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A Challenge for the Democrats

Monday, September 24, 2007

We may soon find out just how scared the Democrats are of looking insufficiently tough. Paradoxically, of course, they show their toughness by weakly caving to every Republican attack, See, e.g., the anti-Moveon Resolution.

Now we will find out if there are any limits to just how crazy the Republicans, and how craven the Democrats, can be.

Not content with having condemned Moveon for exercising its first amendment rights, Virginian Tom Davis now wants a full scale Congressional investigation of the New York Times because it mistakenly gave Moveon a discount on the ad (Moveon has agreed to pay the difference). This is the Tom Davis who chaired the House Oversight Committee for the first six years of the Bush Administration and never heard about anything worth overseeing. Davis has no interest, apparently, in looking into the fact that the Times made the same mistake in the rate it charged Giuliani for an anti-Moveon ad. (Unlike Moveon, Giuliani has not agreed to pay the difference).

Not to be outdone in the nutjob department, Californian Duncan Hunter wants to strip Columbia University of all federal funds because it invited Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to give a speech.

This is standard Republican stuff, of course. The question is, will the Democrats be pusillanimous enough to do the Republicans bidding, or will they ignore this posturing (Principled counter attacks are too much to ask). Last week I would have said that the Democrats could not possibly sink so low, or be so weak, as to cave in to such demands, but after the events of the past seven days, I am no longer sure. Presumably Henry Waxman will tell Davis to shove it, but who knows how far the Columbia de-funding push will go.

These guys are both whackos, but their tactics are well thought out. Nothing the Democrats do to prove their “patriotism”, as defined by Republicans, is ever enough. The goal posts are always moving, the football is always snatched away. Having gotten the Democrats to turn on their own constituents, they now demand that the Dems shred the Constitutition for good measure. They change the subject and make the Democrats look weak all at the same time. In any rational world we could safely say that Davis and Hunter have engaged in a too transparent self parody, but in the asylum that is Washington, who can say?

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A Republican genetic disorder in the news again

Saturday, September 22, 2007

This story (making the rounds on the internet with the most recent mention I’ve seen at TPM) is further proof of the existence of a disease that appears to strike Republicans disproportionately: one issue liberalism. I’ve remarked on this before. This time the sufferer is the mayor of San Diego, who ran for office vowing to stop gay marriage in its tracks. Seems he’s had a change of heart:

A tearful Mayor Jerry Sanders made a dramatic shift yesterday, explaining that he can no longer oppose same-sex marriages because he does not want to deny justice to people like his daughter, who is a lesbian.

Joined at a late afternoon news conference by his wife, Rana Sampson, the San Diego mayor announced he will back a City Council decision to support same-sex marriage before the state Supreme Court, where California’s ban on it awaits review.

“I decided to lead with my heart, which is probably obvious at the moment,” said Sanders, moments before he revealed his daughter’s sexual orientation.

I’ve remarked on this disease before, and I’ve observed it first hand on many occasions. The State Senator who towed the Republican line except for her support for programs to help the developmentally disabled comes to mind on the local level, while the Evil One in the Undisclosed Location with the Lesbian Daughter comes to mind on the national level. On this very blog we had a gay Republican commenter who made an eloquent plea for tolerance of gays, who on other issues appears to be a down the line Republican conservative.

One wonders. Has Mr. Sanders found religion on other issues, including those that require him to feel empathy for people he doesn’t know and love? Is there something in the genes of some humans that prevents them from putting themselves in other people’s shoes? I sometimes see this with my clients, who often have difficulty coping with the fact that the system is not structured to maximally benefit them. Why, they wonder, should the court allow the other side to present a defense. Isn’t it obvious that they are right? They would of course, feel differently if they were on the other side of the fence, but they’re not on that side of the fence, and they can’t mentally put themselves there.

Lord knows the Democrats have their problems, all too evident in the past week, but they don’t appear to suffer from this particular genetic defect (or at least it’s not endemic with them), if that’s what it is. If it is inherent in some people, then to paraphrase the gentle man from Nazareth, “the Republicans will always be with us”. We must hope, if we are to survive as a species, that this trait will prove to be recessive, since we no longer live in a world in which we can hope to survive if it is dominated by people who cannot mentally see the world through the eyes of others. If we look around ourselves today, we can’t help but conclude that the greatest threat to human survival, world peace and social justice is intolerance, a trait that goes hand in hand with lack of empathy and, not coincidentally, the stock in trade of the Republican Party.

