Lindsey Graham appears to have done a favor for the Democrats, by bowing out of the climate bill talks. His ostensible reason-that Reid may take immigration up first-makes no sense. Whatever his motivation for doing it now-and Digby probably nails it here-this moment was inevitable, and so far as I can see this is a case of better now than later.
This is a familiar pattern. You might say that the Republicans, for each major bill, have one or more designated “bi-partisan” persons whose job it is to water down the bill sufficiently to make it ineffective, and then, usually, vote against it anyway. Graham follows Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe on the stimulus bills (who, I have to admit, had the grace to vote for the bill that they had gutted), Grassley and Snowe on the Health Care bill, and Corker (if he can get away with it) on the financial regulation bill.
In each case their definition of bi-partisanship has been pretty much the same-58 Democrats should defer to one Republican on every issue, or the bill is not bi-partisan.
According to this morning’s Times the Democrats may be headed for some major losses in November. This may be the case, though there’s a long way to go until then, and they may still pull off a miracle and get their rhetorical act in order. They have a better chance of avoiding major disaster by sticking to their alleged principles than by caving at every turn and still getting nothing.
It’s asking too much, of course, but they should be actively signaling that if they continue to control Congress in January the filibuster will die a quick death. Better to go down because you have done what you claim to believe in than because you allowed the other side to prevent you from doing anything.
If the Democrats do lose this autumn, here is the lesson they will likely draw: that they must tack to the right and mollify the people who will never vote for them. This is the lesson they take from every defeat. They will take this lesson even if the raw data shows that their base stayed home on election day. The cant of the pundits trumps objective reality every time so far as the Democrats are concerned.
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