…because at least some news outlets are putting the blame where it needs to go: squarely on the shoulders of Mitch’s crew. With Congress wrapping up for the year, the 2007 in review articles are out, and while it’s nice to see the GOP take the blame for once, it’s still the Dems’ responsibility to not vote FOR Bush’s blank checks and unchecked powers.
Lawmakers in Congress end the year with a few major accomplishments such as the energy bill, some failures such as the immigration overhaul, and a number of compromises and frustrations. Democrats, who took the reins of both the House and Senate in January, acknowledge feeling deeply frustrated by a Republican Senate minority that set a new record for filibusters this year, blocking much of the Democratic agenda.
It’s a start, of course. The Dems aren’t entirely without blame either. But the Village Narrative up until now has consisted almost wholly of ledes like today’s WaPo knuckle rapping.
The first Democratic-led Congress in a dozen years limped out of Washington last night with a lengthy list of accomplishments, from the first increase in fuel-efficiency standards in a generation to the first minimum-wage hike in a decade.
But Democrats’ failure to address the central issues that swept them to power left even the most partisan of them dissatisfied and Congress mired at a historic low in public esteem.
And as usual, nowhere in the article is even a mention of the Republicans setting a record for number of filibusters in a Congress only halfway through the session. In fact, the blame here goes to the Democrats. It does mention at the end that the Democrats have a very minor majority, but it doesn’t mention why it needs more than that to get anything passed. Only at the end of the article is the word filibuster even mentioned.
This has left many Democrats resorting to openly political arguments, picking up a theme that Republicans hurled at them — obstructionism — during their many years in the minority. Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) conceded that it is time for Democrats to forget about trumpeting accomplishments that voters will never give them credit for — and time to change the message to a starkly political one: If you want change, elect more Democrats.
Sen. Richard J. Durbin (Ill.), the Senate Democratic whip tasked with trying to find 60 votes for a filibuster-proof majority, acknowledged this week that Democrats’ biggest failure stemmed from expecting “more Republicans to take an independent stance” on Iraq. Instead, most of them stood with Bush.
Most of them are standing with Bush because it’s working, especially with the “liberal press” aiding and abetting by putting 90% of the blame on the Dems all the time, and then saying that the problem is that the Democrats need to compromise more. Funny how that works.
But that’s been the Republican plan all along. Let’s take a look at Chimpy’s press conference today.
President Bush plans to give his opinion of the work Congress completed this session during a year-end press conference Thursday.
“The president will talk about the good, bad and the unfinished when it comes to legislation,” White House press secretary Dana Perino told reporters in a conference call Thursday morning.
Of course, Bush will attack the Dems for not completely capitulating to his every whim as Caesar, but at least SOMEBODY’s noticed that the problem is the GOP’s de facto 60 vote limit in the Senate.
But all that does is highlight the village pundits and their incessant clucking about working together.
“Our politics today encourages confrontation over compromise,” Brownstein writes. “The political system now rewards ideology over pragmatism. It is designed to sharpen disagreements rather than construct consensus. It is built on exposing and inflaming the differences that separate Americans rather than the shared priorities and values that unite them.”
Brownstein puts primary blame on conservative Republicans for the rise of “warrior” politics, especially former Speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (Texas), Bush and his former guru, Karl Rove, and their allies on talk radio.
But he observes that Democrats are catching up in hyperpartisanship, flogged on by MoveOn.org and leftist bloggers. Mainstream media, too, encourage conflict over consensus. And the public has become ideologically “sorted,” as well, making the GOP more conservative, Democrats more liberal and moderates torn.
You see, we’re just as much of a “hyper-partisan problem” as Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich, and Tom Delay to the Village, as well as Rush and Savage and the radio jocks. The difference is of course all three of those guys are gone but the radio jocks and the lefty bloggers still stubbornly remain like the crazy old uncle at your holiday party, the one that won’t leave until he explains just what’s wrong with the damn government to everyone he can find. Right wing bloggers get a pass of course. No hyper-partisanship there!
It’s silly. It’s a year into this Congress and only now is the village even reluctantly admitting that there might be something fishy going on with that 60-vote threshold in the Senate due to all the blockading going on, and they have to be bludgeoned into that. All the while, they continue to blame the Dems with the “Well if you legislate like that, you’re just ASKING for it” reasoning.
Until the Dems stand up to this, it’ll just keep happening.