Not for the first time, I find myself seeing the Democrats’ strategy to be as clear as mud. From what I can tell, they wanted the Republicans to filibuster the Defense Appropriations Act. What do I base this on? Partly it is the fact that the White House didn’t put on a full-court press to get it passed. A bigger signal is that the Democrats didn’t come out swinging that the GOP was endangering the troops. And then there is this:
After [her] call [with vice-president Joe Biden], [Sen. Susan] Collins went to the Senate floor to plead with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid one last time for what she calls an open process that allows her colleagues to offer amendments to change the bill. A spokesman for Reid made clear to us, no deal. Democrats insist Republicans will in fact have ample opportunity to offer amendments – after the election.
Now let me be clear about something. Sen. Collins was being completely disingenuous. She found an easy excuse to vote against both the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and The DREAM Act by complaining about procedure. She is more guilty than the Democrats of allowing policy she supports to die for cynical partisan purposes. All she had to do is vote her conscience and those policies would be law. The White House merely called her bluff. They couldn’t convince her to buck her party, but that was no reason to cave to her demands.
Still, it appears that the Democrats were fine with this outcome. And, I guess I can’t fully discern why they are okay with it. If they think they can use this as a cudgel against the Republicans in the midterm elections, they haven’t shown me how they plan to wield that cudgel. If the roles were reversed, the Republicans would have screamed to high heaven that the Democrats were defunding our troops in the field. Is that coming? Because I saw no evidence of it today.
If this is all part of setting up the next chapter in the election-season narrative, then I guess that will become clear soon enough. But, for now, the whole thing seems inexplicable.
What amendments were the Republicans planning to offer? I assume they wanted to offer things that would force Dems to take some uncomfortable votes only six weeks before the election. If so, I am happy that Sen. Reid did not fall for that trap.
The blame here lies with the Republicans who filibustered, not the Democrats. Let’s keep that in mind and fight to get more Democrats so that we are not in the same situation after November.
http://www.winningprogressive.org
“I assume they wanted to offer things that would force Dems to take some uncomfortable votes only six weeks before the election.”
It’s actually even more than that. The GOP wanted unlimited amendments to be allowed, so that they could just keep offering them to bring the process to a grinding halt. Some of them would have been the “uncomfortable” votes you speak of, but it was just as much about making it take forever to bring the final bill to a vote in the first place.
It actually shows just how disengenuous Collins really was, as well. Sen. Reid had actually agreed to allow some amendments, and said that after the bill got to the floor for debate he would negotiate the number of amendments with the GOP that they could offer. She still pulled the cowards’ move.
For the rest of the week, I’m going to just have to give a big ‘ol “fuck you” to Maine voters.
I would love this to be the set-up for the oft-mentioned “going Truman” option. Throwing down an executive order to repeal would escalate this nicely.
Throwing down an executive order to repeal would escalate this nicely.
Except that’s not how Obama rolls. You should know that by now. Then there is this(from Drudgico of all places … and no .. not by that Roger Stone):
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0910/42440.html
But again, it’s not Obama’s style .. as much as this advice would benefit him.
Yeah, I do know that by now. Pardon the lapse.
I saw tonight already reports of “the senate failing to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”, not the accurate version of “Republicans filibuster troop funding and pay raise”.
It’s amazing how much better Republicans are at this stuff than us. Back when Bush wanted funding for the troops he threatened to veto it unless it had no strings attached (i.e. a time line for withdrawal).
From that point on the entire debate was framed as if it would be the unpatriotic Dems who were defunding our troops if they didn’t give Bush what he wanted, even though it was going to be Bush who was actually doing the defunding with his veto pen.
Yet here, it ACTUALLY is the Republicans defunding the troops and instead of it being the biggest story in the world, and a scandal of epic proportions, it’s pretty much a big yawn. It gets reported that the Senate as a whole didn’t repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and nothing about troop funding or Republican filibusters.
Every Democrat should be out there saying the Repubs hate gays so much that they’re willing to hold our troops hostage, and that they’re saying either you let us continue to discriminate or the troops get it. The entire debate should be about Republicans turning their backs on our troops and yet nothing of the sort has happened. I just don’t get it.
Name me people in the Democratic Senate Leadership who has great communication skills ??
God, I miss Ted Kennedy.
Hey BooMan,
Picked from another site.
“Booman had bedroom eyes, too.”
(2007)
Don`t worry, it was all in good fun.
Huh?
