Harry Reid: Finalist, Shoulda-Woulda-Coulda Division

I’d like to be taken at least a little bit seriously in terms of what I write here, and I know full well that beginning any post with a giant, all-caps “AAAAAAAAARRRGH,” followed by several exclamation points will make me seem like all-that-is-wrong-and-laughable-about-bloggers in a nutshell. Nevertheless, sometimes, there’s genuinely nothing that better than a good AAAAAAAARRRGH!!!!! to sum up the feeling many of us on the left have when we read certain articles in the press.

This was one of those articles:

In May, Harry Reid apologized for killing off a 2010 filibuster reform bill, admitting that the legislative procedure has been “abused, abused, and abused.” Reid has now gone a step farther: the Senate Majority Leader is now openly promising to pass filibuster reform in the beginning of the next Congress if Democrats manage to hold onto a simple majority in the Senate and if Obama is reelected.

Really, Senator? The procedure has been abused? Who knew? (hint: that was sarcasm – EVERYBODY KNEW (even me), well in advance of the January, 2011 opportunity to reform the filibuster). As they say on Twitter, SMH – “shaking my head.” Or, even better: AAAAAAAARRRGH!!!! Because, of course, as any number of bloggers, reporters, television commentators and average citizens who follow politics could’ve told you several years ago, the fact that the GOP minority in the Senate has been trying to force their will-of-the-minority on the country by abusing the filibuster since the Democrats took control of the Senate in 2006 is about the least-surprising item in politics, currently. It’s not even questionable:

Cloture motions filed per congressional session

This information wasn’t secret prior to January, 2011, either. But apparently, it was news to Harry Reid — or, perhaps, due to his close, clubby, “collegial” relationship with the other 99 members’ of the world’s most exclusive club – US Senators – Reid just “felt,” in his heart of hearts, that the GOP just wouldn’t DO such mean-spirited things for political gain. After all, Reid personally knows all those GOP Senators, and they’re really great, once you get to know them! They’d never do that to him!

Of course, I am exaggerating out of frustration what Reid’s actual position probably was at the time in 2010/early 2011. But not by much, I’d bet. What other explanation could there be for one of the people who’s closest to the matter being one of the few people anywhere who couldn’t see the reality of GOP filibuster abuse (or at least couldn’t see the need to take any action regarding it)? Let’s not forget, while we’re at it, that Harry Reid doesn’t have an exactly stellar track record when it comes to prognosticating about what will happen in the body he helms, at least in terms of predicting other Senators’ actions based upon what Reid “knows” of their intentions and their hearts:

First of all, Joe Lieberman, Joe Lieberman is my friend, and he is a good Democrat, votes with us on everything, except the war. So Joe Lieberman is easy to work with.

That was Senator Reid, utilizing his obsidian ball to predict in December of 2007 how easy Joe Lieberman would be to work with in the upcoming congressional session. How’d THAT work out, Senator?

So now, on Friday’s The Ed Show, Harry Reid says, in true Rocky and Bullwinkle fashion, that now he’s ready to really do filibuster reform (“this time, for SURE!“). Reid alluded to having had a change of mind on this back in mid-May, when he apologized to Senators Udall and Merkley (the principal sponsors of genuine filibuster reform in 2010/11) for having squelched their efforts.

So, great news, right? I mean, if Reid now recognizes the foolishness of his past mistake on filibuster reform and is now fully committed to seeing it through, Democrats can simply do at the start of the 2012 congressional session what they could have done at the start of 2010: change the rules of the filibuster, since they are the majority party in the Senate. The beauty of it is, such rule-changes, under the Merkley-Udall plan, are not themselves subject to filibuster, meaning a simple majority vote would suffice.

So what’s the problem? Well, although a lot is still up in the air, and many factors (not least of which may be the outcome of the Presidential race itself) could affect the makeup of next Senate, it’s now appearing likely that the Democrats won’t control the Senate in January, 2012:

Currently, we project the most likely outcome to be Republicans winning 50 seats, Democrats 49, and Mr. King the seat in Maine. Under those circumstances, the Democrats would retain control of the Senate if Mr. King caucused with them and President Obama won re-election, making Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. the tiebreaking vote. Otherwise, Republicans would control the chamber.

