Publius at ObWings recently brought up a point that most seem to miss.
[T]he problem with Warner isn’t that he puts politics first. The problem is that he puts politics first while pretending not to do so. Few can furrow their brow on the Sunday morning talk shows better than Warner. But when push comes to shove, Warner never really did anything different than people like Inhofe.
Indeed, never underestimate the value of principled “moderates” to the overall GOP effort. The kabuki generally runs like this: George Bush proposes some extravagant new executive power, say legal sanction to pull the legs off of kittens. The Democrats reasonably agree (mostly) that pulling legs off of kittens is wrong, but usually lack the party discipline and/or the overall votes to stop the president on their own. Worse, nothing terrifies Democrats more than the thought that somebody might call them soft on terrorism for denying the president the power to deal with the awful kitten leg threat. The thought of David Broder calling them partisan practically reduces Democratic leaders to tears.
Mirabile dictu!, some combination of John McCain, John Warner, Lindsay Graham and Arlen Specter will step up and announce grave, serious concerns about the president delimbing kittens, dangling the possibility of sustaining a kitten-leg filibuster. Hey, Harry Ried says, let’s let these guys take the lead! Take that, David Broder! A month later the very concerned Republicans announce a compromise that looks almost exactly like what the president proposed in the first place. Blue dogs vote GOP, of course, leaving Harry Reid looking like a twice-fooled chump. Kittens lose. It happened so often that I named a post category after it.
Then again, that kabuki only worked when Republicans held a modest majority in both houses. No doubt the GOP was as surprised as the rest of us to find the whole enterprise completely unnecessary.
Zifnab
Remember “bipartisanship” during the early Clinton years? When Republicans were teetering on the edge of a majority in both houses and they needed minority sponsored legislation to get through so they could look like they were actually doing more than pissing and whining about Dems?
That’s the era Warner, McCain, and Specter grew up in. They’ve learned how to cuddle up to Democrats, play nice, then pitch underhanded random bullshit legislation that everyone seems to agree to. When people bitch about a government that just talks about functioning but never really seems to serve the will of the people, its not Tom DeLay or Trent Lott they’re referring to. The DeLays and Lotts are openly candid about how much they hate civil rights and unions and a graduated income tax. Warner, McCain, Specter, they are the serious and reasonable balanced face of the party, the face everyone likes to read about in Tom Clancy novels and Jack Bauer TV shows. And they’re the reason the Republican party exists at all in states anyone would normally consider Blue – states like Pennsylvannia and Virginia, with lots of blue collar works, minorities, and college students. You can’t get a Trent Lott in Connecticut. You need a guy like Lieberman. You can’t get a Senator like David Vitter in New Hamphire. You need Olympia Snowe.
And now that the Republicans, 20 years after Reagen, are finally taking off the mask and showing their true colors, guess where Republicans are taking huge losses? Exactly in those states where the blue collar, college student, minority voter population is waking up and tossing the bums out.
myiq2xu
Kinda like the McCain cave in on torture. Rather than take the slightest risk themselves, the Dems let Johnny Mac lead because he was the ex-pow with the “moral authority to lead” on the issue with out looking weak or unpatriotic.
When he signed off on torture, the dems were left looking like chumps. That was also when I lost what little respect for Mr. Straight talk I had left, and had it replaced with disgust.
VidaLoca
Hey Tim,
I gotcher whole post right here:
Democratic Mob Censures Bush in Effigy
ThymeZone
Part of the “kabuki” is playing out in blogville, where an entire demographic is bent on denial of the siomple fact that a party with 49 or 50 reliable votes in the Senate can’t actually impose its will on the other party.
In order to have change, it is necessary to peel away Republican votes. So far, that hasn’t happened. Until it does, complaining about the status quo is about as useful as complaining about the humidity on a hot summer day.
Even the mouth foamers at Dkos are starting to get this.
Eventually, by trickle-down demographic effect, the sensible idea will seep into this space by sheer force of osmosis.
Tim F.
TZ, try to grok the difference between imposing your will and failing to sustain a filibuster.
demimondian
TZ — you’ve decided to play concern troll, haven’t you? S’okay; I’ve decided to aspire to clown prince, in DougJ’s long absence. (Although everyone should make Rochester Turning a stopping point, in his memory.)
Seriously — the Dem’s don’t need to win anything to win everything. All they need to do now, as it was before, is stop the President’s boneheaded proposals from becoming law. How is that harder with a majority than it is with a minority, pray tell?
myiq2xu
Just say no. No to bad laws, no to bad nominees.
Thymezone
Uh … yeah, sure.
Let’s all go and read up on the history of even split Us Senates, shall we? Regale ourselves with stories of how a one-vote majority ruled the country.
