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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
The only problem is that what the Republicans call "bipartisanship" the rest of the world calls "date rape".
What Good Celery! is to poetry and imagery, pow wow and Ondelette are to incisive analysis. I thank all three of you, and all the others unmentioned but not undervalued.
I do have to say though, that reading pow wow and Ondelette back to back can be a bit daunting. How do we manufacture strength from such a scorned position? How do we address the morality/criminality of actions that are barely acknowledged by those responsible, or by those who should be holding the reins of accountability?
We are going through a period of realignment, the actual extent and depth of which we won't know for some time. It feels like standing on the edge of an abyss, holding your breath, because you don't know whether inhalation, or exhalation, will be the action that causes your fall.
Yes, and who still has a clear conscience.-- normbreyfogle
Well, I do. And I know the clouds do, because they don't effect anything beyond the weather, even though they have no conceptual conscience. I can't speak for Ralph, but I'll try anyway. It seems he only cares about himself and his enormous ego being fed. But, hey, that's just Ralph. I don't know what it is that draws you to him and creates an incomprensible smugness about him and those who have voted for him.
Glenn Greenwald makes his usual point about how this is business as usual in the Senate. But in this case it's not.
When in living memory has the majority in the Senate chosen a black-sheep outlier as its leader, and not only caucused with a non-member (a junior non-member at that) who actively campaigned against them but granted that member a committee chairmanship?
And that's not to mention that both the majority leader and the non-member in question are in increasingly precarious positions at home. Obviously it's impossible to predict the future this far out but the way things are now, the next 4 years are more likely than not to see the Senate's decision superseded by constituents in Nevada and Connecticut.
The Reid-Lieberman accord is not business as usual in the Senate. It's bizarre and baffling and nothing like it has ever happened before. Not even Tom Daschle's selection was this weird.
I can see Obama, or any president, wanting the Senate majority organized in as dissolute and self-defeating a way as possible: weak or isolated Senate leaders make for strong presidents. But why are people like Dodd, or Jeffords for pity's sake, going along with it? Are they really holding out some kind of dim hope for a caucus supermajority? Are they figuring that even if they don't get it in 2008, they might squeak by in 2010 if they keep Lieberman on board now?
Or is there some other payoff?
All the talk about wanting to avoid vindictiveness seems like it should be hinting at something but frankly I'm at a loss at this point. It's not vindictive to fail to give someone who works for the other party a position of leadership in the majority, especially when his presence in your coalition gives you absolutely nothing at all, and he's not even going to be around in another term.
It's axiomatic in observing the Senate from the outside that we don't really know what the deals are that are driving decision-making on a given day. But the decisions to keep Reid and Lieberman go quite a bit beyond that.
And if Martin did lose, do you honestly believe that the Dem leadership would credit the netroots?The explanation would be that many voters that supported Obama didn't come out and vote when Obama wasn't on the ballot.
The Repub leadership would say that conservatives came out in droves to repudiate the Dems having control and this is a mandate for Repubs to go harder to the Right. The last is what they glean no matter what is happening.
I can't stomach supporting Chambliss, but that being said, I just ignored the request from the DFA to help Martin with a donation. They probably should have put that request out yesterday when I still had a little hope left.
-- AnnieW
* If people make enough noise about the boycott
* The numbers are so low that the GOP can't claim it was their turnout since nobody showed up at all on the other side
* The pollsters keep hearing it
* The DSCC keeps hearing
* The newspapers keep hearing it
Maybe, just maybe, they will get a clue.
The Repub leadership would say that conservatives came out in droves to repudiate the Dems having control and this is a mandate for Repubs to go harder to the Right. The last is what they glean no matter what is happening.-- AnnieW
They can say that but if the push was on to make this happen, and lots of people put their names to it, before and after, it would sound rather hollow trying to say that.
Well, she is taller than me.....
And my nose is a bit upturned, if not quite so flat.....
Oh, and I have an old pair of toe shoes that look very much like hers, and wish I'd had a chance to dance with someone who looks as nice in tights as he does....
Other than that, any passing resemblances to descriptions of my thighs posted here, are purely hallucinations Jebbie has had while smoking corn silk with GC!
p.s. I do have small dimples in my knees, but let's keep that just between the two of us. ;-}
"Well, I do. And I know the clouds do, because they don't effect anything beyond the weather, even though they have no conceptual conscience. I can't speak for Ralph, but I'll try anyway. It seems he only cares about himself and his enormous ego being fed. But, hey, that's just Ralph. I don't know what it is that draws you to him and creates an incomprensible smugness about him and those who have voted for him.
-- Kitt"
I'm smug because I have a clear conscience? But you just said that you have a clear conscience, too.
=)
It's easy to smile when one has a clear conscience, and anyone calling Nader selfishly egoic is truly funny to me, so, thanks for the amusement.
Just curious: what part of "corporate-owned bipartisanship" don't you get?
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
