I am at an utter loss to describe the outrage I feel today. Actually, I suppose that I should be happy that I can still feel outrage. For a while there I had become comfortably numb.
Today I got emails from my pals Chris Dodd and Pat Leahy, both of whom are telling me they will NOT GIVE UP in their fight to restore habeas corpus. Sure they’ve been dealt a setback, because as Pat says:
…Senate Republicans made another mistake yesterday by mounting a filibuster and failing to allow us to restore it
Well, we can’t blame Chris or Pat if all their valiant efforts came to naught because the Republicans mounted a filibuster, can we? Surely they’ve done everything they can to save habeas corpus. Unless, that is, the information contained here is true, and all it would have taken was ONE Senator to refuse to allow the Republican filibuster to consist of a single cloture vote:
…the reason the Webb amendment failed even though it got 56 votes was that Senators agreed by unanimous consent that the amendment should have to get 60 votes to pass, even without a filibuster.
But why would anyone agree to allow Republicans, who are already on pace to shatter all previous filibuster records, to stop an amendment this important and this sensible without even lifting a finger? And the question here is not just why anyone would allow it, but why everyone did. A single Senator could have put a stop to this simply by saying, “I object” when the unanimous consent request was made. Just one Senator.
Not even Jim Webb got up to object when his amendment was torpedoed. And Chris and Pat? Neither one stood up and objected when the Republicans torpedoed habeas corpus. But hey, they’re not giving up! It’s just that they have an odd way of fighting. They do it lying down.
Not only is this bad on principle, it’s bad politics. How much patience would the country have if the Republicans were actually forced to really filibuster. Does anyone think they would really spend days and weeks arguing against a bill that gives “our troops” much needed rest? The argument that Bush will veto the bill anyway is too weak for words. From a political point of view that can only help the Democrats; at least it will be clear that the war still belongs to Bush and the Republicans. The argument that the Democrats can’t afford to waste time is absurd, because their not accomplishing anything worthwhile anyway, not when they need 61 votes to do anything.
But we’re used to this, aren’t we? I would still be comfortably numb if this were the only outrage of the day. But to cap it all, after caving to the Republicans on policy, nearly half of them voted in favor of a propagandistic Republican motion to condemn Moveon. These people control the Senate, at least they’re supposed to. They couldn’t even get the Motion amended to condemn the Swift boaters and the ads that ran against Max Cleland, never mind just keeping it off the calendar.
I don’t have the skills to express the outrage that I feel at the Democratic Party and the meek little men and women that it has sent to the Senate. Is this what so many of us worked so hard to obtain-a Senate majority that hands power over to the minority without a whimper and allows that minority to use the Senate to advance its own talking points. Have they no brains? Have they no principles? Disgusting.
Addendum: Okay, I’m repeating myself. Sorry.
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