That said, we need to be cognizant of the clear fact that if these guys aren’t stopped, there won’t be anything left to defend. And stopped soon, for that matter. For the four years after 9/11, I had the sick feeling that this country was about one terrorist attack – one burning of the Reichstag – away from a full-on fascist regime lasting from here to eternity. That may still be the case, though it is also clear that the American public has wised up, at least somewhat.
But, the thing is, the situation is analogous to Europe in the late 30s, I’d say (and if we can thank the Nazis for anything, we can certainly thank them for the wealth of historical metaphors they bequeathed us, although we of course manage to misapply them as often as not). That is to say, you may hate war, and you may even be a subscriber to pacifism, but once Hitler puts his Wehrmacht on a roll, you have only two choices, war or fascism. And, for that matter, often even the former was a long-odds crap shoot – meaning that you could wind up with both: (a losing) war, only to be followed by the further joys of occupation and fascism. Ask the French or the Poles.
Bush is no Hitler, though Cheney fairly salivates in that direction. There may be a difference in scale between invading all of Europe and invading Iraq, and between the Gestapo and Guantánamo, but it is not a difference of kind. And, of course, we’re not done yet.
Which means that, no, as a matter of fact, in this scenario I don’t want the Democrats to continue doing their very best Neville Chamberlain impressions. We’ve all seen that movie, and we know how it ends.
Even worse than the abject failure of the Democrats in Congress to protect us from these monsters is that, truthfully, they really wouldn’t have to resort to being Roves or Cheneys to go up against Rove and Cheney. At this point, I wouldn’t mind a bit seeing them take some of the shots suggested above. (Especially because, unlike the GOP transgressions, these jabs are based in factual and moral truth. There’s a world of difference between pointing out Cheney’s Vietnam record and repeating back his own words about that, on the one hand, and turning Max Cleland into Osama bin Laden, on the other.)
But if squeamishness is an issue, that sort of skirmishing isn’t even particularly necessary. Even if the Democrats don’t have the stomach for hardball politics, how about just using the institutional powers given to them for just this purpose by an angry public in the last election? Watching the party fold a powerfully winning hand on the war appropriations bill last month was a sickening visage. Bush needed that money for his dramatically unpopular war – why not continue sending him the same bill (which gave him the money, after all, along with Congressional strings attached) and let him keep vetoing it? This despised and mistrusted president couldn’t plausibly claim Democrats were withholding funding for the troops as he kept vetoing that very thing.
And while we’re talking here about simple institutional remedies to the current nightmare, how about just passing some good old fashioned legislation? That is what Congress is for, isn’t it? Why can’t the Democrats just keep sending the White House bill after bill of popular legislation – stripped of all earmarks and other distractions – and let Bush cast veto after veto of laws and programs the public wants? Healthcare, environmental protection, reform of government corruption, progressive tax reform, workplace protections, college funding, stem cell research, et cetera, et cetera, and yet cetera. If you can’t get these into law, at the very least the public should know just which party is blocking the legislation they favor. Make these guys own their unpopular ideas, and make them pay for them!
Ah, but you’re no doubt thinking, there’s the prospect of the dreaded filibuster to worry about (careful, now – you’re channeling Harry Reid here). And it’s true – since the Democrats took control of Congress in January, the GOP has repeatedly used the threat of a filibuster to block consideration of important legislation. But, hey Harry, why do you keep playing that game? Why not revert to the old system, in which a minority had to actually filibuster – rather than just threaten to do so – in order to block business in the Senate? Make them pay for their obstinance. Make them own their regressive and unpopular ideas. Do Republicans really want to be seen fighting bravely for days on end to ensure that the Senate does not actually discuss what to do about an unpopular war? Do they think blocking even the discussion of potential solutions would make them look good? Do they really want to stand in the well of the Senate like Jimmy Stewart, disheveled and covered in ten o’clock shadows, defending the principle that there cannot be any discussion of a no-confidence motion on Alberto Gonzales? Well then, for goodness sake, let them! Heck, it’d be worth it just to see Trent Lott’s plasto-hair get mussed!
And while we’re talking about the lovely Alberto here, what in the world does the guy have to do for Democrats to impeach him?! That’s done in the house, anyhow, where there’s no filibuster, where the Democrats have a healthy majority, and where majorities do what ever they want to minorities. Does Gonzales need to get caught with a congressional page in his office, pants down at his ankles? And would it have to be a male page, at that, for Pelosi to find sufficient grounds to allow impeachment proceedings to go forward? How many administration officials have to appear before Congress and lie before Democrats use this power in a case screaming out for it as if it were a stadium full of Beatles fans, circa 1964? How many have to come and demonstrate their contempt of Congress with displays of their suddenly porous memories? How many of Karl Rove’s email messages have to get deleted before something actually happens?
And what about the Congressional power of the purse? Hey, Dingbat Dems – yeah, you guys over there by that bag of hammers – wake up! First of all, you shouldn’t be funding GOP pet projects anyhow, because they suck. But even if you can’t find it within yourselves to pull the trigger for that reason, how about at least exercising a little leverage to get what you want in return? Maybe if you spiked an absurdly jive ‘missile defense’ boondoggle or two every once in a while, Rove’s missing emails would suddenly and miraculously reappear, eh? You getting my meaning here?
Probably not.
What’s most astonishing about the Democrats is that they are so beaten down, so practiced in the art of capitulation, so used to identifying with their tormentors in some sort of twisted political version of the Stockholm syndrome, that they can’t even manage to serve their core personal interests anymore. You gotta figure that the Joe Bidens and the Steny Hoyers of this world could at least pull off the one thing politicians are best known for, at the expense of all else. You’d think that they could minimally protect their jobs, whatever that took. And yet they stand by watching, mouths agape, like passengers on a train that just passed their intended station, as the GOP rigs elections, and when that isn’t enough then uses the Justice Department to steal them even more efficiently still. Good one, fellas! Maybe a brief chat with Tom Daschle would be instructive here. Sure, he’s a nice guy. But he’s also a former senator, too. Get it?
If Reid were Rove, this sh*t would never happen. If Reid were Rove, Republicans would tremble at the prospect of indulging their worst tendencies, however tempting, knowing that a mountain of woe would be dumped on their heads were they to trash the institutions of American democracy, knowing that they would be ridiculed mercilessly if they tried hawking their unpatriotic and hypocritical lies, knowing that they would be pummeled into ER cases with do not resuscitate orders if they advocated politics which were in fact detrimental to most voters, in order to benefit elites. If Reid were Rove, the Republican Party would either change its politics, or it would have representation in Congress truly proportional to the one-half of one percent of Americans whose interests it actually represents. If Reid were Rove, there’d be some Republican clown – maybe Joe Lieberman – from Greenich, Connecticut in the House, and that’d be the entirety of the national GOP congressional delegation.
If Reid were Rove, life would have been a lot happier this last quarter century, and there’d be a lot of people alive today who aren’t otherwise.
But, then again, if Reid had been Rove all these years, there would never have been any Rove in the first place.
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