NYT on the auto bailout:

For procedural reasons the measure needs 60 votes to advance in the Senate where Democrats currently hold a 50 to 49 majority, including two independents.

Oh, those complex and arcane Senate rules - why clutter the issue at hand with the nitty-gritty of boring procedural stuff? You may have a dim memory of a time when a simple majority could pass something in the Senate, unless Jimmy Stewart got up and talked for hours on end, but that's just because you don't grasp the minutiae of Senate procedure. Now go back to sleep - we'll wake you if anything important happens.

It escapes me why we have stopped using the word "filibuster" when discussing the "60 votes needed" issue in the Senate. But that's what it is. The Democrats may have a majority to pass the auto industry bailout bill, but Republicans will filibuster it...and since it takes 60 votes to stop a filibuster, the bill will not pass. That's not difficult to explain - I just did it in one sentence. Both Democrats and Republicans use the filibuster when they're in the minority, so it's not a partisan thing. But especially since the Republicans, when they were the majority, couldn't stop talking about the fairness of an "up or down vote," I think the minority party ought to be forced to explain why it's blocking such a vote.

For instance, I think Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) ought to be forced to stand on the Senate floor for awhile and explain why his alternate bill is better:

Among other things, the alternate plan offered by Mr. Corker calls for giving the holders of bonds issued by the auto companies 30 cents on the dollar to ease the companies' debt burden; immediately bringing workers' wages in line with foreign companies like Nissan and Volkswagen; and forcing the United Auto Workers to eliminate payments to workers after their jobs have been eliminated.

I would like Corker to explain why, if American auto companies are making bulky gas-guzzling cars that no one wants to buy anymore, the problem is that their workers are being paid too much. I would like him to explain why, after decades in which the auto companies were told their business model was unsustainable, and Corker's own party blocked any attempts to force the companies to change, the people who should now suffer are the companies' workers, laid-off workers, and investors.

I know "What's the Matter with Kansas?" territory is pretty well-trod ground. But it is astounding to me that American voters have repeatedly elected to power a party that advocates banking their entire financial security on the vicissitudes of a global free-market system with no safety net...and then, when millions of people stand to lose their jobs in the collapse of the pyramid scheme the party facilitated, it says, "You know what the problem is? You're all being paid too much."

I'm not saying the Democrats' auto bailout bill is perfect. Frankly, I wouldn't know - the economic issues involved here are above my pay grade and that of most Americans. But we know dead-end ideological grandstanding when we see it. There may be a host of good reasons to hold up this legislation - the straw man of union greed ain't one of them.