In other words, Reid’s abject failure to strike while the iron was hot – when Senate Democrats actually had the CHANCE to make meaningful filibuster reform – not only cost him (and the country) dozens of potential legislative victories to continued GOP obstructionistic abuse of the filibuster from 2010-2012, but also likely put the entire idea of filibuster reform into indefinite limbo, if not outright killed it.

This is a textbook example of what progressives mean when we talk about frustration with Washington – both the executive and legislative branches. Think of this the next time you see the the equivalent of AAAAAAAARRRGH!!!!! coming from a progressive. It’s nice to know Reid recognizes progressives were right in 2009/10 about filibuster reform. It’d have been a lot nicer if it hadn’t taken yet another two years of being able to get very little accomplished for him to realize it.

Cliqueishness and Tribalism on Twitter

John Cole at Balloon Juice says everything there is to say about it (though, if you’re not a Twitter denizen, his post requires some backstory).

If you’re not on Twitter…count yourself lucky. OK, not really. What I was going to say is: if you’re not on Twitter, what’s been happening for a while now is that a group of Twitter users who are interconnected both on and off Twitter have had the long knives out for Salon blogger/attorney Glenn Greenwald, as Cole describes in his post. The reasons for such a concerted backlash against Greenwald in particular are several, but I’m not going to get into them all here. The reason for that is (as Cole also hints at): it’s incredibly inside-baseball and almost unimaginably lengthy to recount the whole mess in detail; to do it justice. If you’re interested, you won’t have any trouble finding posts in various outlets about why Greenwald (and a few other bloggers/pundits) are considered by some to be just awful. For my purposes here (and without weighing in on the merits of either the various previous complaints or Greenwald’s actual words and responses), let me just leave it by noting that a coordinated campaign of disagreement against Greenwald does indeed exist, and has existed for some time among a remarkably uniform group of people on Twitter.

What happened recently (and what precipitated Cole’s post) was that someone was (as usual) taking Greenwald to task, this time over his critique of the indefinite detention provisions of the NDAA which was signed into law by President Obama on December 31st (I’m not linking to Glenn because I didn’t link to the critiques, either). During a discussion involving Greenwald and some people who opposed him as well as some who agreed with him, one of the people who clearly agreed with Glenn’s view and thought those who were attacking him were justifying something under Obama that they’d have opposed under Bush said, hyperbolically, that Greenwald’s attackers (specifically a Twitter user named AngryBlackLady) would try to justify or support it if Obama “raped a nun live on TV.” Greenwald, a while later, said he agreed with that idea of some people’s reflexive defensiveness about Obama’s positions and actions. Aprés THAT, le deluge.

More than seventy-two hours straight of outrage and amplified Greenwald-attacking among this group resulted, with many of the attacks wrongly accusing Greenwald himself of having coined the nun-rape analogy. Although I think that, much like Nazi analogies, anything as extreme as nun-rape is often a questionable analogy to make regardless of the circumstances, I think John Cole is right when he says that Greenwald

…wasn’t minimizing rape, he was using rape as the ugliest example he could think of (and he later added child-killing and assassination), far from minimizing rape and far from making rape ‘jokes.’

That’s the backstory.

What makes Cole’s post much more relevant than (ahem) the fact that I agree with his general take on what will probably gruesomely be forever-after called “nun-rape gate” (or “NUN RAPE RAWR,” as Cole puts it), is Cole’s zeroing-in on a problem I’ve noticed for quite some time on Twitter (and in the larger blogosphere, but Twitter is in some ways sort of the crack to the blogosphere’s cocaine: concentrated and much quicker-acting): the tribalism and cliqueishness, which is concentrated in one particular area.

Payroll Tax Holiday Aftermath

I just received, as I’m sure many of you did, an email from the White House crowing about the recent total victory over John “Dr. No” Boehner and the GOTea party house.

I don’t blame the President and his team at all for sending out these glad tidings. It WAS a shockingly complete rout of Boehner and his pro-1% flying monkeys. Congratulations all ’round. For real. Only…the email focused upon the involvement of individual citizens who took to their computers and their webcams to record stories of what an extra $40 per paycheck means to them. While I’m sure that helped reassure the Democrats (and warn the Republicans) that the 99% really did stand with the President and the Democrats on this issue.

