Non - Nuclear Winter
One of the things in the world I have always found fascinating is the Law of Unintended Consequeces. Since the consequences are unintended, they are usually not forseen (which is most emphatically not the same as unforseeable), and therefore can come as quite a surprise.
In May of 2005 the Republican majority in the Senate came within hours of permanantly changing Senate rules by way of the so-called "Nuclear Option". Had that rule change been invoked, it would no longer require a 60 vote supermajority to attain cloture, end debate and bring an action to a floor vote. Through negotiations brought about by the actions of the "Gang of 14", the threat of the Nuclear Option, while never completely ended, was lifted from the ongoing debate over judicial nominees.
Ah, but what if? What if, in the hubris of their supposed "permanant majority", the Republicans had actually used their position to invoke this rule change? It would be in effect today, and the Democrats now enjoy majority status, if only very slight.
This week, in a classic case of the shoe fitting nicely on the other foot, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has been able to prevent a cloture vote on the non-binding resolution on the Iraq escalation not once, but twice. Now you could sit back and say, well, the Republicans who vote against even allowing debate on the Iraq war are going to have to face their constituents, and they will pay a political price - and you'd be right. But imagine, after all the shouting and gnashing of teeth, the Sturm und Drang if you will, that would have been generated by the invocation of the Nuclear Option back in 2005, things would have settled down into some kind of "new normal" as they usually do. Then would have come the November 2006 midterms and suddenly, like weapons left behind after a defeat, the Democrats would have the majority and the minority would no longer have one of it's most powerful tools. Where would things stand then?
Yep, that law of unintended consequences can be a bit of a bitch. It's always there, and when you take an action you think is in your interest, you may well be setting the conditions for your own disasterous failure. There's a powerful lesson here. Do you think anyone is paying attention?
posted by mikey @ 1:06 PM
1 Comments:
What kind of galls me, Mikey, is this: the GOP has the will to use every parliamentary weapon available to it as the minority or majority party and, as we saw over the last 12 years (94-06), the dems apparently do not. Must be our incivilty or something.
See, when they change rules to weaken the minority when they're in the majority, that's bold leadership. When the dems maintain some of those rules, while keeping their promise to restore old rules (against their own current interest), that's fomenting partisan rancor.
Are we still shrill? I kinda liked being shrill.
As to the war, what can we say?
On the one hand, there's a party that's almost unanimously for it despite its overwhelming unpopularity, and that party was unanimous when the war was "popular." They'd rather pull their own teeth with pliers than even talk about it. And hey! What's that over there in Iran?
On the other hand, there's a party that's been pretty consistently divided over the war despite its overwhelming unpopularity. That party has never been unanimous on it. The minority within it who offer even half-hearted support for it control the money in the party. Every faction is looking forward to electoral victories in 2008. A few seem to agree with Americans who want to end the war RIGHT FUCKIN' NOW. Most have a political interest in dragging it out at least until Nov. 08, so they can hang it around the neck of the GOP. Who richly deserve it, but still... it's better to stop a crime in progress than to let it get worse, so as to make a greater charge.
I dunno- lately I'm feeling particularly pessimistic about the whole fracking situation (Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran) and getting a sense of deja vu all over again. I mean, we had a whole generation to forget the lies and idiocy of the Vietnam Crime; have we already forgotten 2002-03?
-RobW
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