” Yikes and oh my, (1+ / 0-)
you have bedroom eyes. Serious bedroom eyes.
Markos was great at YKos 2007 to me, though he wouldn’t recall it, and Booman? Gave me one of his ciggies at the same place, very late at night on the patio when a whole lot of people who don’t smoke much…were smoking for the night, along with the ones who did it more GUSily.
Booman had bedroom eyes, too.
And this, too:
My observations of him were that he was one of the “guys”, a “person of the people”, mingling with others just like him, in what I consider a street corner bar, one that you might all frequent anywhere in America.
A poet’s work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep. …Salman Rushdie
by begone on Tue Sep 21, 2010 at 10:28:33 PM PDT
[ Reply to This | RecommendHide ]”
Funny. 2007 was Chicago, right?
BooMan,
I was at a Drinking Liberally meeting last night where Markos was & did a little write-up about it.
That came up in the comments.
I did talk to Markos about you & the Tribune.
You can see my little post here.
The comment is near the bottom, & apparently I also have “bedroom eyes”.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/9/21/904097/-MEETING-MARKOS
Was the bar in Venice or Santa Monica?
I used to live at 10th and Lake in Venice, and before that I live on Barrington in West LA between Ohio and Wilshire.
BooMan,
I`d say Santa Monica.
It was on Lincoln just south of Pico.
As you know, Lincoln runs through Santa Monica, Venice, & into Culver, Westchester, LAX, though I don`t know the exact demarcations.
I knew the boundaries more by gang territory.
Sometimes you should know where not to be, if you can`t carry yourself with the confidence & self-assuredness of fatalism.
The adresses you mention were areas I passed through hundreds of times. Barrington being a mellow area.
These days, I`m a bit of a homebody, taking care of my gardens, my fish, & my local clients. If you`re ever out this way again, give me a shout, I`ll take you out for a great fish dinner, overlooking the ocean.
It’s no longer inexplicable if you conclude our leadership decided failure would help get out the vote.
i think it’s a mistake to assume there’s a coherent strategy.
The Senate Democratic Caucus is divided on this. Folks like Blanche Lincoln and David Pryor no doubt provided cover for some other folks.
As I understand it, the repeal of DADT and also the DREAM Act is written into the bill, which means that it will take amendments to strip them out–amendments which themselves could be filibustered by 41 Democrats. Which is why McConnell is trying to keep it off the floor.
Reid is in a position to exact a big price if they succeed in stripping out these two items. What will the Republicans offer in exchange for the Democrats disappointing their base?
The media deserves the blame for framing the vote as a filibuster on DADT and not a filibuster of the defense appropriations bill. I’m not sure how Democrats get the media to refocus on the issue, which is that the Republicans are willing to endanger the troops in order to prevent gays in the military from continuing to serve and in order to torpedo the educations of immigrants who have done nothing wrong themselves. That is how much Republicans hate gays and Hispanics. When are the progressives in the Senate going to step up and make this argument or are they bound by some sort of party discipline that does not apply to conservative Democrats?
The DREAM Act is not written into the bill. It’s the first scheduled amendment.
Thanks for this correction. So it is about DADT exclusively.
I think that Reid will start hammering this by reintroducing it frequently over the next several weeks.
I don’t know whether having DADT being debated in the runup to election day will help or hurt Democrats.
McCain objected that the DREAM Act, in his opinion, has nothing to do with the Defense Department, even though it was initiated and designed to help military recruitment. The GOP line is that they are being denied the right to file unlimited amendments while the Dems take up ones that are not germane. It’s chutzpah.
I have two theories about this:
First, the Rahm-advised administration did not want this to pass. They were happy to see this fail, as long as they were perceived as supporting DADT repeal.
Second: The Democrats just fucked up.
Her conscience??? Why do you keep giving these assholes the benefit of the doubt when there is no doubt about what they are?
As Marshall keeps harping on, in the House Pelosi can’t get her caucaus in line to actually vote on the tax cut situation. It’s pretty amazing just how bad Democrats are. And it’s near universal, it’s fucking amazing and it makes it embarrassing to be one of them.
As to why, to me it’s simple they are simply not willing to spend political capital on this. They don’t want to do it, none of them want to do it. Either because they are bigots like Pyor and Lincoln, or because they’re scared.
The New York Times has it right. If Obama doesn’t actually have the political skills to pass this, then JUST DON’T APPEAL IT.
He promised to get this done by the end of 2010. If he breaks that promise he will lose the support of gays in 2012. Really.