That made me write the following response:

Although I’d like to believe the heartwarming fiction that it was only the response of tens of thousands of people who took to the web to tell their stories of privation via a tax increase which made the difference between the payroll tax holiday passing and it NOT passing, I’ve watched Washington work for too long to be fooled by that story. And so have all of you.

After all, it wasn’t as if John Boehner and the rest of the obstructionists in the house GOP really didn’t understand the concept of a tax cut and what it could mean for people. That’s Republicans’ wheelhouse issue. Or at least it used to be. Perhaps that may be changing…that would be the true miracle of Christmas as it applies to gridlocked Washington this year.

No, what made the difference (as we both know) was the both the President and the Democrats in the House AND Senate simply stood firm. You knew you had the people at your backs and the facts on your side, and this time, you simply. didn’t. cave.

And look what it got you.

Everyone from Paul Krugman to the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal took to their respective podiums and called this one an unmitigated disaster for Boehner and his Tea Party minions. And rightly so. It WAS an unmitigated disaster for them. But let’s be clear about the reasons, here: YOU did it, not us. The public has a responsibility every couple of years to change the makeup of Washington, if enough of us don’t like what’s been going on.

The problem is – or has been, up until now – that no matter how we seem to shuffle the deck each biennial election, Washington doesn’t seem to change into what we need, want or – in most cases – into what the people running for the seats we elect them to promised they’d push for.

This time was different. You stayed the course, to quote a certain ex-President. We’ve never doubted that you knew what was right, or what would work…we’ve just been disappointed because time and again, you seemed to lack either the political will or the negotiating skill to make it actually happen. There’s a limit to what the public can do, once the election is over. Every election, we’re painfully aware that we’re not electing policies, we’re electing individuals, and that means a crap-shoot. It means we’re getting a pig in a poke. We TRY to get what we want by electing people who SAY they’re for this or that…but, too often, it just doesn’t happen, even when it seems like it was quite possible.

This time, YOU held the line, not us. We don’t vote on the floor of congress. We don’t have veto power (or the power of a threatened veto). You do. And look what happens when you stick together and USE IT. You win.

Remember that. It’s an important lesson, one I’m sure I sound patronizing to even remind you about. I don’t mean to sound patronizing, but the truth is that, from out here, far too often it seems as if you’ve forgotten that simple fact. Once the election’s over, YOU have the power. And when you step up and use it, you’ll instantly have that astonishingly hopeful coalition of the public behind you that you had in 2008.

I hope that won’t be lost on you as you head into 2012. Good job on this one, truly. See what YOU can accomplish when you don’t let the GOP steamroll you?

Both Sides Do NOT Do It…

…at least, not nearly to the same degree.

Michael Tomasky over at The Daily Beast decided to, you know, actually check whether the oft-repeated (because it sounds both ‘sage’ and ‘balanced’, yet requires no research) claim that “both sides do it” was true with respect to partisan obstructionism and refusal to support the signature initiatives of a President from the opposite party. Here’s what he found (unsurprisingly):

I’ve settled on four signal legislative achievements of each president and studied the roll call votes in each house on those eight measures to see what the numbers tell us.

The four Bush bills I chose: the first tax cut; No Child Left Behind; the Iraq War vote; and the 2003 Medicare prescription-drug bill. The four Obama bills: the stimulus; the health-care vote; the Dodd-Frank financial reform; and the “don’t ask, don’t tell” repeal. Other people might have selected others, but these just seemed to me commonsense answers to the question, “What were each president’s top legislative accomplishments?” As a country we spent a heck of a lot of time on these eight issues, so my findings must tell us something. And here’s what they tell us: levels of partisanship are not even remotely close.

[...]

Here’s how it all adds up:

Average Democratic Senate support for Bush: 45.5 percent.

Average Democratic House support for Bush: 36.8 percent.

Average combined Democratic support for Bush: 41.1 percent.

Average Republican Senate support for Obama: 8.8 percent.

Average Republican House support for Obama: 2.7 percent.

Average combined Republican support for Obama: 5.75 percent.

Well now. You see, both sides do do it. It just so happens that one side opposes the major proposals of the president from the other party seven times more intensely than the other side does it.

(emphasis added)

Exactly. What many of us have been saying for literally nearly a decade. Perhaps someone should ping Sam Waterston and the rest of those idiots over at Third Way. This might be some new information for them.

