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Something to fill your time between posts

     I was just settling in for a long winter's nap, when out on the lawn there arose such a clatter. I arose from the bed to see what was the matter.
     All right, I'll stop cribbing from a well-known Christmas poem long enough to let you know that it's that time of week again. Yes, that's right, Lonnie has sent me another fisking of Gene Lyons' weekly Arkansas Democrat-Gazette column. I think he's learned his lesson about getting these here on time, although I'm not really going to hold my breath about that. Lonnie's a bit headstrong.
     Anyway, I was able to edit this fairly quickly. (Not as many quotation marks as last time). I've personally checked the links to make sure they are live. As always, links will pop to a new window or tab (depending on your browser), so that you can continue reading.
     Also, as always, my comments are in black, Gene's column is in italicized blue, and Lonnie's are in standard blue.

     Well, here we are in 2008. The old year has passed, and the new year is still sparkling and new. Just out of the box, if you will. People everywhere are making New Years resolutions in an effort to make themselves better. Symbolically giving themselves a new beginning at the start of the New Year.
     Meanwhile, Gene Lyons continues his march toward obscurity by faithfully repeating the same ol' same old. Please keep your hands and feet inside the car at all times, and no flash photography (it scares the liberals).

Nobody asked, but

...that's never stopped you before? Oh, excuse me. I've got to work on not interrupting people whenever they are talking. My New Years' Resolution, you know.

if I were a congressional Democrat, I’d have two New Year’s resolutions. One: No more Mr. Bipartisan Nice Guy.

Yes, because when I think of Democrats, I think of bipartisanship. A willingness to work with others, yep, that's what I think of when somebody says the words "congressional Democrat".

Two: Less substance, more political theater.

How there could be less substance in this crop of congressional Democrats?

If you haven’t noticed, 2008 is an election year.

That Gene. You just can't slip anything by him, can you?

Also, Democrats hold small majorities in both houses. Hence, mewling cries are being heard that ugly partisan wrangling is preventing Americans from joining together in one big joyous hootenanny and solving our problems.

Democrats hold four more seats now than when the Republicans were in control in 2005. From wiki. In 2005, Republicans held 229 seats, Democrats held 201. Now, those numbers are nearly reversed, with Democrats holding 233 seats and Republicans holding 202. Amazing how Republicans were able to push through their agenda with fewer seats, but Democrats can't do the same with more seats.
And "mewling cries" were heard in 2005 that "ugly partisan wrangling" was "preventing Americans from joining together". Of course, back in 2005, it was the Democrats doing the "mewling", but that's not important right now.

One Democratic presidential candidate, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, appears to be basing his campaign on this fond delusion, although his “bipartisanship” consists largely of attacking rivals’ motives

So, he's taking his strategy right out of the Democratic playbook?
Three guesses as to who Gene is going to vote for when election time rolls around. Here's a hint: her husband was the subject of Neil Conanson and Gene's book, The Hunting of the President. But I've said too much already.

while recycling right-wing scare stories like the imaginary Social Security crisis,

Imaginary?

then offering himself as a healer. It’s the old Adlai Stevenson / Jimmy Carter too-pure-for-politics pose. Hearing it from a career Chicago politician may be a bit much, but there’s always an audience for sentimentality.

There's the kiss of death for a politician: being compared to Jimmuh Cahrter. Those of you too young to have had Jimmuh as a President, count your lucky stars. For some of us, there are three kinds of Presidents: good, bad, and Jimmuh.
How about hearing from another Illinois politician. "You can fool some of the people some of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time."
Aw, hell, what does he know? Abe was a Republican.

But the most insistent proponents of mushmelon

Don't ask me; I have no idea what that is, either.

bipartisanship are pundits like The Washington Post’s David Broder, forever cautioning Democrats about the political perils of not giving President Bush whatever he wants. “The Dean” recently cautioned House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that “public approval ratings for Congress have sunk below their level when Republicans were still in control,” warning that “in less than a year, the voters will deliver their own verdict.”

Now as even Broder concedes, Democrats in Congress are measurably more popular than Republicans (40 percent favorable to 32 percent ). They also exceed Bush’s favorability ratings, which remain near rock-bottom.

Really? Here is Mr. Bush's numbers which average at 35.4% approval ratings. The lowest poll numbers for Mr. Bush are 32%, while the highest are 38%. Not great, but we've seen worse.
Here are the Congressional numbers. The average is 25%, with the lowest being 21% and the highest being 32%.
Now, I've just had a public school education, but I think even the dimmest bulb can understand that 35.4% is higher than 25%.
And conversely, 25% is lower than 35.4%.
Now, instead of saying that "35.4% has a higher rating than 25%", we just plug the words "President Bush" into where it says "35.4%", and "congressional Democrats" in where it says "25%", and let's see what it says.
"President Bush" has a higher rating than "congressional Democrats".
Ooops.
So, even with the most favorable scenario for Democrats, Congress and President Bush are tied at 32% approval points. Nothing earthshaking, but still Gene's argument is laid bare as the hooey that it really is.

