Because the rules of the Senate require unanimous consent (or 60 votes) to accomplish anything, one member can make any other member’s life miserable just by refusing to grant their consent to move to a vote. That breeds a collegial, non-confrontational culture that has many virtues. There is much to admire about how the Senate operates, especially when you compare it to the venomous House. But it has its downsides, as The Hill points out this morning in an article about Susan Collins’ hurt feelings. Sen. Collins is smarting because several senators campaigned for her opponent in her home state of Maine. The article uses the example of Norm Coleman, when he first arrived in the Senate six years ago.
Coleman learned that personal politics are not quickly forgotten in the chamber. He discovered that shortly after he came to the Senate and criticized Sen. Byron Dorgan (D) during an appearance on a conservative talk radio show in Western Minnesota.
Dorgan, who represents neighboring North Dakota, told his Republican colleague: “If you make it personal it will have an impact.”
Coleman said he then resolved never to attack a colleague.
“Relationships are always important,” he said. “I was reminded of that when I first got here and I never forgot that.”
Dorgan said that his rule is “that I don’t go someplace to campaign with somebody to speak ill of a colleague.”
A Republican colleague once attacked him in his home state, Dorgan recalled, and “I was pretty displeased with that person” and it had an impact on their relationship.
It didn’t take much of a warning for Sen. Dorgan to convince Coleman to shut his pie hole. Coleman knew that Dorgan could short circuit any bill that Coleman wanted to see passed. The Democrat’s merciful stance towards Joe Lieberman is easier to understand in this context. Yet, this deferential attitude can go too far if senators are unwilling to hold each other accountable. I think another problem we have in our political culture is the great deference we grant to war heroes. Randy ‘Duke’ Cunningham was one of the Air Force’s most accomplished pilots and a model for the movie Top Gun, and now he is in prison for taking bribes. John McCain bravely endured five and a half years in a dismal Vietnamese prison camp, but was a member of the disgraced Keating 5. Charlie Rangel is a decorated veteran of the Korean War and the powerful chairman of the House Ways & Means committee, but he traded legislation for donations to a charity (a City College program built in his honor).
It’s an old saw that power corrupts, and young idealistic politicians can lose their moral compass after spending decades in Congress. The whole culture inside Congress is far too forgiving of corruption, as seen most recently in the obscenely long standing ovation the Senate gave to convicted felon, Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska. At the top of the power structure on Capitol Hill, I think the players see politics much like an arm-wrestling match. The two sides fight back and forth, one side sometimes taking the edge only to let slip the advantage to the other side. It’s rare when one side actually gets a pin, as has happened in the most recent election. The inclination, at the top, is to give the other side a pass for all the shenanigans they attempted during the battle. Now, they think, it’s time to arm-wrestle anew…on an even playing field. No looking back to the last match.
Of course, these are the kind of distorted values you develop when you see politics more as a sport than as a calling and a service. The very collegiality that makes the Senate a pleasant place to work is also the clubbiness that refuses to disqualify an opponent for tripping or slashing. Commit seven felonies and bring disgrace upon the whole institution? No problem, have a standing ovation for your decades of distinguished service. Isn’t this like applauding Barry Bonds for all the Home Runs he hit while he was juiced up on steroids? No one disputes that Pete Rose was one of the best baseball players to ever play the game. But he’s not in the Hall of Fame because he disgraced the league by betting on the game.
Every time we have a new administration there is a strong inclination to keep a forward looking focus and to forgive the sins of the past. It’s good politics. But there are good, solid reasons of good governance why we should not give a pass to lawbreaking. And there is a whole world out there that doesn’t forget our sins even if we do our best to make sure we do.
Charlie Rangel needs to step down as chairman of the Ways & Means committee. And the Democrats need to find a way to hold the Bush administration accountable for their crimes.
I think this laissez-faire attitude towards accountability and personal responsibility for ones actions, which we have so glaringly witnessed in the Senate, is really but a microcosm of an attitude which has really pervaded the entire country. I’m not quite sure if the genesis of this can be pinpointed to a specific period. But I certainly have taken notice over the last twenty years that it has become increasingly fashionable to eschew personal responsibility in favor of giving offenders what amounts to a pass on their irresponsibilities and indiscretions.
From the corporate CEO’s and down through the middle class, it has become almost a societal attitude that you should be permitted to do anything if it furthers your own personal interests. This sense of entitlement that has developed in the minds of many leads to a no-holds-barred mentality that allows people to justify their personal actions as permissible because the primary driver is “nobody is looking out for my interests, so I’ve got to do whatever is necessary to help ME.” It is the true culmination of the Ownership Society, which has been the long term goal of the conservative world since time immemorial.
It took a national and worldwide crisis of epic proportions to give us a chance to stop this attitude in its tracks. We now have a majority in this country who once again feel a sense of common purpose. And that is why those who have fostered and promoted this anything-goes attitude in this country are kicking and screaming, yelling “SOCIALISM” at every turn and working overtime to convince people that Obama and his minions are the progeny of Satan. Because if people come to the realization that government can actually improve their lives and give them a fighting chance to not only get their piece of the pie, but that their neighbors and fellow countrymen can also get a fair share too, then the whole argument they have been pushing for over a generation goes down in flames. And then they are left with nothing but a smoldering pile of useless garbage on which to try and rebuild their utopian world of an uninvolved and ineffective government.
Let’s put the stake through this demon’s heart once and for all. We finally have a chance to do it.
Nicely written, BooMan, and you too, Mike. Yes, times are changing and an opportunity exists, I think, to bring in or, at least, start bringing in a different philosophy, one of helping others besides oneself. As the economy comes down around us and as the bankers and industrialists are exposed in all their naked selfishness and greed, we will have the opportunity to emphasize other values, altruistic values.
Of course, the Senate with its traditional ways may well block reform legislation. And, the Republicans are as insensitive and uncaring as always. Still, as grief and misery mount with more people sleeping under bridges and and in abandoned cars (shades of 1929-32 when another Republican president was in charge), the pressure to do things differently will increase significantly.
That is when Obama, if he is ready and willing and I think he will be, can really make his mark. The field is being made ready; substantial reforms, here we come.
I saw a piece wondering what to do with prisoners at Guantanamo who leave there and are so angry at how they were treated that they turn to terrorism to take revenge. I’m like “Well gee, wouldn’t it be a good idea to, y’know, punish the people who had them locked up for so long?” If the prisoners there see their tormentors tossed into jail for their actions, wouldn’t that reduce their desire for revenge?
Is there any other practical, sane way to protect ourselves from the people we’ve had locked up for so long?
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