Last Chance to Vote in the Fabulous PTL Debt-Ceiling Poll!

I know, I know, it’s Monday, August 1st, and the weekend’s wrangling would appear to indicate that it’s all over but the shouting (or, more accurately, screaming) as far as the eventual solution to the nation’s manufactured debt-ceiling crisis goes. I tend to agree, since there is indeed a deal which can be measured and read about circulating.

However, it’s not over ’til it’s over. The one thing that, so far, has NOT occurred (as of this writing – 10am Monday morning, though things are moving VERY fast on this issue for obvious reasons) is the actual VOTING. As Stan Collender at Capital Gains and Games reminds us, though momentum is definitely well underway in the direction of a particular deal, it’s not a certain thing that the battered John Boehner – who had to cave and pander to the tea party wing of his caucus in the House in order to get something passed – will be able to round up the votes he needs, especially when one factors in the news that the congressional progressive caucus is also none-too-sure they can or will support this deal. Nancy Pelosi’s reaction last night to news of the finalization of the deal was – by far – the least-warm reception of any congressional leader’s, so I’m not even sure how invested she is in whipping this particular deal.

In all likelihood, this deal – or something very like it – is what the final proposal that passes both houses and is signed into law will look like. But since it’s not set in cement quite yet, I thought I’d give folks one last chance to place their bets on what sort of final resolution might emerge from the smoke surrounding this deal. Last bets, everyone! (see sidebar to your right). I will close the poll once the deal is actually inked and signed.

Debt Ceiling Endgame

It’s Christmas time in Washington,
The Democrats rehearse
Gettin’ into gear for four more years
Of things not gettin’ worse.

~ Steve Earle, “Christmas In Washington”

I see at least one fairly prominent left-ish blogger has started to point out that Republicans have essentially won the debt ceiling debate. By “won,” Ezra means essentially that the GOP has maneuvered the debate into a position where every proposal on the table now includes significant cuts in spending in return for cobbling together enough GOP votes to pass the debt ceiling increase:

Originally, the Democratic position was that we should simply raise the debt ceiling. Republicans said “no.” There would have to be a deal that reduced the deficit by at least $2.4 trillion — which is the size of the debt ceiling increase needed to get us into 2013.

Ezra is quite correct that the original Democratic position was that we ought to raise the debt ceiling without condition (a “clean” raise), instead of larding up the vote with conditions about future deficit reduction measures (spending cuts). And in that sense, he’s also correct that the GOP has “won” this argument – at least as far as what’s going to happen from here on out seems likely to play out. If the GOP can get Democrats in congress to sign off on a debt-ceiling raise bill that includes mostly – or exclusively – cuts in spending, especially if they can make some of those cuts immediate ones which will have a real bite into the economy immediately, then they will indeed have won.

There’s been a lot of proposals floated around regarding this, from House Republicans, from the Senate GOP, from Harry Reid, from President Obama…but most of it has been simply debating, trial balloons, and testing the resolve of the other side. Obama supporters are hailing his abilities as a “poker player,” without acknowledging that truly excellent poker players know enough never to gamble with the rent money. Especially when you’re bluffing, you do NOT bluff with money you can’t afford to lose. And if the debt-ceiling negotiations have been a poker game, then Barack Obama should never have put “the big three” (Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid) on the table as a bluff…unless, of course, he really was ready to have the GOP call that bluff. Because you never know exactly what your opponent will do, no matter how well you may think you have them pegged.

The “brilliant chess/poker player” explanation for Obama’s moves also falls terribly short if one glances back at the negotiation history of this President. This is a President, remember, who explicitly said last December that, while it might be tempting to take the “we don’t negotiate with hostage-takers” line with the GOP (at that time, over the extension of unemployment benefits), he chose not to take such a line because (in his words) if the hostage-taker is willing to shoot the hostages, then people would “question the wisdom of that strategy.” In other words, Obama said flat-out, in front of cameras and microphones, that if the GOP just seems crazy enough and willing to do enough damage, then he (Obama) will accede to most of their demands.