Diehard GOP partisans aside, most Americans have basically given up on this White House and are simply waiting for Bush to go away.

Hmmm, apparently 4 out of every 10 Americans are "diehard GOP partisans".

Polls also show that on most critical issues—Iraq, health care, energy policy—healthy majorities favor Democratic solutions.

Sources?

To the extent that congressional Democrats are unpopular, it’s mainly their failure to end the Iraq war. It’s become common to hear denunciations of Democratic “cowardice” on the issue.

Where there's smoke, there's fire.
On a more serious note, it sounds like a failure of leadership to me. Either the American people want these changes (which I don't believe they do) and Pelosi and Reid are unable to enact them, or Pelosi and Reid know that the American people don't really want these changes and are just political posturing for the left-wing moon-bats in their base. I personally subscribe to the second theory, but what do I know?

Call me jaded,

I have a whole list of things to call you, Gene, and jaded is far down the list. But thanks for the invite!

but my attitude can best be summarized by something the late Sen. Bobby Kennedy told a friend of mine: “You don’t have to be a genius to succeed in politics, but you do have to be able to count.”

Gee, another anonymous source.

The reason congressional Democrats haven’t ended the war is that Bush won’t budge and they simply can’t make him.

Isn't that what leaders are supposed to do? Make decisions and follow them, not wet their finger and stick it in the wind to see which way the wind is blowing?

He plans to pass the whole mess on to his successor along with (he hopes) the blame for whatever disasters follow U. S. withdrawal.

Yes, Bush planned the whole thing. What an evil genius he is! Of course, if there is a democracy in Iraq before 10 years are up, it will be because of the efforts of Democratic leadership and visionaries.
Right.

Alas, getting out of Baghdad won’t be as simple as issuing 150,000 airline tickets. Pulling the plug on war funding has melodramatic appeal, but it wouldn’t be a real-world option even if the Democratic leadership had the votes, which they manifestly do not.

B-b-b-bu-but the Democrats had a mandate! They were elected to stop Bush!

That’s true on a whole host of issues.

What happened to the mandate?

Senate Democrats not only can’t muster the two-thirds vote needed to override presidential vetoes, they often can’t generate the 60 votes needed to bring issues to a vote.

B-b-bu-but they had a mandate from the people!

It’s a fact that Washington journalists appear oddly loath to share with the public.

And yet, we're still able to figure it out.

The word “filibuster” doesn’t appear in Broder’s column.

Neither does the word "dumbass", but here's Gene talking about it.

Yet according to a report by the Campaign for America’s Future,

A named source? I'm too shocked for words.
But who is this Campaign for America's Future? From their "About Us" page , we have this little tantalizing tidbit. "America's Future insists that the question of falling wages and rising insecurity be placed at the center of our national debate. We challenge those who suggest that nothing can be done and expose the conservative agenda that has made things worse. America's Future works to revitalize a progressive agenda, and fights to make this economy work for working people once again."
Ah, see? "Expose" the conservative agenda, while "revitalize" the progressive agenda.

And from the list of founders and advisors, we have the usual suspects. A select list:

Susan Bianchi-Sand, National Committee on Pay Equity;
Julian Bond, NAACP Board Chair;
Bob Chase, National Education Association;
* Jeff Cohen, FAIR;
Mitchell Cohen, Dissent, Co-Editor;
Dudley Dudley, Women Legislator's Lobby;
* Barbara Ehrenreich, Writer;
Steve Fraser, Houghton Mifflin;
Betty Friedan;
Heidi Hartmann, Inst. for Women's Policy Research;
Tom Hayden, California Legislature;
Denis Hayes, Earth Day founder;
Patricia Ireland, National Organization for Women;
* Jesse L. Jackson, Rainbow Coalition;
Michael Kazin, Author, Populist Persuasion;
Judith Lichtman, National Partnership for Women and Families;
Ray Marshall, University of Texas-Austin, Former Secretary of Labor;
Jay Mazur, UNITE;
Michael McCloskey, Environmentalist;
Howard Metzenbaum, US Senator (retired);
Steve Protulis, National Council of Senior Citizens;
Miles Rapoport, President of Demos: A Network for Ideas & Action, Former Connecticut Secretary of State;
* Robert Reich, Brandeis University, Former Secretary of Labor;
Sumner Rosen, Jobs for All;
* Richard Rothstein;
Lillian Rubin, Institute for the Study of Social Change;
Susan Shaer, Women's Action for New Direction;
Francis Smith, GreenVote;
* John J. Sweeney, AFL-CIO;
Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO;
Michael Walzer, Dissent, Co-Editor;
Leslie R. Wolfe, Center for Women Policy Studies;
Stephen P. Yokich, United Auto Workers.

