"...and I say your unconstitutional surveillance program doesn't go too far enough!"
mickj writes... "People who voted for democrats last year learned nothing from how republican voters were hoodwinked for the last decade."
Corollary: the democrats who people voted for learned nothing from why those same republicans lost last year.
This comment on metafilter has a point, though. The republicans have essentially flushed decades of legislative etiquette down the toilet to serve Bush's interests. We saw it when the GOP controlled congress: they'd outright ignore democratic committee members, they'd introduce legislation at the last possible instant, they'd change the text of bills after all the voting had been completed.
And now that they don't have an explicit majority, they're manipulating the few safeguards we had in place. The filibuster was meant to be reserved for blatant abuses but the GOP is using it to stonewall just about anything. And because Cheney is the officer and Lieberman is a republican in everything except official party affiliation, the democrats can't use the nuclear option to stop it in the senate.
The worst part is, these tactics might actually work. Case in point: even though the wiretapping expansion was "ayed" by 186 out of 202 republicans and "nayed" by 181 out of 231 democrats in the house, all the publicity about it is painting the story as "democrats approve surveillance program." So the republicans get the legislation that they want, and the democrats get the blame.
This isn't to serve only as a democrat apologia. They may not be able to pass the bills they want, but that doesn't mean they have to accept the GOP versions just to pass something. I wish I could say they're showing that they actually care about government, that they'd rather pass BS legislation than watch America crumble while congress bickers. But I don't think that's true. I think they're scared. They've been battered and bruised as the "pansy party" for so long that they're willing to do just about anything to avoid being tarred with that brush.
The problem is, the people who think of them that way are consummate republicans. The dems aren't going to "win them over" unless they introduce mandatory school prayer, turn the middle east into a glass parking lot, and run a presidential campaign of "Zombie Reagan/Lieberman '08".
In other words, some of the democrats are trying to ditch their smart friends to sit at the "cool" table, without realizing that most people hate the "cool" kids these days.
Corollary: the democrats who people voted for learned nothing from why those same republicans lost last year.
This comment on metafilter has a point, though. The republicans have essentially flushed decades of legislative etiquette down the toilet to serve Bush's interests. We saw it when the GOP controlled congress: they'd outright ignore democratic committee members, they'd introduce legislation at the last possible instant, they'd change the text of bills after all the voting had been completed.
And now that they don't have an explicit majority, they're manipulating the few safeguards we had in place. The filibuster was meant to be reserved for blatant abuses but the GOP is using it to stonewall just about anything. And because Cheney is the officer and Lieberman is a republican in everything except official party affiliation, the democrats can't use the nuclear option to stop it in the senate.
The worst part is, these tactics might actually work. Case in point: even though the wiretapping expansion was "ayed" by 186 out of 202 republicans and "nayed" by 181 out of 231 democrats in the house, all the publicity about it is painting the story as "democrats approve surveillance program." So the republicans get the legislation that they want, and the democrats get the blame.
This isn't to serve only as a democrat apologia. They may not be able to pass the bills they want, but that doesn't mean they have to accept the GOP versions just to pass something. I wish I could say they're showing that they actually care about government, that they'd rather pass BS legislation than watch America crumble while congress bickers. But I don't think that's true. I think they're scared. They've been battered and bruised as the "pansy party" for so long that they're willing to do just about anything to avoid being tarred with that brush.
The problem is, the people who think of them that way are consummate republicans. The dems aren't going to "win them over" unless they introduce mandatory school prayer, turn the middle east into a glass parking lot, and run a presidential campaign of "Zombie Reagan/Lieberman '08".
In other words, some of the democrats are trying to ditch their smart friends to sit at the "cool" table, without realizing that most people hate the "cool" kids these days.