In the current debate over the debt ceiling, it’s anyone’s guess whether the GOP actually would let the country default on its financial obligations. It may not even be in John Boehner’s or Eric Cantor’s hands to say for certain whether they would anymore — if indeed, it ever was in their hands. The tea party wing of the GOP (mostly freshmen) seem genuinely “invincibly ignorant,” to quote a phrase I’ve heard several pundits use now to describe the tea party caucus’ “default-wouldn’t-really-be-so-bad” position. It may be that they are, and always have been, bound and determined to consciously default on the debt ceiling, regardless of whatever sweeteners either their own party leaders or the Democrats and the President were willing to throw into the pot. Only time will tell for certain.

However, as I’ve pointed out previously, there are a number of other factors at work here besides just tea party intransigence, the biggest among them being that Wall Street – who pretty much OWN the GOP – really, REALLY don’t want a default. As things have grown closer and closer to the possibility that such a previously-unthinkable thing might actually happen, the pressure from Wall Street on Boehner & McConnell has grown in direct proportion. And it’s a parabolic curve: the closer they get, the more quickly that pressure gets stronger. The pressure is quite strong indeed now, to put it mildly. Both Boehner and McConnell also understand (each has said as much) that if a default actually occurs because the tea party simply puts their foot down and childishly says no to everything, it will reflect far worse upon the GOP than it will upon anyone else, including the President. So you can bet that the two of them are wracking their brains in an attempt to come up with a plan that the tea party will accept.

However, as much of a pickle as that puts the GOP leadership in, they still have leverage over Obama and the Democrats. How? Because they know that he won’t allow them to “shoot the hostages.” He’s already said as much, and backed up his words with actions. Ergo, he can likely be forced or convinced to do so again. The best thing for the country and for the Democrats to have happen right now would be if a “clean” debt-ceiling vote could pass. That’s almost certainly not going to happen, partly because such a vote is the least-palatable option of all to the tea party wing, and partly because both Boehner and McConnell understand that the very thing which might tempt tea party representatives in the House to vote for a debt-ceiling raise (coupling it to massive spending cuts) is the exact thing they (Republican leadership) have also wanted all along: decimating government by slashing spending, and the exact thing they can use as leverage with the President and congressional Democrats.

All the GOP has to do is make sure they can get enough GOP votes for some omnibus vote to raise the debt ceiling AND make massive cuts in spending…and they can use that as the perfect tool to force Democratic (and Presidential) compliance. Obama and congressional Democrats simply are not willing to let the US default, and Boehner and McConnell know it. Obama likely knows that Boehner and McConnell aren’t about to let the country default, either…but if the GOP leadership can go to the President and prove to him that a package of large cuts and few if any tax increases (and a debt-ceiling raise) can pass the House, but a clean debt-ceiling bill can’t, then Obama and the Democrats will take it. This is the exact plan, in fact, that the McConnell/Reid proposal is: large cuts in spending, NO tax increases, and a debt-ceiling raise.

If this happens, you will hear so much spinning out of the corner where the Obama fans hail from that it will risk generating another massive sandstorm in the southwest from all the wind being let loose at one time. You’ll hear (as you did in health care) that this is the best possible deal the Democrats could have negotiated, that you have to negotiate with hostage takers if they’re willing to shoot the hostages, and that this will ensure that the unthinkable (default) did not happen. And, again like health care, all such post-facto rationalizations will be USDA grade A bologna. Right now, the Obama supporters/fans are claiming (many of them, anyway) that the President only put Medicare and Social Security on the table because he knew – KNEW – that the GOP wouldn’t take the deal (so it was therefore risk-free to do so). I would refer them to my earlier point about truly professional poker players knowing enough not to gamble with money they absolutely cannot afford to lose. What if your opponent DOES take you up on it? Then you’re stuck in the unenviable (to say the least) position, as a Democratic President, of doing what no Republican President ever managed: making significant cuts to the big three – and the further ancillary damage of proving indelibly to all observers that those three are neither sacred nor secure, and that it can never again be said that Democrats will always defend them. That doesn’t sound like much of a win to me, yet Obama fans are claiming that Obama has decisively, definitively won this debt-ceiling fight in the arena of public opinion, and that he’s now a lock for re-election in 2012.

Don’t believe it.