Now everything becomes clear. No bias here, nosiree.

Senate Republicans have already broken the single-term historical record for blocking the most legislation, and the session’s not half over.

Hee, hee, hee. Cut those RINO's out of Congress, and suddenly Republicans have grown something resembling a spine.

Remember the so-called Nuclear Option? The phrase was Republican Sen. Trent Lott’s. Holding a 55-44 majority in 2005, Republicans were unable to invoke cloture, i.e., muster the 60 votes needed to force up or down votes on a handful of Bush’s crackpot judicial appointments.

Just to remind you, "crackpot" = appointing people to the bench who actually believe that the Constitution means what it says and nothing more.

This they denounced as an insult to Dear Leader

Because Bush is so inflexible. I think that's why so many liberals don't like Bush; he does what he promises to do. He promised to cut taxes when elected, and he did. Boy, did that drive the liberals nuts.
Maybe the Senate Republicans should call Bush a "phony soldier". Or "Darth Bush". That would get Gene on their side. But name-calling is bad.

and an affront to democracy. They floated a plan to change Senate rules allowing unlimited debate

Unlimited debate? Why, we can't have that!

until the bipartisan Gang of 14 senators

One of which, sadly, included my Senator. *sigh* But isn't it funny how we don't hear about them anymore? If I was one of those 14 idiots, er um, senators is what I meant to say, I'd be pretty pissed. I mean, they cut this deal so that they could have more political influence, and now? Pbbbbt. Nothing. Nobody consults them anymore.

came up with a compromise in which Democrats promised to filibuster very rarely.

"Very rarely." What a promise.
"I don't know what the problem is, yer Honor. I never promised to stop beating my wife. I merely promised to beat her very rarely."

With Democrats now holding a narrow 50-49 Senate majority, Lott’s attitude has changed.
“The strategy of being obstructionist can work or fail,” he chuckles, “... and so far it’s working for us.”

B-b-b-bu-but I thought that not changing your strategy was a sign of being inflexible. Now it means - well, I don't know what Gene's objection here is.

According to the Campaign for America’s Future, the Republican minority has blocked 63 pieces of legislation out of existence.

Score 63 for the good guys and America!

“That’s like breaking the single season home-run record before the All-Star break,” comments Steve Benen on his carpetbaggerreport. com weblog.

Huh? I don't understand the significance of this sentence. I think what he's trying to say is that what happens before the break doesn't really matter, it's what happens after the break that will be significant.
I'm sure it's supposed to sound bad, but it seems to me that breaking a record before the All-Star break means that they are on a record pace to shatter all known records.

Among them were bills not only aimed at ending the U. S. occupation of Iraq,

But they had a mandate!

but extending health insurance to millions of children,

Mandate!

empowering Medicare to bargain for lower drug prices

Mandate!

and repealing the ban on embryonic stem-cell research.

Mandate!

Yet voters don’t know it,

You stupid voters! It's up to me and smart people like me to educate you. If only you read the same intellectuals I do, you would be against those stupid Republicans and we would sweep into Congress with a 100% Democratic majority.

partly because the media have all but quit using the word “filibuster.”

It's not the Democrats' fault! Honest!

Also because Reid, whether for reasons of comity or efficiency, routinely invokes cloture votes that let the GOP minority win without a struggle.

Er, I mean, how dare he! Even when the Republicans are in the minority, they still are powerful enough to make the Democrats do what they want. We could have 1 Republican in the Congress, with the rest of Congress made up of Democrats, and they still wouldn't be able to pass any legislation over those obstructionist Republicans.

Well, enough responsibility.

But you just said Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi haven't been leading, i.e. not taking responsibility.

They want to filibuster? Fine.

Uh-oh. Gene's rolling up his sleeves. Run for the hills!

Make them put on a show. Let Republicans talk all they want about the evils of children’s health insurance.

Actually, Gene, Republicans weren't talking about "the evils of children's health insurance". They objected because the plan was to expand government control, and raising taxes to do it, and making a small percentage of people pay for something that they had nothing to do with. But other than that, you've got it right, Gene.

Voters always claim they want solemn debate, but what gets their attention is cheap theater.

Yes, that's why they were outraged when Lloyd Benson said to Vice-President Dan Quayle that he "was no Jack Kennedy." Remember all of the outrage that caused?
You don't?
Huh. Isn't that strange?
Well, here we are at the end of another Gene Lyons column. You've read it, you can't unread it!