As happy as many progressives were to see Sen. Evan Bayh announce his retirement, I’m not sure they realize that the likely Democratic nominee to replace Bayh, Rep. Brad Ellsworth is considerably to Bayh’s right on abortion, gay rights, and gun control. Welcome to Indiana.
It’s become clear over the last 24 hours or so that Sen. Bunning (R-KY) isn’t really alone in his filibuster that’s triggering all these Medicare and Unemployment insurance cuts. He’s being actively assisted or at least encouraged by a number of his Republican colleagues. But in a lot of press reports, not only are reporters unwilling to call it a filibuster, they don’t even mention Bunning’s name. It’s just “senate gridlock.”
Some of this has to do with the fact that even a few days in a lot Democrats seem bizarrely eager to keep this whole thing a secret. But it’s really a press failure. Can you let me know when you see examples of the use of this phrase or other efforts to obscure what’s going on here?
President Obama has sent a letter to congressional leaders outlining four GOP ideas from last week’s health care summit that he’s amenable to including in the reform bill.
To be clear, nearly all the evidence suggests that Democrats went into the summit prepared to moved ahead with or without the Republicans. Likewise, the Republicans went into the summit with no real political upside for them in ceding any ground to the President. Both sides went through the motions to inoculate themselves from the dreaded charge of being too partisan. I can’t really argue with the political logic on either side. But it’s important context, and it means this letter is part of keeping up appearances.
If this were football, you’d say Obama is a quarterback making sure to “sell the fake.”
Why am I not seeing prominent Democrats on TV, actually probably President Obama on TV, saying senate Republicans are wrong to be helping Sen. Bunning (R) create so much suffering for his own kicks and ideological predilections?
It’s a mini-government shutdown but all I’m seeing on TV is “senate gridlock.”
I just got a mass email from The Nation magazine with the headline: “Ford Drops Out/Students Protest Nationwide.” Took me a minute to realize it was two separate stories rather than cause and effect.
Sen. Jim Bunning’s one-man filibuster collapsed quickly this evening. Just as Dems were considering making him actually filibuster, a deal was reached for Bunning to drop his filibuster in return for getting Senate votes on certain amendments Bunning favors but which are unlikely to pass. So sounds like a pretty complete capitulation.
The deal appears to have been engineered in part by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a sign that even the GOP was ready for this tawdry display of the Senate’s Republican-fueled dysfunction to end.