A nuclear freeze?

April 14, 2005

Senate Dems are moving ahead with their judicial-nominee plans, working under the assumption that Bill Frist & Co. will try to execute the “nuclear option” as early as next week. Republicans, meanwhile, are slowly coming to an unwelcome realization: they’re losing.

Senate Republican leaders were due to meet last night amid rising concern that they are being beaten on the “nuclear option” by Sen. Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) public-relations war room.

The GOP’s talks follow a meeting last week in which aides warned Bob Stevenson, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s (R-Tenn.) communications director, that something needs to be done to win back lost ground, a participant said.

“I think there’s a realization that this particular [Democratic] effort has to be countered and they’re in full-scale attack mode,” a GOP aide said, adding, “I think that people know that we’ve got a serious problem here.”

Another GOP aide said: “There’s a general sense in the rank and file that we are a little in the hole and that Democrats have been more aggressive on messaging, that we’ve kind of gone dark. Democrats have gotten a head start and defined the issue ahead of us.”

I know I’ve gushed over Harry Reid on a few occasions, but he really does deserve a lot of credit for the Dems’ success so far. Republicans may yet find the votes they need to go “nuclear,” but when was the last time we saw a Senate Minority Leader with only 44 seats run circles around a Senate Majority Leader this effectively?

Harry Reid is the man. Daschle losing may have been the best thing that happened to Democrats last year.

  • The greatest credit should go to Bush himself. Not only has he spent all of his political capital, he’s also taken all of the political oxygen out of Washington… with his bizarre strategy of destroying Social Security in order to save it. Coupled with continuing bad news from Iraq and the knowledge that this is ipso facto Bush’s last term, the American public is starting to come around to the view that Bush is not the President they want.

  • I have to politely disagree with Sean. I think that Tom DeLay deserves most the credit. Sure, racking up 2 trillion in debt while gutting an extremely popular government program is a pretty stupid way to flex one’s political might, but Bush, ultimately, is a lame duck. GOP members of Congress can stand on the fence and weigh their options with his policies before joining the fray.

    The Hammer is a different story. He is like the bad cop in some B movie about Internal Affairs. He has literally constructed a mob style collection and payola system. This was extremely effective until he forgot about being a behind-the-scenes power broker and convinced himself that he would actually be popular outside of small circles of the mentally ill. The combination of actually being a dirtbag (remember, one of his lavish trips centers around keeping legislation to close sweat shops and under age sex shops in a US protectorate) and picking a subject on which even Fundementalist nutcase are almost evenly divided to elevate his stature has really shifted a payola/rubber-stamp-for-Shrub Congress into one that appears corrupt, disfunctional, and out of control.

    What makes it hard for the GOP is that DeLay is at the center of the pay-to-play web which essentally all GOP members of the house participate in. They know that if he survives and they didn’t give fealty, the retribution will be terrible. On the other hand, staying on board and ultimately voting ‘yes’ on extortion and payola from the teenage sex slave trade, can put even a gerrymandered seat in peril.

    -jjf

  • -jjf and Sean,
    You both make some very good points but let’s face it these guys are all in it together each emboldening the other, meaning that there is more than one fox guarding the henhouse so to speak.
    The White House couldn’t have pulled off a lot of the things that they have done without Conressional support and vice versa.
    I think that at this point I view most of the reich-wingers as equally bad and all tied for first place in a race to the bottom.
    Not only do I have praise for Harry Reid, but Boxer, Kerry and Conyers also rate pretty high on my list. Nothing like thinking the ship is sinking to make us all start rowing a little harder.
    I also want to thank the Carpetbagger among others for his efforts, otherwise I might be stuck with reading my local newspaper and thinking that all was fine with the world.

  • Harry Reid is impressive and I’m totally happy with the job he’s doing. But this crowing and poo-poohing is utter bullshit. Just because *we* think (or worse, *say*) that they are being ridiculous, losing, etc, doesn’t mean that they are! It also doesn’t mean they’re going to stop either! Remember, the general public is only paying partial attention to this stuff, *and* what they get is all right-wing media bullshit too.

    The wingnuts are “in a bubble”. And that means they will not stop. Ever. Until they are politically dead, and even then they might return from the grave (umm, did you see that Trent Lott is going to run for Frist’s job again in 2008?). These beasts don’t understand “no”, and they don’t recognise or acknowledge any setback.

    But how the hell can we criticise them for being in a bubble, when we ourselves are in a totally different bubble of self-congratulations, derisive laughter, snide comments, and backslapping. STOP IT! Congratulating ourselves on having stopped these clowns WILL NOT STOP THEM! Do you hear me? They are NOT STOPPING! They’re still moving forward with the damned nuclear option, regardless of what public opinion says. They DO NOT CARE. They are radical revolutionaries. They cannot be appeased or negotiated with, nor will common decency slow them down for even a second.

    Here’s what all of us have to keep in mind. If you are attempting a revolution, being in a bubble *works*. It keeps you from being discouraged. It keeps morale up. It *helps* you to win! That is why they are doing it.

    BUT. If you are trying to *stop* a revolution, then being in a bubble is suicidal! And that’s what we’re trying to do: stop their insane revolution. Because no amount of congratulating yourselves on how many “sensible people” are recoiling in horror from the revolutionaries will acutally *stop* the revolutionaries! They’re like dawn of the dead, they just keep coming at you.

    This should be easy for us. We look at Iraq and go: hah, mission NOT accomplished, our guys are still getting shot at. And we laugh at the neocons who crow about how much they’re winning. And yet, politically, we are in the same kind of denial the neocons are: the right-wing insurgency is still sniping at our Constitution, our mission is not accomplished, and sitting around telling ourselves how great things are going ain’t gonna make it true.

    So. We have not won until the nutbars have stopped fighting. As long as they are fighting, we are losing. Do you hear me? LOSING. This is like WWII, and they are invading, we are France, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. Schiavo was a win for them, and the nuclear option is coming, and it too will be a win for them. We will lose this war if we continue to congratulate ourselves about what kind of fools they are making of themselves. It will not stop them.

    I forget which general said it, but you have won a war when you have one of your soldiers holding a rifle in the middle of the town square in broad daylight and NOBODY IS SHOOTING AT HIM. *That* is victory. We don’t have anything anywhere near victory yet. When these guys have stopped pushing their insane agenda, then we have won. Victory is only acheived when the enemy surrenders. We say this all the time in scoffing at the absurdity of a “War on Terror”, but here we are with Fundamentalist terrorists right here in our own midst, and arrogantly assuming victory. The right-wing clowns are still shooting at us. The threat is nowhere near passed.

    I suspect that guys like Reid are dug in for the long haul. We should be too. No congratulations until the VRWC is utterly defeated and is no longer operative. Folks, that’s a generation away IFF we bust our asses now, so let’s get busy. And please stop crowing at every little bump in the road that their tanks just roll right over as if it wasn’t even there.

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