NYT: In Search of a Congress
Mining the same theme as Wolves, the NYT wrote on Friday:
If you were one of the Americans waiting for Congress, under Democratic control, to show leadership on the war in Iraq, the message from the Senate is clear: “Nevermind.” The same goes for those waiting for lawmakers to fix the damage done to civil liberties by six years of President Bush and a rubber-stamp Republican Congress.
The Democrats don’t have, or can’t summon, the political strength to make sure Congress does what it is supposed to do: debate profound issues like these and take a stand. The Republicans are simply not interested in a serious discussion and certainly not a vote on anything beyond Mr. Bush’s increasingly narrow agenda.
[...]
Democrats and Republicans who oppose the war have a duty to outline alternatives. Those who call for staying in Iraq have a duty to explain what victory means and how they plan to achieve it. Both sides are shirking an obligation to deal with issues that must be resolved right now, like the crisis involving asylum for Iraqis who helped the American occupation.
Congress is the first place for this kind of work. Right now, it seems like the last place it will happen.
September 24th, 2007 at 9:18 pm
The Senate Democratic majority is illusionary; on paper only. There 49 Democratic Senators, 49 Republican Senators, and two independents; Bernie Sanders (VT) and Joe Lieberman (CT).
The on paper Democratic majority flows from the fact that both Independent Senators allied with the Democrats, but on issues related to Iraq, Lieberman cannot rationally be deemed a Democrat.
Add to this the fact that Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD) missed the first 7 months of the 110th Congress due to brain surgery, and suddenly, when scoring matters regarding Iraq, The Republicans had the majority, 50-49.
Furthermore, there are many Congressional procedural votes that require a 3/5 supermajority to pass, notably cloture. This was the technique Democrats used to block a few of Bush’s most radical judicial appointees from coming up into the full Senate for a confirmation vote. It is also the method used by the GOP leadership on September 19, 2007, to block an Up or Down vote on an Amendment to the current Defense Funding Bill that would have reinstated habeas corpus rights to detainees. The tally was four votes less than the requisite 60, and all Democrats, Sanders, and 6 Republicans voted in assent to the Cloture call. (http://tinyurl.com/2jqxc3)
I am not a member of any political party, but it is disingenuous to blame the Democrats for being unable to stop the Iraq war, and this only serves the beltway’s true resident evil, unyielding GOP leadership’s support for the Son of Bush. It is vitally important at this time that the American liberal/left does not fallback into their historical pattern of self-deprecating hand-wringing doubt and limp-wristed incriminations. Ordinarily, this tendency to form into a circular firing squad brings me great amusement. Not presently though, as this pertains to issues of Human Freedoms and Liberties, which this present administration has attacked with deadly force.
Please think rationally, and pierce the complexities of reality.
September 25th, 2007 at 10:53 am
If we want Senators and Representatives to represent most of us, we have to make it possible for most of us to select and elect them. Most of us now can’t compete with the money & power minority in selecting and electing our representative. For us to compete, we have to unite and provide public financing of the election process.
Until this happens, congress will remain faithful minority benefactors.
Mike Knefaty
September 28th, 2007 at 12:43 pm
The problem is the cozy relationship between those that fund our politicians campaigns and those that are the customers of the media.
Until we have a media free from this corruption and is REQUIRED by law to publish the truth instead of adverts labeled as “opinion” pieces.
The annual orgy at Bohemian grove probably provides the forum to decide what you and I will “know”; a sort of “truth” forum where the group decides on the truth for the coming year.
America needs not just separation of Church and state, but more importantly separation of Corp and $tate.