeks. People are not looking enough at the big picture because both the pro-life and the pro-choice factions have poisoned the process. Reid’s endorsement of Miers is a prime example of this. As a pro-life democrat (yes, they do exist), I suspect he believed that Miers was a good choice to avoid another Bork shitstorm.
Looking at his resume, I think Alito is well-qualified. Certainly, he should have been tapped ahead of Miers. I think there were also some strategic reasons for picking Alito as well. He’s from the 3rd circuit in Philly. Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter is also from Philly and already knows Alito. Perhaps, after Specter made noises about questioning Miers about treatment of prisoners at GITMO, Bush felt that someone the Specter is already familiar with might have an easier time with the committee.
That said, there are two rulings in his career that do give me concern. One is his dissenting opinion to uphold Pennsylvania’s spousal notification law. The other is one in which he allegedly ruled that a warrant to search a man “naturally” extended to strip searching his wife and daughter. Those rulings go beyond the issue of whether abortiont should be legal and indicate a way of thinking that women and children have little rights of their outside their relationship to their husbands and fathers.
That way of thinking gives me pause.
if a magazine or newspaper or Tv show ever A- says something nice about a Republican or B- says something bad about a Democrat they are suddenly part of the of the Vast Right Wing Machine.
Why not? The right has been using the exact same argument everytime anything appears in the media that is even remotely critical of a republican or nice about a democrat for the past 20+ years.
I’m not sufficiently caught up on the news to have a competent opinion on Alito, but it doesn’t surprise me that he’s more competent than Miers: I could coherently argue that my youngest cat is more competent to be on the court than Miers. (Among other things, he exhibits a hëll of a lot more independent thought.)
There are two separate issues here: Alito’s appointment and the Democrats’ behavior in general.
Alito’s appointment: the main question in my mind is whether he’s someone who will rule based on the facts, or will fit the facts and the argument to fit his own already-entrenched opinions. Bush is very clearly a case of the latter, which automatically gives me some pause when it comes to Alito — but like Roberts, I’m willing to be convinced. Roberts, I think, DOES exhibit at least a certain degree of rationality and thoughtfulness, which I think means there’s a reasonable chance that he can grow and (gasp!) evolve on the court. I don’t know whether Alito fits that or not. If he does, then I’m much happier with him than with Miers. If he doesn’t, but is simply going to put his own opinions in place regardless of circumstances, then I think he’s a poor choice. Committed ideologues always are, simply because of the nature of the court — I’d (theoretically) be fine with a Clarence Thomas type as a senator, but not as a jurist who is supposed to dispassionately examine the law.
(I’ll admit that Alito’s nickname, “Scalito”, certainly doesn’t fill me with optimism.)
As an aside: I’d love it if another Roe v. Wade case came up and the anti-abortion bloc once again failed … due to a surprise swing vote from Roberts. That would be lovely.
PAD’s greater point, however, is one I think is worthy of note — the Democratic party at this point isn’t much of an opposition party. If it is an opposition party, it needs to oppose. That doesn’t mean they need to have knee-jerk opposition to absolutely everything, but as someone above said (Fred, I think), it means that when they disagree they need to state very specifically why they’re in opposition and what they would do differently.
I think either Gore or Kerry could have done a great deal of good by setting up, in effect, a “shadow government” detailing what policies they had in mind and presenting an alternative to Bush’s. Get the debate out there.
I don’t know that I’d call it “lack of bloodlust”, though I certainly understand how Peter means it. I think it’s simply lack of any sort of political courage right now. After 9/11, basically no one was willing to stand up in opposition to the Patriot Act. Lots of people are speaking out against Iraq now, but where were all those senators back when Congress was rubber-stamping everything Bush did and attaching its collective lips firmly to his sphincter?
The media doesn’t help much — not necessarily because it leans liberal or conservative (though I think it’s far more conservative than people like Bill are ever going to believe), but because it so frequently implicitly lets the Republicans frame the terms of the debate. How often do genuinely liberal ideas really get examined in the media? It’s always taken as a given that yes, Saddam has WMD’s; that yes, Social Security is in an obvious crisis; that yes, Abu Ghraib was only the result of a few misfits and not policy; that yes, the only way to personal morality is through religious faith; and that yes, most of Europe is opposed to Bush because they hate freedom.
