CT Blue

Sunday is becoming prime rant day. Today, as so often in the past, I must take exception to a “balanced, pox on both their houses” article by Sheryl Gay Stolberg of New York Times.

The current trope is that Washington has become more partisan in the past 20 years. It may very well be true that, since so many house districts have been gerrymandered into safe status, the ideological difference between the typical members of Congress has widened. But when one talks about raw partisan behavior, including the take no prisoners obstructionism exhibited by the Republicans, there is simply no comparison between the parties.

It’s likely the case that Bush was warmly and rightly detested by the majority of Democrats. There is simply nothing in the historical record to compare with the Republican record compiled in just the last four weeks, and for which the pattern has now been set for the next four years. Unanimous opposition in the House, rigidly enforced. Promises of filibusters in the Senate, on everything.

What’s laughable about Stolberg’s article is that she attributes this opposition, apparently without irony, to ideological principles:

…[I]n the partisan politics of recent decades, another view developed, advanced by Congressional leaders like Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, that the minority party has the right, even obligation, to stick to its ideological principles

That would be the ideological principle against deficits, in case you were wondering. The one they stuck to with such fidelity when they were running things.

Then we have the token example of Democratic perfidy:

Republicans haven’t cornered the market for blocking presidential initiatives. Democrats were so successful at filibustering Mr. Bush’s judicial nominees that their Senate leader,Tom Daschle, was labeled “an obstructionist” and lost his seat in 2004.

A little deconstruction is in order. First, labeling someone an obstructionist does not make him so, and this article is purportedly about real obstructionism, not ginned up but baseless charges. Second, a judicial nomination is not a presidential initiative. Third, the “successful” Democrats blocked 10 out of 229 Bush first term nominations, hardly a huge number, and quite comparable to the Republican record in the last Clinton term. More importantly, it is well nigh impossible to come up with an instance of the Democrats blocking any Bush legislative initiative by using the filibuster. Would that they had in many instances. The Constitution might not be damaged, perhaps beyond repair, if they had. In fact, the record is pretty clear on Bush initiatives. Most of them passed pretty much as Bush wanted them, right up until the end, even while his numbers were only slightly ahead of Osama bin Laden’s.

One can argue about whether or not the Republicans are justified or not in adopting the strategy they have, but one can not argue that this behavior is symmetric. It simply isn’t. There are a lot of reasons for this. The Democrats are far more ideologically diverse. Rahm Emmanuel’s contingent of Blue Dog Democrats guarantees that. The Democrats in the Senate have had two recent leaders from Republican leaning states, both of whom have had to keep a wary eye out for their own re-election prospects while supposedly leading their party. (Republicans would never thing of giving such power to a Senator who had to worry about a substantial left leaning constituency.) Thus Harry Reid’s passive insistence that it takes 60 votes to pass anything in a Democratically controlled Senate, while 51 votes always did quite nicely while he led the minority. And there, once again, is the rub. Until the Democrats break the back of the filibuster, by forcing the Republicans to endure public scorn for utilizing it, they will be unable to govern effectively.

An added observation: It’s important to bear in mind that there is a world of difference between voting against a presidential initiative, and preventing a vote on that initiative. Bush, who promised to be a uniter, was never held to that promise and governed as a divider. His legislation came to a vote under both Democratic and Republican Senate Majorities. Obama is being held to account for failing to convert an obstreperousRepublican minority that announces opposition to his plans before they are announced, and who are prepared, in the Senate, to block votes on any legislation Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe, and/or Susan Collins don’t like.

Yesterday my wife took advantage of her weekly furlough day to visit Son #2 in New York. She met him around lunchtime. Turns out he was fresh from occupying a building at NYU, which the authorities appear to have re-taken shortly after he exited to keep his date with his Mom. The tactics were oddly reminiscent of a dim and distant era, though the non-negotiable demands were not:

The N.Y.U. students created a Web site (takebacknyu.com) where they published their demands, including thorough annual reporting of the university’s operating budget, expenditures and endowment. They also want the university to provide 13 scholarships a year to students from the Gaza Strip and give surplus supplies to the Islamic University of Gaza.

The students also called on the school to allow graduate teaching assistants to unionize and to freeze tuition.

One caveat: the demand is not that tuition be frozen, but that increases not apply to students currently attending, i.e., that the tuition you pay as a senior will be the same you paid as a freshman. As things stand now a freshman paying almost $50,000.00 a year might find his or her tuition increased by 10-20% a year, imposing a tremendous and unpredictable financial burden. The real cost of a private college education, adjusted for inflation, has skyrocketed and is rapidly exceeding the grasp of all but the most affluent.

I won’t say who might have been pushing for the graduate student demand, except to note that my son, a grad student, is a seasoned union hand. The grad students were previously unionized, until their right to do so was rescinded by the Bush NLRB. (Just another example, Mr. Nader, of how there was a substantial difference between Bush and Gore, and another reason we can be thankful for Obama. The NLRB has been virulently anti-worker since Bush gained a majority of its five members). As soon as it legally could, the school refused to deal with the union.

The other demands, which can be found at the link in the quote, are actually quite reasonable. Some might regard the entire process of “issuing demands” as a quaint, archaic relic of a bygone era. But as Frederick Douglass said, Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Here’s hoping this is the opening act in a new era of activism.

Needless to say we did not greet the news of our own son’s participation in this incident with delight. It’s all very well for other people’s kids to put their necks on the line, but we’d much prefer our little boy keep his head down and neck safe. For the life of me I can’t figure out where he got the political views that lead him to do these things.

Here’s some video. What I find interesting is that the cops holding back, and using nightsticks on, the protestors, look most uncomfortable when the kids drop the profanity and start chanting “Shame on You”. That’s a tactic we never tried in the 60s, so far as I know, but in my opinion, it’s brilliant.

I blame all this on Obama. My son told my wife that there’s a new optimism in the air. People are beginning to think they can actually change things. Who knows, Obama may have released forces even he can’t control. There’s a word for it. Rhymes with “pope”.