This happened last week, but it was only over the weekend that the spinmeisters really got the story out there and, IMO, manufactured some outrage about it.
I think the comment is a non-issue. I don’t find it offensive or read any racist intent in the comment. What I think the detractors really don’t like is that they know this is a wedge they can’t displace or remove without bringing their whole border wall arguments of smoke and mirrors and cards falling down around them.
Yes, you should feel safe on your own property. No, that isn’t your right as an American.
It’s people with these same types of reasoning powers that are squawking over Reid’s comment last week. It’s as if they are setting a goal and then seeing the world as if it was in support of that goal. I suppose that’s a loopy kind of self-determinism that I might have felt praiseworthy in some way except that they keep trying to turn that loopy self-determination into loopy directions for huge numbers of people.
Right now, people are harshing on Reid for his comments, but I think it’s all just brief demented arias for the choir. It’s an excuse to make noise and prolly helps with fundraising. After all, there’s no one to be offended at this one except the Republicans, since they were the ones being called “undesirable”, and well, duh that Harry Reid doesn’t speak well of the Republican Party. Duh.
Eh, Pelosi comes off looking better then Reid because she has a much easier job. She can loose 35 Dems in any vote and still win against a lockstep GOP. Reid can loose zero Dems at times when he’s had sixty, and needs too woo at least one Republican at times when he’s just had 59 votes.
And while people might berate him for being “weak” or a “pussy”, he can’t actually physically beat Joe Liebermann or Ben Nelson to get their votes, and if he can’t get their votes he can’t pass any legislation. He really doesn’t have much choice but to appease them and play to their egos, a “non-pussy” who stripped them of their comittee assignments would’ve come off looking stronger and might be doing better in polls, but he also wouldn’t have passed the Stimulus Package, Health-care Reform, Unemployment Extensions or Finance Reform.
As long as tenure figures in the committee seats, it would be flat out stupid to vote Angle in for a guy who has the power to help his state. Angle is not only retarded but she has no power. She would start at the bottom offending every politician with firing synapses. She would be a horrible disaster humiliating the entire state.
Are you saying the Dems should’ve used earmarks to get votes? The Dems were pretty open about doing exactly that (and the GOP was pretty open about pointing it out).
Futile? It would’ve been futile if the bills didn’t pass, but they did so it was the opposite of futile.
I would’ve prefered stronger bills as well, but the bills that did make it through were good, we would be a lot worse off without them. Certainly Harry Reid has been much more successful in the last two years in passing progressive legislation then Bush and his GOP majority Congress were in passing Conservative priorities in the six years they dominated gov’t.
Bush’s main legislative accomplishments were basically (fairly flawed) progressive legislation, Sabarnes-Oxley (Sp?) the NCLB act and the Medicare drug benefit. He passed tax-cuts, but did so basically without paying for them, and passing no-pain money hand-outs isn’t exactly hard to do. And even then, he couldn’t defeat a filibuster to cut-taxes, so he had to have them sun-set after ten years.
Really, the only big Conservative Success I can think of that he got through was the Patriot Act, and that came on the heels of the huge popularity boost he got post-9/11.
Bush did achieve some conservative priorities other then tax-cuts while in office, but not legislative ones. He appointed conservative judges to the SCOTUS and elsewhere and he managed to use executive fiat to weaken regulatory rules. But his big pushes to get through actual conservative legislation (SS privatization, “tax-reform”) fizziled without even making it to a vote.
You’re right. Now pretend you’re a Republican and tell me if Bush was effective. Therefore, Republican, you’ll be happy to vote for him and his crew again.
All I’ve seen from Reid is watered-down legislation and constant hand-wringing about how we “just can’t get anything done”.
Dubya managed it with lower numbers. By my feelings, he got pure shit enacted, but he did get it.
I would be happy for McConnell to die screaming tomorrow - but that doesn’t change the fact that he managed to turn a 20 Senator deficit into an advantage. Meanwhile, Reid turned a 20 Senator surplus into a terrible disadvantage.
Is it any wonder that there’s such dissatisfaction toward the Democrats right now?
Sure. What you demonstrate here, Merijeek, is the reason why the lockstep filibuster and utter partisanship is so effective for Republicans and why they are smart to do it. In the end, most people don’t do the critical thought necessary to examine why a particular political outcome occurs, only what occurs.
All it took was one Joe Lieberman, one Ben Nelson, and many people who call themselves progressives and liberals get frustrated and sit home, and you get GOP gains by default. No wonder the tea party gets attention in disproportion to their numbers, and you get Sharron Angles as possible Senators. I hate to say it, but this proves that many of us on the left and center (not just the leaders, but the rank-and-file) are the ones that just don’t get it when it comes to playing the power game.
It’s well and good to handwave the reasons why Senator Reid has to play political games, but it seems counterproductive to me to therefore sit home (and give more power to a group who will do the opposite of what you want, with greater efficiency).
No question, Republicans play the power game better than Democrats. While I may support the Democratic agenda, I freely admit we suck donkey dick at getting it passed. Instead of making an address to Congress and let Joe Wilson take the limelight, Obama should have made the health care case to the people on day 1. This would have pre-empted the creation of the Tea Party. Reid can count noses. He knows he needs 60 and that the other side has 41. Going over the dead bodies of the 41 is more than Reid can do, he needs the bully pulpit of the president to do it, while Obama chases the elusive unicorn known as bipartisanship.
Specifically what do you think he got enacted legislatively that would make Conservatives happy? Anything other then tax-cuts (which weren’t subject to filibuster) and the Patriot Act?
Again, for all the talk of the 2000-2006 Senate playing hardball, they didn’t really do much as far as putative GOP priorities were concerned. Reid has been far more successful the Frist or Lott were. The Health Care Act and Financial Reform aren’t perfect, but they’re probably the biggest legislative successes either party has had since the Johnson Administration.
The AUMF comes to mind, as well as all subsequent war funding bills. But that doesn’t change the thrust of your point, which is well taken. We mustn’t forget that this particular Congress and Administration have had the successes you listed, and this despite the anger of the country over the debacle that was the Bush Administration and his rubber-stamp GOP congress being successfully transferred to them.
For that matter, the Democrats have been better than the Republicans at getting Republican priorities passed, too. The health care bill, for instance, was the strongest anti-abortion legislation we’ve seen in decades, and it would have been stronger yet if the Republicans hadn’t done everything they could to weaken it.
Some dems actually said they did not approve of Bush’s appointments but felt he won the election so he gets to have his way. The repubs don’t have that feeling. They got together as a bloc to stop everything Obama would propose. The dems keep mistaking politics as a gentlemens game with rules. The repubs never quit fighting and lying to get their way.
Obama has not even broomed all the attorney generals and judges that Bush appointed. The repubs saw the power of state and local politics. Obama seems distracted .
Another difference, and one that goes hand-in-hand with this is that I think many if not most Republicans see politics (and everything else) as a contest that can be “won”. I mean, I think that’s why they were so upset by Clinton in '92 and are even more upset by Obama, is that I don’t think they understand well some of the basic concepts involved in participatory democracies, like the fact that politics is an on-going game that will never end unless the republic does. There is no end goal that anyone has, yet they are always talking about mythical end-goals that they are fighting against.
Look at all the things we’re involved in, mostly at Republican behest, that are conflicts that can never be “won”.
That’s some seriously flawed reasoning on display, IMO, to simply label everything as “for” or “a’gin”, “friend” or “foe”*. Sharron Angle displays this kind of simplistic, flawed logic and attitude like it was some new red jacket fashion trend.