(That last may seem like an exaggeration, but back on Bush’s European tour in the spring, Good Morning America covered it with the following: ‘President Bush today continues his European tour as he attempts to mend fences with allied leaders and outlines his plan to spread democracy to the Middle East. Interestingly, a new poll shows two-thirds of Europeans disagree with Bush’s plan,’ thus strongly conflating the issues to suggest that Europeans hate democracy.)
So yeah, I’m with PAD on this for the most part. The Democratic party has tried for far too many years to get away with being the party of “Republican ideas, but not quite so much.” That nonsense needs to stop now. The media needs to let the debate be a real debate, and Democrats need to get coherent people out there who can effectively challenge the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the Bush administration.
TWL
Way back in the early 1980s, I was a student at Anne Arundel Community College in Arnold, MD. I worked on the school paper, then called the Campus Crier, for the full five semesters it took to get my two-year AA degree (I had a couple of courses I had trouble scheduling).
Like many college papers, we received copies of other papers from around the country and around the world. One of those papers was a delightful little piece of work called The Pyongyang Times. The Pyongyang Times was an English-language paper published in Pyongyang, North Korea. Just about every article was about then-President Kim Il Sung in some respect. Every single article referred to him as “The Great Leader President KIM IL SUNG,” with his name in all caps like I just wrote. Anyone else involved in the government was referred to as “Dear Leader (title)(name).”
I mention this because I think of it every time I see another opinion column, letter to the editor or Internet post that talks about the “liberal bias” supposedly dominating the media. I imagine picking up a newspaper largely filled with articles about the administration, all of them describing the actions of “the Great Leader President GEORGE W. BUSH” and “Dear Leader Vice-President ÐÍÇK CHENEY,” and wonder if that would make the Bush fans happy.
Just a thought.
Paul
Whoops, left out a phrase. The last sentence should read:
“…CHENEY,’ only in the most glowing terms, and wonder…”
Paul
One is his dissenting opinion to uphold Pennsylvania’s spousal notification law.
Yes, this one really bothers me as well.
This is an adult woman we’re talking about. If such a decision isn’t made in consultation with her spouse (in a good marriage) and it leads to fall out, well, that’s a situation for adults to resolve, isn’t it?
The other is one in which he allegedly ruled that a warrant to search a man “naturally” extended to strip searching his wife and daughter.
This one was explained to me on another site that the man in question was a drug dealer, and in the past dealers have been known to try and hide the drugs on children. Also, the child was searched by a female officer in private.
I’m not sure of the mother was/should have been suspected of dealing in drugs as well.
So, on the face if it, I’m still not very accepting of the practice, but the logic isn’t horrible – drug dealers have been known to go to pretty extreme lengths to hide/smuggle the stuff.
The entire Democratic federal legislative congress, and I mean every single Democrat Senator and Representative, needs to hold a press conference on the steps of the capital. The Minority leaders of both chambers need to step to the mike and first acknowledge that in the aftermath of the tragic events four years ago, they united with what they thought were their like-minded Republican counterparts to move the country forward with a singular agenda and purpose. However, times have changed, and we need new approaches to major issues. And then they need to lay out some specific, detailed ideas that are markedly different than what we’re doing now. Will these absolutely, positively solve the problems our country faces? Nothing’s guaranteed, but the status quo isn’t cutting it. And then they need to invite the Republicans to react to each point they just made with similar specificity and detail. And then they need to make their last apology for a while, an apology for having their collective heads up their áššëš while this Republican president, who they’ve been billing as the dumbest guy to ever hold the office, has beaten them at every single opportunity available, with several bonus points for becoming the “issue” president on topics for which the Democrats should be providing leadership. The Democrats need to put up or shut up if they ever hope to again be a party of ideas, instead of a party of apologies for voting the wrong way in the heat of a moment.
And keep in mind, all of you who think the 2006 election is an in-the-bag victory for Democrats; I and many others vote for the congressional representatives that bring the most home for my state first. Sure, some of my neighbors are going to be one-issue fanatics, but if there were enough of them to tip the balance in my district, they’ve already made their voice heard in every election since the federal districts were last redrawn early this decade. The swayable voters in a congressional race are a much smaller pool than a presidential one.
El Coyote said:
“This, unlike other things, isn’t a life and death war. It’s politics. When you talk about blood lust in reference to what should be civilized debate it kind of dilutes the time when blood lust is actually warranted.”
So a war where 2000 of your own people are killed should be a matter for a debating society? Something about which you should feel no passion? Kind of like that guy in “Saw 2” who kills people simply to show how clever he is, and how dumb other people are, and gee, their lives are no consideration?
