Wednesday, May 25, 2005

we wuz raped

it's only been a little more than 24 hours since the compromise deal was announced on averting a showdown on the filibuster.  it seems like so much longer than that already.  extreme trauma tends to affect one's sense of the passage of time.  but make no mistake, we wuz raped.

most of the official liberal political spin we've heard since then sounds like it was written by barney the dinosaur.  no, the democrats did not win.  they gave away the farm, starting with the farmer's daughter.  there isn't enough lipstick in the world to pretty up this pig of a capitulation and an appeasement.

the seeds of this titanic disaster came from senator reid, when he first started to talk about compromise on three of the worst judicial nominees ever, some already filibustered multiple times on principle.  and when that offer was made, senator frist cried hypocrite.  if these judges were truly so bad, why are you offering to compromise, in essence challenging "don't you have any principles?"  and he was absolutely right on that one.

that's the message that the american people will take away from this, that the republicans will fight on principle and the democrats will not, not ever.  that's all the american people heard.  one can say that a small group of maverick senators were to blame, but they were endorsed and encouraged in this by reid, as he abdicated his leadership by encouraging them to "bridge the differences".  by contrast, frist who did not emerges as a hero unscathed.  nobody on the right is condemning him.

what is the basic mental defect in those who would claim any victory on the progressive side?  i'm looking at the scoreboard and it sure looks like 3-0 to me.  absolutely nothing of substance was given away by the other side.  listen to the words of mike dewine, one of the gang of 14, even in announcing the deal:

". . . but if an individual senator believes in the future that a filibuster is taking place under something that's not extraordinary circumstances we reserve the right to do what we could have done tomorrow which is to cast a yes vote for the constitutional option"  Video Clip Here

in order words, for anyone with the political wits of a five-year-old child the democrats have gained nothing for waving through three of the worst of the worst.  no promise was given of rejecting any nominees whatsoever.  the democrats have unilaterally cowed themselves out of the last shred of power they had.  they kept their powder so dry it all blew away.

"we saved the filibuster," you hear some say.  that's like bragging you've saved your virginity while you're taking it up the rear end just because they did violate you there as well . . . yet.

if these were not extraordinary circumstances then the goal posts have been moved so far to the right it's a standard that even heinrich himmler would not offend.  if the democrats even so much as think about a filibuster the nuclear trigger is right back on the table.  in fact it never left the table.

they were going to show "mr. smith goes to washington" all that night in the capitol.  but the whole point of that movie had nothing to do with the filibuster as an arcane procedural device.  what it was about was political courage in the face of overwhelmingly adverse odds.  when you shy away from a fight because of the possibility of losing that is the very definition of cowardice.  you don't build a base by surrendering.  you build a base by taking a stand and sticking to it, which is the fundamental reason why the republicans are where they are today.

when exactly does no mean no?  the democrats are the boy who cried rape and then invited his attackers over for a naked tea party.  the american people may never believe them again.  for there is one thing that the american people will never vote for, and that's a coward, whatever their political stripe.  and of course, there's only one color of stripe that cowards come in and that's yellow.

according to the polls, two thirds of the american people would have backed up the democrats on principle regardless of the head count in the senate.  how many elections do you think you could win with 2/3 of the american people?  if the democrats had only stood firm and united one of two things would have happened.  1) either enough republican senators would have come to their senses for the so-called "nuclear option" to have been discredited forever, or else 2) the backlash from the american people would have guaranteed wins on straight up and down votes from now on.  and then neither would the filibuster have been there for the republicans in the future.  either way there would have been an enormous shift of power in favor of the democrats.  it was a win-win situation, and somehow they found a way to lose.

so if you are looking for the real culprits, try your bathroom mirror.  did you speak out to your members of congress on what they should do?  did you email all your friends and encourage them to do so?  if you have a blog, did you have a link posted at all times on every page for people to do something about this?  if you have radio show, did you constantly give out the senate phone number until your listeners had it memorized in their sleep?

some acted, but the vast majority of us did not.  did you do all you could have done to tell our representatives to stand tall?  or have you been sleepwalking through this political nightmare?

we wuzn't just raped.  we wuz gang raped . . . and not by the other side . . . by our own side, by our inaction, by our cowardice, by our lack of mobilization, by our failure of coordination, by most of all by our own defeatism.  how do you put a positive spin on gang rape?  the american people know what happened.  all they want now is for someone to tell them the truth.

copyright 2005 helenus

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