This Dem bashing theme of yours is tedious and serves no purpose at all. We said that we’d see real change when the Republicans in the body broke with Bush. We said that a year ago. Nothing has changed, and they haven’t broken.
All the rest is just hand wringing and table pounding.
At this point I am not sure that the GOP members are ver going to make the break. And if they don’t, good. We’ll pick up more seats next year and the GOP will become totally marginalized. The table is being set for that outcome, and the GOP members are cooperating by polishing the silverware. So let them.
Meanwhile, of course, there are blog inches to be filled with type, so carry on with the useless churn.
Thymezone
Oh christ, you’ve turned into Nancy Reagan.
Tim F.
TZ, stop trying to pick a stupid fight. You know as well as anybody else that blocking a bill takes far less congressional power than passing one. Begging for me to explain the point annoys me and makes you look bad.
Face
I’m not so sure. Several things Congress hasn’t acted on (b/c they don’t want it) has merely been made an Executive Order by Bush (and if anyone can explain to me what the limit to an EO’s reach is, I’d love to know it). In a regular Administration, Demi is correct. Here, if Bush doesn’t get what he wants, he EOs it. If he gets something he doesn’t prefer, he signing statement’s it.
IOW, Bush never loses, at least on the minor things.
Rome Again
Yet, you do complain about the humidity. ;)
Just pointing that out, sir!
alphie
Give the Dems some credit for Republican pet projects that won’t even come up in Congress now they control it like looting Social Security, repealing the Paris Hilton tax and extending Bush’s income tax cuts, etc.
Elections do matter.
Rome Again
Limits? What limits? TZ’s yard man needs to prune the Bush, because only Jesus can make Bush change his mind. Actually, that’s not entirely correct, Bush only listens to God when God agrees with him.
myiq2xu
Warner was only suggesting a small reduction of about 6000 troops by December. IOW, only about 1/5 of the “surge” troops would be coming home 3 months early, because the extra troops for the surge are available only until March.
So the GOP plan is to have the media focus on this essentially meaningless reduction and hope the timid Dems will let Warner lead the “demand” for a troop reduction.
But once the Kabuki dance is finished, Warner will be announcing that after reviewing the
PetraeusRoach MotelWhite House report, he is persuaded to continue to stay the course.Even is the Dems sack up and fight, the argument will be over 6000 troops coming home a little early, not a meaningful reduction of 60,000 or more.
If it looks like they’ll win, the GOP members running for reelection can jump on board so they can run as “anti-war” and brag about how they stood up to Chimpy.
Meanwhile we’ll still have more troops in Iraq than we did a year earlier.
TenguPhule
The fact that the Republicans did exactly this to the Democrats earlier kinda proves you wrong.
I don’t expect anything major to pass.
I *do* expect those stupid Congress Fuckers in control of the agenda to not let the Republicans bring up stupid legislation. And especially not let them pass it.
If that means clamping some pliars to Bush Dog gonads, then break out the hardware Mr. Reid!
TenguPhule
The fact that the Republicans did exactly this to the Democrats earlier kinda proves you wrong.
I don’t expect anything major to pass.
I *do* expect those stupid Congress Fuckers in control of the agenda to not let the Republicans bring up stupid legislation. And especially not let them pass it.
If that means clamping some pliers to Bush Dog gonads, then break out the hardware Mr. Reid!
TenguPhule
We would, if those stupid fucks in charge weren’t letting the Republicans still advance those bills.
paul
OK, that’s just weird. This is the second time I’ve read mirabile dictu in 15min.
The other one was here: http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2007/09/another-big-sloppy-wet-kiss-for-borg.html
srv
TZ believes we must accomodate the McCains and Warner kabuki at all costs, because that’s the way to win house and senate seats in 2008. Dems must make the Reps look as good as possible, because that will make them the weakest competition.
Zifnab
Ok, TZ. Riddle me this.
Why is it that every time Democrats want to pass a bill, it gets filibustered, voted down, or vetoed? But every time the Republicans support legislation it seems to pass?
Could it be that a small but annoyingly mislabeled Democrats are consistently voting with the Republican Party? Could it be that Reid is unable to whip his party into line? Why is it that we inevitably have more left-to-right defections than right-to-left defections? Why is this war still being funded when we have 49-50 so-called reliable votes on the Senate floor? Why do the McGovern withdrawal bill, and the Kerry withdrawal bill, and the Kennedy withdrawal bill seem unable to garner these 49-50 votes you always talk about?
Why is it that Hillary Clinton’s Iraq withdrawal platform doesn’t actually withdraw some 50k troops from the country for another 10 years? Why does Senator Obama insist our policy of unilateral engagement ain’t so bad he wouldn’t be above invading Pakistan?
Is it just me, or does it seem like a great many of our (D) Senators aren’t actually interested in getting us the fuck out of Iraq already?
August J. Pollak
Ahem.