(I could go on about filmmakers who make films like “Saw 2” and how they spread callousness about murder and sadism, but I’ll restrain myself right now.)
There are matters about which one should be passionate about. Politics is not a debating game. It is the way that issues of power are resolved. The Republicans understand this, and they have effectively turned the Bill of Rights into toilet paper because they see politics as war. The Democratic response is to tsk-tsk the Republicans for wasting paper, and to suggest that it would be more ecological to use a bidet instead.
Well Peter, it appears that the lion woke up today and the popcorn was replaced with a flame thrower. Wow, more power to them, it’s time for them to get their spines back and let these crooks eat crow. I’m emailing my senator and giving him a high-five!
“Why not? The right has been using the exact same argument everytime anything appears in the media that is even remotely critical of a republican or nice about a democrat for the past 20+ years.”
My 4 year old child uses the “they did it first” arguement all the time. My 7 year old is now too mature to use that excuse (I taught him better than that). Evidently see some people never outgrow 1st graders.
I happen to agree mostly with Jason. The Democratic Party needs a Contract with America. The GOP one in 1996(?) worked.
Though I don’t think they need to admit Bush is smart. Just that his staff have made some smart moves in addition to their dozens of dumb ones. (Of course, it wouldn’t exactly be phrased that way.)
Since the Right-side of the media brands everything Liberal they don’t agree with, the Left-side has to respond in kind. Not because “they did it first”, but because this kind of labelling works, unfortunately, on many people.
You can try to argue that the Left should be above this, and appeal to the intelligence of the American people. But we’ve tried this strategy, and it hasn’t worked. No one has ever gone wrong underestimating the intelligence of the American people.
We need the Moore’s and Franken’s out there to cancel out the OReilleys and Limbaughs.
Yes, the Democrats called for a closed session of Congress, so they could discuss classified issues related to the Iraq War, etc. So now the Democrats are not only happy with continuing the blame game, they’re also going to do it IN SECRET?! I suppose if you wanted to keep the focus on how we got into the mess we’re in, instead of how we’re going to get out (which, regardless of whether they’re doing it right or even doing it at all, that’s the impression the Republicans keep pulling off), then kudos to them for making the continuing bipartisan game of political crassness a covert op, so at least I don’t have to hear about it anymore…
Woo!! The Democrats in the Senate exercised a little-used rule to kick the media out and slam the door shut!! Did they also threaten to hold their breath until they turn blue?
So now the Democrats are not only happy with continuing the blame game
There’s no blame left to assign – everybody knows the entire reasoning for going to war in Iraq is a complete crock – so I don’t know why the Dems are wasting time with this.
I dressed up as Dubya last night. I wore a huge stuffed albatross labelled “Public Opinion.”
“The Minority leaders of both chambers need to step to the mike and first acknowledge that in the aftermath of the tragic events four years ago, they united with what they thought were their like-minded Republican counterparts to move the country forward with a singular agenda and purpose. However, times have changed, and we need new approaches to major issues. And then they need to lay out some specific, detailed ideas that are markedly different than what we’re doing now.”
Unfortunately, the democrat leadership’s message over the last years has been ‘we would do the same things as the republicans but only different’. That’s not much of a message to send. Until both parties stop throwng rocks and objecting everything the other party does, the general public will be content to keep things as they are. Why change if nothing is going to be different?
“Woo!! The Democrats in the Senate exercised a little-used rule to kick the media out and slam the door shut!! Did they also threaten to hold their breath until they turn blue?”
Actually, that’s exactly what Bill Frist said he was going to do, until he realized that the Harry Reid just kicked his ášš.
Jeff, that’s the point I’m trying to make. The Democrats need to say “You know what? We agreed to start this fight, but that was four years ago. This is the last time we’re apologizing for it. Now, several problems challenge this country, and here’s our plan to shake things up and try some new things.” A gradual shift away from the current status quo and back towards the Democratic Party’s ideals isn’t going to demonstrate the kind of strong, definitive leadership the dissatisfied swing voters of this country want. I registered as a Republican ten years ago and still believe in the core ideas today that I did then. But I’m terribly disappointed in my party for the utter lack of leadership and/or positive movement on any major problem this country now faces. The gut question many of you are asking yourselves now is “well then, why would you continue to vote Republican?” My response is why would I vote for a paler, even more ineffectual version of what I’m disappointed in already. If the Democrats want my vote, grow a spine and give me a plan I can get behind – Please, I’m begging you. Because if you get your crap together, most likely the Republicans might straighten up, too, and irregardless of who wins, we’ll get some folks in office interested in leading.