It may well be that Obama will be difficult or impossible to beat in 2012, but if so, that certainly won’t be due to any sort of “masterful performance” in this debt-ceiling debate. If anything, it will have been in spite of Obama’s performance in recent weeks, and due in the greatest part to the fact that Republicans are genuinely nuts, and therefore unpalatable to a broad swath of non-hard-core Republicans and libertarian hangers-on. What such premature crowing about Obama’s masterful poker playing skills fails to take into account, however, is that this debt-ceiling debate isn’t actually over yet. If the GOP leadership figures out a way to craft a plan that has anywhere between 1.5 and 3 trillion in spending cuts only (with or without Harry Reid’s help), and can sell it to enough tea-party members that it will pass the House, then the Democrats and President Obama will take it. They will take it because that’s what they do: negotiate with people who seem crazy enough to shoot hostages, and because even a horrible deal like that would still be better than the likely consequences of default. They – Obama and congressional Democrats as well as the Obama fans – will call it a victory on that basis as well. And it may even seem for a brief while that it IS a victory. But it’s the weakest form of victory imaginable: the victory of having narrowly avoided the absolute worst thing that could have happened.

And even that sense of victory will be short-lived. For one thing, it will begin to dawn on people – pundits and voters alike – that, in the end, after all the talk of Grand Bargains and default and everything else has blown over – the actual tangible results are that the GOP got Democrats to agree to massive cuts in entitlement spending in “exchange” for simply raising the nation’s debt limit. It will dawn on both voters and, eventually, Washington pundits, that such a vote – to raise the debt limit again – will have to be taken within a year or two at most. They will begin to wonder – as they should – what sort of conditions the GOP will force Democrats to accept THEN, as well…though they probably won’t spend much time wondering if Democrats will agree to those demands. They agreed to these, after all…

Perhaps most importantly of all, if the Democrats agree to such spending cuts, it will have real and immediate negative effects on real Americans. Spending cuts of that size will by definition include some cuts which take effect immediately, even if the big three are left out of the equation. There simply aren’t enough cuts that can be put delayed in their implementation until some future date to add up to two or two and a half trillion – certainly not to three or four. And that means real cuts, right now, as soon as such a measure goes into effect. Heck, as it stands today, without ANY cuts to spending (or taxes), corporations are already hoarding cash at unprecedented levels instead of hiring. Unemployment remains over 9%, and our economy teeters on the brink of going into the feared “double-dip recession.” That’s not what things might look like if Democrats agree to big spending cuts, that’ what the picture is already, TODAY. Anyone who thinks that outlook is going to improve if Democrats and Republicans jointly agree to massive, immediate spending cuts is smoking something stronger than tobacco.

The focus of the Dems and President Obama, all along, should and could have been jobs, not deficit-reducing austerity measures. Here’s a good example script of how things could have gone, when last month’s truly abysmal jobs report came out in the first week of July. Instead, by acceding to the GOP’s framing of the deficit as not only something that needs to be addressed nownownow, but also to the Republican notion that reducing the deficit through spending cuts is the “prize” that Democrats “win” in exchange for enough Republican votes to raise the nation’s debt limit, Dems (and Obama) have ensured that when the impact of those spending cuts (whatever they turn out to be) begin to bite into the economy (as they unavoidably will), as they begin to cost the economy even more jobs – all of which will happen towards the end of this year and on into the 2012 election cycle – the pundits and voters will begin to realize that it was this focus on spending cuts instead of jobs which brought us back into recession (or worse). And while they won’t look kindly on Republicans for having insisted on those cuts so stridently, neither will they look kindly on Democrats for having acceded to the GOP’s threats. Voters will either take a “pox on both your houses” approach at the ballot box (as Nate Silver seems to be suggesting is possible lately), or they’ll do what Obama’s supporters already accuse the left of having done in the 2010 midterms: stay home.

As we all learned recently, any election in which not just disenchanted lefty political junkies but also average, lower information swing and independent voters stay home out of frustration that no one is doing what really needs to be done while the economy burns – or possibly isn’t even listening to their entreaties – is one in which the playing field will tilt even farther right. It may tilt far enough right to cost Obama the White House; it CERTAINLY will cost Democrats more seats in the Senate and possibly the House as well. The best Democrats could hope for in such a scenario would be a wash: a situation where voters in particular districts might be mad enough at their specific GOP rep that the GOP winds up losing as many seats as they gain. But I’m not sure how anyone on the left can classify that as a “win,” though. What I AM sure of, however, is that Obama fans will try to figure out a way to cast it as one.

