Congress and Compromise
I don't blame the House leadership for lacking the votes to override vetoes. They have what they have, a slender and very tenuous majority.
But doesn't it seem as if they give in often and so easily on, in effect, everything? It's a basic tenet of negotiation theory that you have to draw lines.
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They act as if not being able to over-ride a veto is the worst thing in the world.
But look at S-CHIP. At least on that issue we're all clear that it's Bush and the Republicans who blocked the expansion. Doesn't matter what side of the issue you're on, you know who's on your side. For once.
Now they have to take the next step. Let Bush veto something. Change it only slightly, send it right back to him. Make the jerk veto and veto and veto. Let him own every issue. Challenge members of his party to stand up to him again and again.
Make him veto on healthcare and on Iraq over and over again. Make his allies in Congress affirm their support for him again and again.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
October 18, 2007 6:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not only should the Congressional Democrats repass the legislation and send it back to Bush for his veto, they should up the ante each time with the legislation. Make the punk understand that the bill sitting on his desk is the best one he will ever see, from his perspective.
All the media will report is that the Congressional GOP lined up with Bush's veto and killed S-CHIP yet one more time. Each time that gets reported, their reelection chances get cut a few more times. Even that pack of Republican dunderheads will finally understand that their only electoral hope (81% of the public favors its passage) is to vote for the veto override.
October 18, 2007 9:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's time to light a fire under the Democrats. Yesterday Mukasey refused to define waterboarding as torture. Voting to confirm him now sends a clear message to the entire world that the US thinks torture in the form of waterboarding is tolerable. Voting to reject Mukasey sends a clear opposite message. With such a simple choice before them, the Democrats must make the right decision.
Similarly, why did the Senate Intelligence Committee vote last night to grant immunity to telecomms who assisted Bush in warrantless wiretapping? The Democrats chair that committee and have a majority of votes. How did this happen?
Are they caving? Are they colluding? Or are they actually trying to take the lead from the Republicans in destroying our constitution?
October 18, 2007 9:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Are they caving? Are they colluding? Or are they actually trying to take the lead from the Republicans in destroying our constitution?
I think they are trying to take the lead from Republicans in fundraising from corrupt, self interested corporations. They are succeeding.
This puts the progressive voter in the position of having to choose between one thug who will break both your legs and another who will only break your arm. This serves to highlight the desperate need for campaign finance reform and publicly funded clean money elections. Until we divorce corporate money from politics by eliminating the need for it, we will see nothing but more of this.
Scary corporate thug on the one hand, mealymouth corporate tool on the other. I'd like to know what's behind door number three. Democracy, the Constitution, and the rule of law. Nice while they lasted, weren't they?
October 19, 2007 12:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
You've hit the nail on the head, Mr. Hundt.
The SCHIP veto, and veto override failure, is GREAT. It makes it clear to everyone who's blocking SCHIP (the Republicans) and makes it clear that Democrats are fighting for health care for kids. It puts massive pressure on the Republicans, the sort of pressure which can cause them to lose their seats in 2008, or cause them to switch parties, or anything in between, all good for Democrats.
Dodd's hold on telecom immunity -- again, if it works, great, and if it doesn't because of Republicans, *still* great.
Passing a blank-check war funding bill was TERRIBLE. Capitulating on FISA and gutting the Fourth Amendment was TERRIBLE. Why? Because those make the House and Senate Democrats into Republican appeasers. That's the way to lose the trust of your most fervent supporters, the way to appear calculating and unprincipled -- qne also the way to lose every single time. (Most appallingly, both of those could have been prevented by simply refusing to bring them up for a vote, as Republicans did so often in the previous Congress; this would have been a huge hurdle for Republicans to overcome. The Democrats probably would have actually won those battles, *if they'd bothered to fight them*.)
The Democratic Congressional leadership has been engaging in preemptive compromise, and sometimes preemptive surrender. That simply doesn't work, especially when your opponents are unprinicpled thugs like the Congressional Republicans. The correct strategy with such people is to push a very hard line, and force the Republicans to offer a compromise first. Once they start making concessions, *then* you can start considering compromise.
October 19, 2007 1:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hmm, the stuff about caving is all well and good, but they did just manage an almost unanimous vote on schip. I trust not even Clinton can be blamed for whoever that was in the state of Georgia.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
October 19, 2007 1:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
Democrats need to get off their knees in front of Bush and turn their backs on him. This is ridiculous - they definitely need new leadership. I pray that if they continue the majority after 2008 election - they get new leadership.
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October 19, 2007 8:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Coonsey's View
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October 19, 2007 9:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, more Spam than Troll. Still not appropriate.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
October 19, 2007 2:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
And when you send the bill back to Bush again, remind Americans how many billions of dollars we have spent in Iraq since the last time he vetoed the bill.
October 19, 2007 3:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
This Congress is most disappointing, not for its' lack of ability to get things done, but more for its' inablity to turn these defeats into illustrations of what is wrong with this administration's policies. And, it seems the bigger the issue concerned the more circumspection they treat it with.
They seem so afraid of being characterized as intemperate by our Bush enabling press. The favoritism the press shows to Bush can be used against this same so-called moderate
press as well.
To echo and reformulate destor23: Make his allies everywhere affirm their support for him again and again.
Why can't this generally gutless congress identify the cause of their low approval ratings???