Unfortunately, the Republicans are not alone in building political movements on a firm bedrock of intolerance. They exist everywhere, and tend to have a sort of symbiotic relationship with each other. There’s no better example than Bush and Ahaminejad, each of whom attempts to shore up his flagging popularity at home by whipping up fear of the other.

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Groton Democrats raise hundreds of dollars!

Saturday, September 22, 2007

The Groton Democrats had a fairly successful fundraiser today. As I said yesterday, we held a tag sale … garage sale, whatever, at Sutton Park. We raised a decent amount of money, but it wasn’t really about the money, at least not for me.

What it was about was clearing out all the stuff that other people have stored in our barn over the past year or so, in anticipation of this very event. As a bonus, we got rid of a lot of stuff stored there since it was a clubhouse (later a den of iniquity) for my son and his friends. It now seems possible, if only barely, that we can make use of the space in this venerable structure, which started life, I am told, as a chicken coop. We have fantasies of, someday, using our vast wealth to convert the barn complex (two buildings, actually) into a small apartment for visitors and a large workspace from which, who knows, the Groton Democrats might someday mount yet another quixotic attempt to take over town government. That happy day awaits the arrival of the vast wealth. How to get it is the issue. All ideas are welcome, provided they require no expenditure of effort on my part. Is that asking so much?

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Better Late than never

Friday, September 21, 2007

The Groton Democrats will be holding their reasonably annual tag sale at Sutton Park starting tomorrow at around 9:00 AM. If you have something to get rid of, or if you want to pick up something you’ll always treasure, stop by.

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Today’s task

Friday, September 21, 2007

Give money to Moveon, $500,000.00 and counting.

I’ve given already. Except for a possible concert post, that’s it for me tonight. I have Charter Revision work to do.

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Pity any Democratic fundraiser that calls me today

Thursday, September 20, 2007

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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It’s melting

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

At the present time the Yankees are beating Baltimore and the Red Sox are losing to the Bluejays. After tonight, the lead will be a game and a half. I have had faith throughout the season that the Sox could snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Normally, I like to rely on reason, but with the Red Sox, faith in the always imminent meltdown is, paradoxically, based solidly on reason. That may be a contradiction, but it is nonetheless true.

One small consolation: It does appear to be almost mathematically impossible for them to miss the playoffs, but don’t sell them short.

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Losers

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

One must wonder if the Democrats will ever start acting as if they are the majority party in Congress.

They may not be able to roll back the totalitarian laws passed during the height of the Bush imperium, but at least they can choose to do no further harm. Apparently even that is beyond them. They are now apparently ready to give the telecom companies retroactive immunity for conspiring with the Bush crime gang to spy on Americans.

On another front, Senator Warner is set to introduce a non-binding “Sense of the Senate” to undercut the Webb Amendment. Oh, sorry, events have gotten by me, the Webb Amendment has already lost, as has the Warner resolution. The Democracts, of course, have now totally accepted the new reality: it takes 60 vote to pass anything. Once they lose a cloture vote they pack up and go home. It never occurs to them to make the Republicans put up or shut up. If they don’t want to take a vote, then make them talk and talk and talk. The Democrats aren’t getting anything worthwhile through in any event. Have they no idea what a sorry spectacle the Republicans would be if they were forced to spend weeks preventing a vote on a measure designed to give “our troops” the rest they deserve. Here’s the dirty secret: the Democrats care more about keeping regular hours and getting away on weekends than they do about the country.

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Bible lesson

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Post suggested by my son.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gpy4Y2OdzY[/youtube]

A totally accurate re-telling of the story by the way, right down to the “take my daughters, spare my guests” part.

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Verdict on Petreaus is in and it’s not good

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

David Kurtz at Talking Points Memo writes:

I ventured a guess last week that public opinion had long ago hardened on Iraq and that the elaborate dog and pony show of the Petraeus hearings would make little impact. Well, the verdict is starting to come in.

A new CBS News poll shows a slight uptick (albeit statistically insignificant) since the Petraeus hearings in support for reducing or withdrawing troops from Iraq, not exactly the result the White House was after. Also out is a new Pew poll which shows mixed results. There is a slight increase in the number of respondents who say things are going well in Iraq–an obvious objective of the White House PR blitz–but only 16% of respondents said Petraeus’ appearance made them more optimistic. Sixty-seven percent said Petraeus had not changed their opinions.

May the world take note that I predicted the same result before Kurtz. At this point, the American people are way ahead of their “representatives” and the Beltway pundits. Now if the Democrats could only tumble to this reality.

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