As awful as it is to even contemplate (let alone say out loud), from a purely political standpoint, it might actually be better for Democrats and President Obama if Boehner and McConnell simply can’t line up enough tea party votes to pass any debt-ceiling raise, no matter how it’s structured or what kind of GOP wish-list items it contains, than it would be for Obama and congressional Dems to sign on to an austerity package which is virtually certain to further tank the economy…and leave Democratic fingerprints on the tanking right alongside Republican ones. Let me be 100% clear here for a moment: I am NOT advocating for default, and I think the aggregate effect of such a thing would be much, much worse if we were indeed to default on our obligations. If it comes to that, I frankly think President Obama should try pursuing the “constitutional option” to raise the limit himself, unilaterally, without congressional approval. I don’t know if that would be possible, but it would certainly be worth trying.

But if things go all Titanic on us and the tea tantrumers really are hell-bent on tanking the economy rather than raising the debt ceiling, at least in such a case, it would be quite clear to everyone, even the dimmest, most knee-jerk of Washington’s commentariat (let alone to average voters) that it was the GOP who drove us off the cliff. Mitch McConnell was right when he said it would damage the GOP brand for a decade in such a case. I actually think he underestimates it: I think it would be more like a generation’s worth of damage; the generation that has to grow up and try to start a life under such adverse circumstances. But it would be, cleanly and clearly, a Republican-only debacle. If Boehner and/or McConnell can keep it together enough to get the votes they need for a package of big spending cuts and a debt ceiling raise, and Obama and Dems sign on to it – which they would/will – then it will be an irrevocably “bipartisan” cock-up. Voters (and not just the liberal, activist ones) won’t “give Obama credit” for having staved off a much-worse crisis in the form of a default, because they won’t have had to witness what the effects of a default would have been like. Instead, they’ll take out their frustrations at whoever’s in power, because both parties had their fingerprints all over the disastrous “deal” which led to the re-crashing of the economy. They may think “man, those Republicans sure were obstinate jerks – and WRONG, to boot,” but they’ll also be thinking “Damn! Can’t ANYONE do ANYTHING about them? ‘Cause these Democrats sure can’t – or won’t.”

Leaving aside the effects on the economy, I don’t see how voters thinking THAT, heading into an election, can possibly be a good thing. If I sound gloomy, well, I am. Because those are essentially the realistic choices as of today, gang: either the GOP cobbles together enough votes to convince congressional Dems (and Obama) to sign off on a massive spending-cut bill which will seriously damage the economy and cause voters to revile BOTH parties…or the tea tantrumers “hold strong” (and stupid), and we have our first-ever default in the history of the United States, which would be even worse. I think the chances for either a “grand bargain” that includes significant revenue increases OR a “clean” debt-ceiling vote are becoming more remote with every passing day. And at this late stage of the game, about the only thing we can hope for – ironically – is that Wall Street still has more influence over the Republican party than the tea party has stubbornness. Heaven help us. :-/

Don Quixote, Meet Clarence Thomas

Or, more accurately, Don Quixote, meet today’s Democratic base. Why Don Quixote? Because a “quixotic” quest is one which is fantastical and romantic, but impractical and likely a lost cause, or has very little chance of success,. And that’s exactly what the current push on the left against the recent revelations about Clarence Thomas’ ethical improprieties are: a quixotic quest.

Why? Because although Thomas is a loathsome creature as a SCOTUS Justice – an incurious, ideologically rigid tool of the far right, and his actions would likely be a firing-level offense in any lesser jurist, there are no rules which govern the conduct of the Supreme Court. Perhaps there should be, and perhaps it will be this incident which convinces of the need for some…but as things stand right now, there simply aren’t any such rules. The Code of Judicial Conduct applies to every other judge in the United States except the nine who sit on the Supreme Court. Those nine members of that highest judicial body are supposed to be self-policing, and are – by design of the framers themselves – not subject to oversight or review by either of the other two branches of government (except as noted below). That’s what it means to be “co-equal”: Supreme Court Justices don’t work for or under the authority of any other branch. Their actions and conduct are non-reviewable by either Congress or the President. That’s what gives them the autonomy to act in the interest of the constitution and rule upon questions before them as they see fit, not as they worry their “bosses” (if they had any) might feel about their rulings.