Kevin Russell Cook
October 19, 2007 4:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Duncan C. Kinder
http://www.billingsgatereport.net
I hate to be cynical, but from everything I have ever heard about S-CHIP, it never stood a chance of overriding Bush's veto.
So the Democrats dis manage to put up a big show - over something that was doomed to failure. So it was never for real.
I wonder - just wonder - what they would have done if S-CHIP actually stood a real chance of becoming law.
I agree with the posters above that the DC Democrats have calculated that they can replace the Republicans as the party of Big Business and that this - and not some irrational fear of Bush - actually explains their behavior.
October 19, 2007 11:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think the "perception" among the Democrat's base and the Independents (those who put Dems in charge of Congress) is that the Dems are spineless, Republican lite, Corporate owned, vacillators.
I think that if this "perception" doesn't change between now and the 08 elections its quite possible that it will cause a low turnout by the Dem base and the Independents and put the Republicans back in charge. Nausea alert!
Chris Dodd is bucking Harry Reid on the Telecommunications/immunity issue. Compare Dodd's move to the Corporate/Bush lacky Rockefeller who never brought up Phase Two of the agreed to hearings on how the Bush gang used Intel to get us into Iraq.
Maybe Dodd's move is political, but so what, it shows spine and I'll take it.
Pete Stark is also showing spine in not bowing to pressure by the Repugs and the MSM
to apologize for his remarks about Bush/Iraq the other day.
Two embers seeking a bonfire.
October 20, 2007 6:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
I hate to be cynical, but...the Democrats did manage to put up a big show - over something that was doomed to failure. So it was never for real.
Given the current state of the political art, this is not cynicism. This is simply the way to play the game in the era of instant mass communication.
It is better to have a political issue to flog in the next election than to have a victory for the people.
It is better to make the other guy out to be a monster than to make yourself an actual hero.
It is better to be a political coward and seem a warrior than to be a political warrior and appear "weak on defense."
It is better to avoid a direct answer than...hey! Isn't that Halley's Comet over there?
I wonder - just wonder - what they would have done if S-CHIP actually stood a real chance of becoming law.
This one's easy -- if the current bill is palatable to the opponent, tart it up until it is unpalatable.
I don't disagree with your conclusion, Duncan, but the Dems are doing politics the way politics is done these days. 'Twere ever thus, but the Republicans have honed these practices to a fine point over the last 25 or 30 years.
I'm not defending the Dems, I'm explaining them.
October 20, 2007 7:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am as astonished as the next guy to say this, but apparently not only is Chris Dodd a 21st Century Profile in Courage, but so is Joe Biden...
(JOE BIDEN??!!!)
Where is the filibuster on the supplemental appropriation for the war, where is the filibuster on the Department of Justice funding for domestic spying
Where is the team captain who runs the baseball (hardball) team? Not the big flabby softball (the key to which is that you can't get hurt playing with it...)
October 20, 2007 7:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
"the Dems are doing politics the way politics is done these days. 'Twere ever thus, but the Republicans have honed these practices to a fine point over the last 25 or 30 years"
Ok.
True enough.
But please, somebody tell me how the Rethugs were able to screw the House leadership around on this Motion to Recommit the (ugh!) "RESTORE" act, when while THEY were in the minority, the Dems were always saying how they were absolutely powerless (and they lived up to every protestation...)
October 20, 2007 7:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
That's why every 50 years or so there needs to be a genuine reform movement originating outside of the party establishment. There are always a few mavericks around like Nader, but things have become so corrupt in both parties that it's time for a few genuine patriots to step up - Gore? Feingold? Anybody out there?
October 20, 2007 9:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
Duncan C. Kinder
http://www.billingsgatereport.net
The Republicans did considerably more than just posture.
Their actions included such items as:
And these are just what I can recall offhand.
Meanwhile, the Democrats actually have permitted the FISA and Moveon votes to proceed. And "mild -mannered" Reid, who has been so inept and feeble when dealing with Republican blocks; has been aggressive with Dodd's. And Pelosi, who has allowed the Moveon vote to proceeds, has rebuked Stark. Apparently they can be quite firm, when dealing with Democrats.
And somehow, just somehow, the filibuster always seems to be a more potent tool in the hands of the Republicans than in the hands of the Democrats?
So the Democrats could act more vigorously. They just won't.
And if anyone here thinks that they are going to deliver any sort of serious health care, I have a quit claim deed to the Brooklyn Bridge which I am willing to sell them for a remarkably reasonable price. Please, please, please take me up on this offer. Because no thanks to Hillary, Obama, Reid, and Pelosi, I am going to need this money very much.
October 20, 2007 10:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Brooklyn Bridge which I am willing to sell them for a remarkably reasonable price."
Are you kiddin?! Ya know wha kinda traffic ya got there? Ya know how many cars cross every hour? I'm gonna charge fitty cent each and retire, hell, yeah, I'll buy your bridge.
(Man are YOU gonna look dumb when I'm orderin' drinks wit little umbrellas like those guys in trading places...)
October 20, 2007 10:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Pelosi's whining little pleas in the background of Rep. Stark's well deserved lambasting of Boy George were absolutely pitiful. link
'The rules are don't get personal and members should address the podium'-it gets very personal when Bush sends folks to their deaths for 'mistakes', and his ignorant, irresponsible and reckless actions have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands. Stark's comments were right on the mark.
October 20, 2007 9:58 PM | Reply | Permalink