Knuckles, it’s just another weapon of mass distraction… what’s it going to prove? How’s it going to move this country forward? We’ve heard these arguments for two years now; hëll, the Republicans are probably laughing their áššëš off, because not only will everything that’s discussed be considered classified and therefore not helpful to the Democrats politically, but now they can call the Democrats out for holding up the flow of government (ineffective as it is) for another “petty attempt at character assassination” or some such crap. Craig’s right; whether you agree with his assessment of the reasons we went to war, forcing a double-secret probation hearing of massively ineffectual consequences just shows that the Democratic leadership doesn’t understand what game is actually being played and what it’s going to take to win it.
Jason: I’m trying to think of how to explain how wrong you are, but I’ll let others do the dirty work for me.
From Kos
“For more than two years we have been seeking this investigation. Finally thru the course of this closed session we were able to get the attention of the majority and lock in (with a timeline) the commitment of the senate intelligence committee to investigate how intelligence was manipulated and manufactured with. Its an investigation we desperately need.”
This wasn’t a double-secret probation hearing. This was the Democrats forcing the GOP to actually address the issue of intelligence manipulation that they’ve been putting off for years now. The Dems have few tools at their disposal to get results. This is one of them. I, for one, am continually impressed by Harry Reid. I think he has a far greater grasp of what game is actually being played than you are apparently giving him credit for.
Here’s a much better analysis of what potentially occurred today by Mark Schmitt, someone I read regularly on TPMCafe.com.
Power Shifts
Draw your own conclusions, of course, but I think this moment might be quite a bit more important than some of you believe it to be. Time will tell.
Harry Reid is doing much more than simply confronting those who have lied us into war. He is giving hope to many of us who wondered if the Democrats would ever become the opposition party. Way to go Harry! It is time for government to work for the people, all of us, and stop simply working for the Republican Party.
This one was explained to me on another site that the man in question was a drug dealer, and in the past dealers have been known to try and hide the drugs on children.
Then the police should have included searching the person of the child in the warrant. Of course he was a drug dealer, that’s why the police wanted to search him in the first place, but warrants are supposed to be narrowly focused and to say that a warrant to search one person “naturally” implies searching the bodies of anyone in his immediate family is a very bad precedent.
Even if you accept that searching an adult’s body implies the right to search his children’s, how does that then extend to searching his wife? Is his wife considered an extension of his body?
Yes, the deference given to the police in the Doe v. Goody case gives me pause; it seems to me that defenders of Alito are saying that going by the wording of the warrant is being too….legalistic. Hm. Isn’t that the POINT of the law in events like these? To be precise so that there’s no intrusiveness above the strictly necessary?
Again, from Kos, courtesy of Maryscott O’Connor:
“The media shills kept trying to ask why he didn’t consult with Frist (the gist of Frist’s complaint was, essentially, that he wasn’t consulted).
Finally, when asked one more time, Reid sighed exasperatedly and said, forcefully, “CONSULT with him? CONSULT with him so he could SHUT IT DOWN before it got to the point? WHY would I do that??? You guys need to learn a little bit about Senate procedure. We wouldn’t be standing here talking about it if I had CONSULTED him.”
Whereupon he looked at his Democratic colleagues and asked if they had anything to add. Amused, Durbin said something like, “You said it all.””
Not even FauxNews can deny the truth every time the šhìŧ hits the fan with the Bush Administration. Every now and then they have to give the impression that they are, indeed, supposedly “fair and balanced”.
Which is also my point to those who say “New York Times liberal?!? Why, they reported all kinds of bad things about Bill Clinton!”
The social conservatives put the final nail in that coffin when they decided to sink Miers for not being enough of a blatant ideologue.
Wow, that has to be a record for historical revisionism. Just go back to PAD’s entry on October 9th We’ll never forget good ol’ What’s-her-name and tell me that the ones who opposed her were “social conservatives”.
It was eventually only a few social conservatives who ended up backing her and that wasn’t enough. Even before the White House started frantically sending signals that she was indeed a strong conservative, most conservatives opposed her (go back and read the posts on the National Review webpage if you don’t believe me). After the White House response she lost many of those few who were on the fence. The fact is, she was unqualified and set a poor precedent and conservatives and liberals were correct in pointing this out.