Indeed, the only method of redress for a theoretical SCOTUS Justice run amuck is the same one which exists for a wayward or criminal President: impeachment. And the bar for that is – also by design – set just as high for Justices as it is for Presidents. There are three hurdles to clear to impeach a Justice and remove him or her from office:

1. Articles of Impeachment have to be forwarded to the entire House of Representatives by the appropriate committee (usually Rules or Judiciary).
2. The full House has to vote the accused guilty (this is the official “impeachment” – though it does not carry with it any specific remedy or penalty).
3. The Senate then has to vote whether to remove the impeached official from office.

This just. isn’t. gonna. happen, folks. And pretending it will is a waste of organizing energy.

E-mailing For Dollars

Just today, I sat down to my computer to check my email, and what to my wondering eyes should appear, but political begging (it’s that time of year). This time, the money-request was from Robert Gibbs, President Obama’s ex-press secretary. You can read it online here.

Well. Clearly, such a well-considered request deserves an equally thoughtful reply. So I sat down to think of how best to put things to Mr. Gibbs. Here is the letter I sent him in reply. I know – due to its length, if nothing else – he almost assuredly won’t bother reading it. It’s more of an exercise for me in simply getting it off my chest than anything else, coupled with the knowledge that others might read it up here at PTL. So, join me after the fold for the full, er, Monty (probably shouldn’t put it quite that way, after the last few weeks’ Weiner-events, LOL):

Making The Right Moves On Elizabeth Warren

Oops. Just realized how that sounds. Heh.

On his blog at Reuters, Felix Salmon is frustrated as he catches the susurrus of capitulationist (er, I mean “cautionary”) voices already growing louder on the next issue (the potential nomination of Elizabeth Warren to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau). This time, it’s William Cohan at Bloomberg who’s sounding the retreat before battle’s even been engaged, urging the White House to compromise, to “face reality,” to not make enemies because they’ll need allies later, and so forth. Cohan scolds Warren (and, by inference, Obama):

Is This Hope, Or Change?

I can’t tell. Dave Dayen at FDL notices OFA’s latest plea to their email list:

Here’s what OFA is reduced to. I just got this email:

A decade of irresponsible spending led to a projected $1.3 trillion deficit that President Obama inherited upon taking office — putting America on an unsustainable fiscal course.

From Day One, this administration’s top focus has been growing the economy and putting Americans back to work — and that will never change.

The economy is growing again, yet all across America families and businesses have been tightening their belts. The President knows their government must do the same.

Yesterday, he announced a proposal to freeze pay for non-military federal employees for two years — a plan that will lead to $60 billion in savings over 10 years. It’s one of many tough choices the President has made to cut costs in the upcoming budget to begin to put our nation’s fiscal house in order. And it follows directly from this administration’s dedication to stretching federal dollars and reining in the long-term deficit.

Now, if you listen to some talk radio hosts or a few of the talking heads on cable news, you’ll hear a very different assessment of our fiscal policies. These voices ignore the irresponsibility of the past while pinning the blame for “reckless spending” solely on this administration. It would make a good fairy tale if it weren’t so dangerously untrue.

But these voices — as loud as they are — are spreading bunk. Cutting costs and spending responsibly has been a cornerstone of this administration’s record. And we need your help to get the truth out there.

Will you take a few minutes and write a letter to the editor today to set the record straight?

 

Says it all, really, doesn’t it? Hardly even requires comment, though Dayen pithily notes “That’s right, the organizing project of the Democratic National Committee wants you to organize in support of freezing public worker salaries.” (emphasis mine) Who needs Republicans, with Democrats like these? Perhaps Plouffe and Obama can launch a campaign to get us all to “urgently send in” $20 each in support of a campaign to rein in runaway social security benefits, next. Or food stamps.

Idiots.

(it goes without saying, of course, that this is an almost completely symbolic gesture, in terms of the federal deficit. This kind of freeze would save an estimated $60bn over ten years, while the proposal to simply allow the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy to return to their Clinton-era levels for income above $250K would save $700bn over the same time period. In a time of such severe economic crunch for everyone, though, it’s anything but symbolic for the actual working-class folks who earn those ordinary paychecks as government workers. So why do this now? Because this idea came in #1 on Eric Cantor’s “YouCut” online suggestion box, where anyone with a computer could tell the incoming GOP House majority what they would cut if they were in charge)