Filibuster Battle–Winners and Losers
Analysis? We got yer analysis.
Winners–short term
Republicans, who get through the highest-profile far-right judges. Who ever heard of Henry Saad? Getting Rogers Brown, Owens, and Pryor through can only be seen as a victory. Expect crowing to commence.
Winners–mid- and long term
Dems, who now have a card to play in the coming Supremes battle. This will force Bush into a Rehnquist-like nomination rather than a Scalia-like one. More importantly, it preserves the filibuster for later years, when Dems are certain to have a majority (not that I’m biased or anything).
Winners–Moderates
The center of power in the GOP just shifted dramatically, if temporarily. By cutting out Frist and negoatiating a deal in private, moderates have exercised their own power. Nervous theocons might look at polls and how well their moderate comrades line up on the issues and start to wonder if they’re actually the dinosaurs who are due for extinction.
Losers–Theocons
For the first time, theocons are going to have to think very seriously about how they deal with Democrats and moderates in their own parties. Even while the filibuster battle was going on, moderates were busy working up a stem-cell research bill–the kind broadly supported by Americans but opposed by the Dobson right. It ain’t over til it’s over, but this is a serious bump in the road.
Loser–Bill Frist
Frist had a decision to make a couple years ago: play the Guiliani strategy–popular with the people, unpopular with the base–or go Tom DeLay. He went DeLay, and now he’s in trouble. First the setback with Terri Schiavo, now the filibusters. Moderates won’t like him, and the Christian base is going to see him as a compromiser.
Winner–Harry Reid
This deal was only possible because Harry Reid wouldn’t budge. He gave moderates the cards they needed to sit at the table with the moderate GOP, who could see clearly that there would be brutal cost for voting to end the filibuster. The WH and GOP leadership know they have a formidible foe in Reid, which will force them to lay off the throttle in their master plan.
Final Analysis
What played out was nothing short of revolutionary: in a head-to-head power struggle, it was the Dems who hung together and the GOP who fractured. As Josh Marshall said this morning, ” this will send the Dobsonites into a feeding frenzy of intra-party cannibalism.” The party that’s fracturing and confused is the GOP. The party that’s organized and coherent are the Dems.
Part of me wishes we’d gone nuclear just to see if the entire GOP bulwark would explode in the fallout. But you have to take the long view on this one. It’s a case of living today to fight another day. Because of all this “extraordinary circumstances” crap, that day may come soon. But the Dems will have strengthened their hand for that fight. Look at where we are now as compared with six months ago. Dems, despite their depleted numbers, have rallied and taken a fair measure of control away from the GOP. This is another example of that power shift. Call it a solid victory for the Dems.
May 24th, 2005 at 10:34 am
Losers–Theocons
For the first time, theocons are going to have to think very seriously about how they deal with Democrats and moderates in their own parties. Even while the filibuster battle was going on, moderates were busy working up a stem-cell research bill–the kind broadly supported by Americans but opposed by the Dobson right. It ain’t over til it’s over, but this is a serious bump in the road.
As with all martyrs, they’re the most powerful when they’ve lost.
May 24th, 2005 at 11:10 am
Part of me wishes we’d gone nuclear just to see if the entire GOP bulwark would explode in the fallout.
I had the same desire, but my faith in reason prevailing was lacking. To see Frist with a egg on his face would have been an immense thrill.
May 24th, 2005 at 12:47 pm
Yup. it became obvious a few weeks’ ago that Harry Reid had the cards. There are members of the GOP that did not like their car hijaced by Dobson and the right wingers. This has cost Bush PLENTY! He’s back at the same place he was in 2000; where he was selected. Not elected.
And, even Newsweek scored. Because it proves the arabs are unaware of the voices a free press makes. They killed people over the Koran in a can, story?
By the way, Isikoff folded his cards, because he knew Bush’s Justice Department would have come after journalists with subpoenas, if he had said there was a leaker in the Pentagon. Easier just to say it was due to a bad phone connection. Nobody in the Pentagon verified this story.
Except that the next day, Rupert Murdoch flashed Saddam in his underpants picture around the world. And, the Pentagon admits that this photo is real. (No leakers in the Pentagon, huh?) Interesting when the truth is apparent.
Bush has been playing poker with a loaded deck. He never won the support of voters for a right wing agenda. And, passing one now will only make him weaker and weaker.
As to Iraq, it’s not having a civil war, exactly. Chalabi, a billionaire (with stolen bank money from Jordan), returned to Iraq, from france, courtesy of George Tenet. He has his own army. And, the Shi’ites are not only fighting, they’re getting cooperation to do so from their mullah friends in Iran. The Sunnis? (Saudi Arabia’s tribal affiliation is deep in doo-doo.) And, in response to the terrorists who started killing Shi’ites, they’re now being killed in return. But the whole death cycle stuff is imported. Not home-grown. Not that the arabs understand democracy, at all.
I guess you can send the purple fingered ones your kids’ civic textbooks? We can go in a few weeks later and give them all tests, huh? But democracy for them? Nah. Women are still covered in drop cloths, with slits for eyes. No big changes over there.
No big changes in America, either, coming out of the Evangelicals.
Will the base closings list pass? You’re kidding me, RIIGHT? Congress passes budgets. And, from where I sit if Dr. Frist still has a career as majority leader, ahead, you could bowl me over with a feather.
Trent Lott ran against Frist. Joining the team looking for a “compromise.” And, even if you don’t hear this from anyone else: DR. FRIST NEVER HAD THE VOTES HE NEEDED! No one was going to let James Dobson take over the government. No matter how loud Talk Radio screamed. No matter what else you think, more than 2 dozen republican senators became very worried they’d be thought of as strangers to middle Americans who aren’t ready for Evangelical spinal taps.
But at least COMITY succeeds. The senate revolves around its own ways. And, Bush is going to have to figure out a better approach to the HILL, ahead, too. Of course, just my own private opinion.
May 24th, 2005 at 2:40 pm
We may not have long to wait for the next GOP challenge to the filibuster deal, or how well the moderates in the deal stick together. Think Progress reports that Frist plans to call for cloture on Myers later this week.
May 24th, 2005 at 4:01 pm
There’s already a whiplash reaction happening throughout the blogosphere:
Early morning consensus: Dems win big
Noon rumblings: Maybe it wasn’t so big after all
Current mood: Dems got jobbed.
Yeah, well, I’m sticking with the analysis. One large area of agreement is that this decision is built on the sand of “extraordinary circumstances,” and everyone projects that at the first opportunity, Bush will nominate an incompetent nut. That’s a big X-factor.