I rather doubt that Alito is anywhere near as conservative as Miers would have been–Bush knows her way better than he ever could Alito. I can see liberals being upset in going from an ineffective conservative to one who is both conservative and good at what he does but let’s not imply that Mier’s defeat was something that only (or even mostly) socal conservatives were behind.
Why not? The right has been using the exact same argument everytime anything appears in the media that is even remotely critical of a republican or nice about a democrat for the past 20+ years.
Hey, if you want to sound like Ann Coulture…:)
it doesn’t surprise me that he’s more competent than Miers: I could coherently argue that my youngest cat is more competent to be on the court than Miers. (Among other things, he exhibits a hëll of a lot more independent thought.)
I always had you pegged as a secret social conservative…
I think either Gore or Kerry could have done a great deal of good by setting up, in effect, a “shadow government” detailing what policies they had in mind and presenting an alternative to Bush’s. Get the debate out there.
I think that’s actually a great idea, though fraught with peril. Why shouldn’t a candidate tell us who their cabinet would be? Especially if they are getting some good talent. (the danger, I guess, is that if anyone you pick ends up having some skeleton in their closet you will take some hard lumps in the news cycle.).
Of course, Gore would have had a hard time doing that since he was part of the administration when he ran.
The key to doing this well would be to be seen as something other than reactive–if it ends up just being you reading the news of the day and then going on TV and droning on about what you WOULD have done differently…not so impressive.
After 9/11, basically no one was willing to stand up in opposition to the Patriot Act.
Why assume that the folks who voted for the Act actually wanted to vote against it? Bush is weak now, so where is the movement to undo the Act?
Now if I were a Senator with presidential ambitions, I’d stake out the potentially lucrative niche of “Catastrophe Preventer”. Be the guy who is always trying to get more money for New Orleans levees, stockpiling of anti-flu vaccines, NASA anti-asteroid detection, that sort of thing. So if you get, um, lucky and one of those things happens you can pop up on TV and talk about how if only everyone had listened to you…
How often do genuinely liberal ideas really get examined in the media?
Well, it begs the question, what are “genuinely liberal ideas”? I don’t think you have to be espousing Noam Chomsky to be a genuine liberal.
It’s always taken as a given that yes, Saddam has WMD’s;
He did. That’s just a fact. He may have gotten rid of them but he did have them. That’s not a conservative or liberal thing; many good liberals thought he had them and would use them against our soldiers, one of the reasons they opposed the war.
that yes, Social Security is in an obvious crisis;
Part of the reason for this was that some liberals have portrayed every dollar spent in non-social security expenditures as somehow being one more dollar that wasn’t going to “save” social security.
The media has been crying wolf on SS for too long to now suddenly admit that the program isn’t in such terrible shape.
that yes, Abu Ghraib was only the result of a few misfits and not policy;
I don’t know if it’s been proven that this wasn’t the case, though I certainly think that the loose policies encouraged the misfits (and why were such people even in that position? These prisoners may well have had useful information and they were being guarded by refugees from Plato’s Retreat?)
that yes, the only way to personal morality is through religious faith;
I don’t see that at all.
and that yes, most of Europe is opposed to Bush because they hate freedom.
The Good Morning America bit was clumsy but I think it’s a major major overstatement to say that the media portrayed Europe’s hostility to Bush as a reaction against freedom.
All that said, it would be great to have, as you say, some coherent people to frame a real debate.
every time I see another opinion column, letter to the editor or Internet post that talks about the “liberal bias” supposedly dominating the media. I imagine picking up a newspaper largely filled with articles about the administration, all of them describing the actions of “the Great Leader President GEORGE W. BUSH” and “Dear Leader Vice-President ÐÍÇK CHENEY,” and wonder if that would make the Bush fans happy.
I again invite people to check out the National review blog, the Corner. Might surprise you.
You can try to argue that the Left should be above this, and appeal to the intelligence of the American people. But we’ve tried this strategy, and it hasn’t worked. No one has ever gone wrong underestimating the intelligence of the American people.
I would suggest that A-you haven’t really tried it and B-people can usually tell when you think that they are stupid. It doesn’t make them want to vote for you.
My response is why would I vote for a paler, even more ineffectual version of what I’m disappointed in already. If the Democrats want my vote, grow a spine and give me a plan I can get behind – Please, I’m begging you. Because if you get your crap together, most likely the Republicans might straighten up, too, and irregardless of who wins, we’ll get some folks in office interested in leading.
Jason, that’s the post of the day. Right on.