The Washington Post has discovered that – zut alors! – Mitch McConnell’s Party of No is basically filibustering any legislation that has do with Iraq. This isn’t really news for two reasons.
* One, president Bush has already made clear that he will veto any bill that contains Iraq language that he doesn’t like, regardless of the cost to the country. Overriding a veto takes 67 votes so any bill that can make it past the president’s veto will easily surmount a filibuster. Conversely, a bill that can’t beat McConnell’s obstructionism obviously cannot beat a veto.
* Two, Republicans these days filibuster everything that passes through the Senate. The filibuster the bills, they filibuster the conference committees and they filibuster procedural steps in between. This Senate has already had thirteen cloture votes, compared with four for the previous two Congressional sessions combined. There’s no reason why Republicans shouldn’t gum up Iraq legislation when they already filibuster everything else.
Punchy
You missed a big distinction, Timmay. If it’s not filly’d, it must go for a vote and those R Senators must go on record voting against stopping the conflict.
A filly prevents any vote at all, thus these jackasses are never on record supporting Mr. 28%. The filly give them such cover, and an important point to note.
Zifnab
Now let us all join hands and sing:
“Upperdown Vote! Upperdown Vote! Upperdown Vote!”
I think Mitch McConnell’s obstruction strategies simply prove to everyone watching that Mitch McConnell is a
hypocritefilthy, stinking liberal.Pb
Well, there are good reasons for them not to do either one of those, but they don’t care about those reasons. Like, you know, Democracy and stuff. Getting things done. Avoiding “gridlock”. And as Zifnab mentioned, letting these bills have an “Upperdown Vote!” And the conference committee shenanigans are really beyond the pale–as usual. Not holding my breath for someone prominent to call them out on it in the MSM…
Dreggas
Well unless Olympia Snowe doesn’t count as an R, she signed on to a dem bill to withdraw by the end of April next year.
Billy K
And why is it the Dems are afraid to hang this around their necks…like the Republicans did to them?
ThymeZone
Gumming up the works is the standard, tradtional and proven way to slow down a majority and prevent it from steamrolling over a minority. It’s an essential part of the inner workings of the Republic.
That said, I can’t imagine what these idiot Republicans think their end game is. They are looking at the distinct possibility of under-20 approval ratings for their president, they are standing there watching their front-runner presidential candidate absolutely cratering among Republicans (!) in the polls because he hitched his wagon to the Iraq War star, and they are looking at an electoral disaster next year that might come close to giving Dems a congressional majority for the next ten or twenty years …. and obstruction is their strategy?
I must say, their stupidity and ineptitude never fail to amaze me. They just keep on entertaining. I can be assured that no matter how bad my party is, those fuckers will always make us look good by comparison.
cleek
because, they are, as always, a worthless passel of cowards. they are fucking awful. it’s so sad to have to vote for them simply because they aren’t the party of torture, Bush, and endless war. but…
Pb
Oh, those cowardly Democrats…
So, which liberal blogger said that? Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Now let’s see if anyone notices.
Bruce Moomaw
I had no idea they were taking it this far. It really is time the Dems started using comparable hardball tactics. So: spend the next 18 months (during which time nothing would ever get passed over Bush’s veto anyway) spraying the public with indignant publicity on what’s going on — and then, the moment there’s a Democrat back in the White House, drop the Nuclear Option to get rid of the filibuster, and utilize that useful (if dangerous) little clause in Article 3, Section 2 to forbid the Supreme Court from reviewing the constitutionality of that move (as the Senate GOP has already used it where the treatment of detainees is concerned).
This does mean the GOP will be equally free of filibusters when they regain a Senate majority, but so what? The thing has always been an outrage against small-“d” democracy, and it didn’t even exist at all until Aaron Burr tricked the Senate into starting it in 1804.
But those first two years of PR will be important to do first, to get around the predictable Both Sides Are Always Equally At Fault line we’ll get from our mentally flaccid press (which should then be told to go Cheney itself when it starts squealing about the Democrats’ “undemocratic tactics”).
