CT Blue

I must admit to being mystified at the workings of the United States Senate, the ways of which passeth all understanding.

Bernie Sanders has put a hold on another terrible Obama financial policy nominee, a fellow named Gary Gensler, who Obama has nominated to a seat on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Gensler is best known for opposing regulations of all of the financial instruments, the unregulated use of which has led to economic disaster. Obama has consistently appointed such foxes to look after all kinds of financial chicken coops, and Sanders isn’t pleased. But check this out:

Last week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) seemed to be pushing the nomination toward a conclusion. A reporter mentioned the hold that Sanders had placed on the nomination and asked if Reid would be moving forward.

“Yes, we will move forward on it,” he responded.

Now, Sanders caucuses with the Democrats, but Reid appears to consider his hold no more than a minor annoyance. Reid, the guy who loudly proclaims his own impotence when it comes to stopping Republican holds and filibusters, apparently gets a Viagra rush when the threat comes from his own side of the aisle.

Meanwhile, the Republicans are trying to blackmail Obama into covering up Bush’s crimes. They are threatening to “go nuclear” if he doesn’t agree to keep the remaining torture legal memos secret. That’s right, the ones that were made public are the milder ones. Maybe the secret ones get into more detail, like specifying precisely how many volts may be applied to which particular part of the genitals.

But, you may say, doesn’t the phrase “go nuclear” refer to a threat by the majority to abolish the filibuster? How would abolishing the filibuster help the Republicans? Well, the phrase once meant just that. Now it means the opposite: a threat to filibuster all Obama Justice Department nominees, particularly those with a record of opposing torture, unless Obama agrees to protect Bush and the rest of the criminal conspiracy.

If the Republicans truly are recycling that phrase, shouldn’t the Democrats be reminding them of its original meaning, and suggesting, and not so gently, that the Democrats may just take a page from the Republican book unless they sit down and shut up. It is, by now, painfully obvious that the Republicans intend to pervert the process until someone stops them. To date, the Republicans have paid no price, and been threatened with no retribution, if they keep this up. At least on this issue, the Obama administration seems to be quaking at the prospect of this threat, and is backing off on releasing the memos. Can they be so thick as to not understand that caving like this merely encourages more bad behavior. It’s time for the Democrats to “go nuclear”, in the 2005 sense of the phrase.

The threat that the Republicans might then use alternative means of slowing down the Senate is a hollow one: they have already reduced the Senate to a legislative laughing stock that can achieve nothing.