Robert Parry: Democrats In 2007 - Majorities In Congress, Still Caving To Bush

[Hissyspit]

http://www.alternet.org/stories/67576

Democrats in 2007: Majorities in Congress, Still Caving to Bush

By Robert Parry, Consortium News. Posted October 12, 2007.

Twelve months after being swept into Congress, the Democrats have caved in again and again to a weak and unpopular president.

One year ago, the Democrats ended Republican control of Congress, stirring millions of Americans to hope that George W. Bush's Iraq War and his assault on the U.S. Constitution finally would be stopped. Twelve months later, many of those once-hopeful voters feel bitter disillusionment toward the national Democratic Party, which has surrendered in showdown after showdown with the weakened President, from continuing to write blank checks for the Iraq War to ceding more power to him for his surveillance operations.

The Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee couldn't even put together enough of a united front to block Bush's appointment of a new Attorney General who believes the President should possess nearly unlimited powers in wartime and who won't say that the simulated drowning of waterboarding constitutes torture.

Though some voters have been surprised by the consistency of these Democratic cave-ins, the pattern actually started immediately after the surprising election results of Nov. 7, 2006, when Democrats won narrow majorities in the House and Senate.

Rather than escalate their political confrontation with Bush, the Democrats opted for a course of wishful thinking and empty gestures. Most importantly, the Democrats chose not only to keep impeachment off the table, but avoided any comprehensive investigation into controversial Bush policies. There were no Fulbright-style hearings on the origins of the Iraq War; there were no broad challenges to the excessive secrecy that Bush clamped down around his constitutional violations in the "war on terror"; the best the Democrats could muster were scatter-shot hearings by Rep. Henry Waxman's House Oversight Committee.

In short, the Democrats not only failed to mount a sustained challenge to Bush's policies, they avoided any systematic hearings that would educate the American public about why Bush's presidency has represented such an extraordinary threat to the Republic. They have acted as if the people simply should "get it" without any more information.

This Democratic tendency to de-value information - and a timidity toward real oversight - can be traced back to the 1980s when accommodating Democrats, such as Rep. Lee Hamilton of Indiana, sought to finesse, rather than confront, abuses of power by Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush during the Iran-Contra Affair and related scandals.

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[Perry Logan]

1. FACT CHECK: the Democrats showed the highest Democratic unity score in 51 years.

A quick look at the facts reveals the article is dead wrong.

"President Bush's success rating in the Democratic-controlled House has fallen this year to a half-century low, and he prevailed on only 14 percent of the 76 roll call votes on which he took a clear position.

"So far this year, Democrats have backed the majority position of their caucus 91 percent of the time on average on such votes. That marks the highest Democratic unity score in 51 years."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1728952&mesg_id=1728952
http://public.cq.com/docs/cqt/news110-000002576765.html

Don't let the media rhetoric fool you. The Democrats have acquitted themselves quite well--especially given their bare majority in both houses, and a relentlessly obstructionist Republican minority.

this 110th Congress has had more roll call votes this year than any
other Congress in history, almost doubling the number under the previous Congress overseen by Boehner
and House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL):
The House last week held its 943rd roll call vote of the year, breaking the previous
record of 942 votes, a mark set in 1978. The vote was on a procedural motion related to a
mortgage foreclosure bill. When the House adjourned on Oct. 4 for the long weekend, the
chamber had reached 948 roll call votes, putting Democrats on pace to easily eclipse 1,000
votes on the House floor in 2007.
Last year, the Republican controlled House held 543 votes, and for historical comparison,
the last time there was a shift in power in Congress, Republicans held 885 roll call votes in
1995. The Senate, which has held 363 votes this year, isn’t on pace to break any
records, but has already surpassed the 2006 Senate mark of 279 votes.
Much of the lack of progress can be traced back to obstructionism by conservatives. Approximately “1 in
6 roll-call votes in the Senate this year have been cloture votes,” noted a JulyMcClatchy report. “If this
pace of blocking legislation continues, this 110th Congress will be on track to roughly triple the previous
record number of cloture votes.”
It’s interesting that Boehner is criticizing the 110th Congress as doing nothing. After all, the House, under
his leadership, met for just 101 days during the second session of the 109th Congress, setting the record
“for the fewest days in session in one year since the end ofWorld War II.”

[BelgianMadCow]

2. A high number of roll call votes and a high party unity says not a whole lot

I don't see how your info (which has value) contradicts the essential statements in the article.

The article describes exactly how I feel. The way things are going, another batch of criminals (hmm, well mostly the same) is gonna get off the hook to haunt you again in another 15 or 20 years.

:shrug:

[KoKo]

3. Parry says Dems treated us as "Consumers not Citizens"...more..

from the article:

Consumers, Not Citizens

By their actions in the early days of the Clinton administration, the national Democrats revealed that they viewed the American people more as consumers eager for services than citizens needing honest information to fulfill their duties in a democratic Republic.

Clinton also apparently thought that his magnanimous gesture, especially in letting former President George H.W. Bush off the hook, would win reciprocity from the Republicans. Instead, they took the Democratic scrapping of the Reagan-Bush investigations as a sign of weakness and unleashed the emerging right-wing media against Clinton.

Despite catastrophic political results - losing control of Congress in 1994 and the White House in 2000 - the national Democrats learned few lessons from the Clinton debacles. In 2002 and 2004, they reacted to Bush and his "war on terror" gingerly and suffered more defeats.

Finally, in 2006, heeding an increasingly angry "base," the Democrats adopted a tougher stance toward Bush and were surprised by their own success. Yet, even as congressional Democrats were picking confetti out of their hair, they were reverting to their can't-we-all-get-along approach.

......

[truedelphi]

6. Like a lot of us were so proud of the Dems when they showed solidaity and voted to censure

MoveOn.

NOT!

[Toots]

4. It is my opinion Democrats are not at all concerned what the people have to say

They flippantly say "What are they going to do vote Republican?" They think they have the world by the short hairs and can do any damn thing they please. And it is true they can, unless somehow we can put together some primary challenges they will continue on in their very arrogant manner.

[OneBlueSky]

5. I've been so disgusted with the Democrats for so long that . . .

I rarely if ever even bother to comment on it . . . all it gets me is ridiculous defenses of "our party" that make as little sense to me as a George W. Bush speech . . .