{"id":4207,"date":"2005-05-16T09:29:58","date_gmt":"2005-05-16T13:29:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/4207.html"},"modified":"2005-05-16T09:29:58","modified_gmt":"2005-05-16T13:29:58","slug":"whats-in-a-name-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/whats-in-a-name-2\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s in a name?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Josh Marshall noted<\/a> yesterday that Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was on Fox News Sunday, discussing the nuclear option and the likely showdown this week (C&L has the video<\/a>). In describing the GOP tactic, McConnell used his personal favorite: the “Byrd Option.”<\/p>\n

Noting that Republicans have already relied on “nuclear option” and “constitutional option,” Josh suggested this is the third GOP-approved word for abolishing the filibuster. As it turns out, we’d be lucky if there were only three. At this point, by my count, Republicans have used six<\/i> different names to describe the same tactic. Let’s take them one at a time, in the order in which the GOP crafted them:<\/p>\n

1. Nuclear Option<\/b> — Coined by Sen. Trent Lott<\/a> (R-Miss.) in 2003, the phrase was embraced by the Republican caucus until they decided it didn’t poll well.<\/p>\n

2. Constitutional Option<\/b> — Crafted by Republican staffers shortly after the 2004 election<\/a>, when GOP lawmakers started getting serious about executing the plan and realized they wanted something that sounded less apocalyptic than “nuclear.”<\/p>\n

3. Byrd Option<\/b> — A favorite of McConnell’s, it’s based on an inaccurate description<\/a> of Sen. Robert Byrd’s efforts in the 1970s. It’s never really caught on, but it lingers as a nonsensical rhetorical device.<\/p>\n

4. Filibuster Reform<\/b> — This one seems to be particularly popular with the religious right<\/a> and the Wall Street Journal editorial page. It started popping up in March.<\/p>\n

5. Fairness Option<\/b> — The Weekly Standard came up with this gem<\/a> about a month ago, saying it’s the “proper name” for the tactic. No one else seems to agree, since no one else has used it.<\/p>\n

6. Majority Rules Option<\/b> — John Cornyn coined this clunker in April, but since it seems to run into the Dems’ argument about preserving Senate respect for minority rights, Cornyn didn’t convince any of his colleagues to use it. (It appeared in a CQ article, so there’s no link available.)<\/p>\n

Please note, we’re not talking about six different ideas with subtle differences; these are competing labels to describe the exact same tactic<\/i>. And because Orwellian lawmakers believe poll-tested rhetoric is the key to all policy disputes, we’re treated to this wide variety of descriptions. What a treat for us all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Josh Marshall noted yesterday that Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was on Fox News Sunday, discussing the nuclear option and the likely showdown this week (C&L has the video). In describing the GOP tactic, McConnell used his personal favorite: the “Byrd Option.” Noting that Republicans have already relied on “nuclear option” and “constitutional option,” Josh suggested […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4207\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}