Punchy
Uh…Bruce. HOW? They own talk radio, they own Fox News, they seem to control CNN, the Chicago Trib, etc.
Conservatives own the media in general. I’m quite sure Boortz and Hannity aren’t going to decry these filibuster tactics.
Bubblegum Tate
“Nukular Option! Nukular Option!”
Oh, I’m sorry, that name didn’t focus-group very well.
“Constitutional Option! Constitutional Option!”
The Other Steve
I think having daily votes on this bill is a good idea.
If Republicans want to filibuster, let them.
Cain
Punchy is right. They have over the years have learned to control the media in some shape or form. I’m not sure how one can get it through people’s heads that Republicans are being obstructionist. It seems even taking the streets in protest doesn’t seem to get a lot of press! How crazy is that!?
If only we could get them to turn on each other…
sri
Rome Again
sri is Cain?
Hi Sri! ;)
Zifnab
If Democrats can’t be heard, don’t come crying about the conservative media. Yeah, CNN and FOX and some of the guys in the big three have been skewing right – hard right – for a while now. But where the hell were the Democrats during the Swift-Boating of John Kerry? Or during the teardown of Dan Rather? Where was the loud and proud blue man support for NPR when conservatives were going after it? Where were Dems when the Iraq War started brewing?
For the last decade, “moderate” Democrats and Liebercrats have been trying to play “Republican Lite”. Blue Dogs and Hillarycrats have been happy to let that Overton Window slide starboard ever since ’94. When the filibuster was going to hit the fan in ’05 and the Dems had a chance to take center stage and stick it to the Republicans, too many Senators were hiding under their desks looking to compromise away another slice of the Republic to keep a paltry political toy.
Democrats didn’t step up. They still don’t step up. You’ve got Republicans ready to stand before a camera, making bold-faced lies to the American people, proudly and authoritarianly. But when Dems are given the mic, as often as not they are too intimidated to look their Republican colleagues in the eye and call’m liars. No, no. For Dems, it’s all about “My friend from Oklahoma disagrees about Global Warming” or “My friend from Georgia who thinks the Voting Rights Act has served its purpose” or “My friend from Alabama who has a different way of supporting our troops”. Dems dish out the Republican rhetoric almost as much as the Republicans do. It’s taken years and years to finally break them of it. Yeah, the media’s biased. But guess what? Democrats are biased too. And its not always in the direction they should be leaning.
D. Broder
If the Democrats force Republicans to filibuster or even, as some of the more radical member of the Party are urging, try to push the “nuclear option” (they will try to slip “Constitutional Option” past us, but let’s call a spade a spade) to pass legislation that has no hope of being signed into law, let alone overriding a veto, then the resulting partisan incivility and time wasted on legislation that has no hope of becoming law will be on Democrats’ hands. Instead of serving the people by tabling popular, controversial measures to make time to work on K street’s wholly non-controversial priority list, Democrats will be pushing ahead with their own private agenda in an effort to pander to their base.
At least, that’s what I’ll tell my readers.
chefrad
Short of the Kagan Eretz crowd is there anyone left who has has less the “tell” his readers than David Broder? The very symbol of the POST’s slow slide under Donny Graham.
Rome Again
Popular, controversial measures? You mean like flag-burning? Abortion? The definition of marriage?
You mean things designed to take rights out of the hands of the people and put them into the hands of our already too-overly-powerful government?
Cain
darn it, caught like a rat. :) Hi Rome Again :)
sri er cain.. whatevah.
Rome Again
Hi Cain! You outed yourself you know, I merely picked up on it. ;)
sab
Please note that Sen. Voinovich, who had very public qualms (including a press conference)about Iraq a couple of weeks ago, backed his president and voted against cloture (for a filibuster) on Webb’s amendment. So we can stop listing him as not backing Bush on Iraq. With Voinovich, you have to watch what he does, not what he says. The two are often diametrically opposed. In other words, he lies to the press and the voters a lot, but he always votes with the President.
Bruce Moomaw
Of course, he’d have to go some to match Specter in that regard…