If only the NYTimes Editorial Board could have had Major Danby explain to them how HAAAARD it is on poor Harry Reid. They never would have written this:
Abdicate and Capitulate
It is extraordinary how President Bush has streamlined the Senate confirmation process. As we have seen most recently with the vote to confirm Michael Mukasey as attorney general, about all that is left of “advice and consent” is the “consent” part.
. . . In less than seven years, Mr. Bush has managed to boil that list down to its least common denominator: the president should get his choices. At first, Mr. Bush was abetted by a slavish Republican majority that balked at only one major appointment – Harriet Miers for Supreme Court justice, and then only because of doubts that she was far enough to the right.
The Democrats, however, also deserve a large measure of blame. They did almost nothing while they were in the minority to demand better nominees than Mr. Bush was sending up. And now that they have attained the majority, they are not doing any better.
On Thursday, the Senate voted by 53 to 40 to confirm Mr. Mukasey even though he would not answer a simple question: does he think waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning used to extract information from a prisoner, is torture and therefore illegal?
Democrats offer excuses for their sorry record, starting with their razor-thin majority. But it is often said that any vote in the Senate requires more than 60 votes – enough to overcome a filibuster. So why did Mr. Mukasey get by with only 53 votes? Given the success the Republicans have had in blocking action when the Democrats cannot muster 60 votes, the main culprit appears to be the Democratic leadership, which seems uninterested in or incapable of standing up to Mr. Bush.
Senator Charles Schumer, the New York Democrat who turned the tide for this nomination, said that if the Senate did not approve Mr. Mukasey, the president would get by with an interim appointment who would be under the sway of “the extreme ideology of Vice President Dick Cheney.” He argued that Mr. Mukasey could be counted on to reverse the politicization of the Justice Department that occurred under Alberto Gonzales, and that Mr. Mukasey’s reticence about calling waterboarding illegal might well become moot, because the Senate was considering a law making clear that it is illegal.
That is precisely the sort of cozy rationalization that Mr. Schumer and his colleagues have used so many times to back down from a confrontation with Mr. Bush. The truth is, Mr. Mukasey is already in the grip of that “extreme ideology.” If he were not, he could have answered the question about waterboarding.
. . . The rationales that accompanied the vote in favor of Mr. Mukasey were not reassuring. The promise of a law banning waterboarding is no comfort. It is unnecessary, and even if it passes, Mr. Bush seems certain to veto it. In fact, it would play into the administration’s hands by allowing it to argue that torture is not currently illegal.
The claim that Mr. Mukasey will depoliticize the Justice Department loses its allure when you consider that he would not commit himself to enforcing Congressional subpoenas in the United States attorneys scandal.
All of this leaves us wondering whether Mr. Schumer and other Democratic leaders were more focused on the 2008 elections than on doing their constitutional duty. Certainly, being made to look weak on terrorism might make it harder for them to expand their majority.
. . .
Shame on the NYTimes for not understanding the tribulations of our Dem leadership. If only Danby were there to explain it.
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but I’m assuming this is from an editorial published today. I find it to be a stunningly accurate description of what happened in the Mukasey confirmation process.
I followed your link to Major Danby’s comment about Reid
and found it also to be stunning.
WTF. Part of Reid’s job is to provide cover for the hypocrisy of certain Democratic senators? I’m just a rube from NM, and nuance often escapes me – but WTF.
leadership, we might get stuck with a Democratic leadership that openly supports “the extreme ideology of Vice President Dick Cheney.”
At least by supporting Schumer and Reid, we have a say in the democratic process.
I hereby support Schumer because Mr. Schumer “could be counted on to” work to “reverse the politicization of the Justice Department that occurred under Alberto Gonzales, and that” Mr. Schumer’s “reticence about” voting down people who don’t clearly call “waterboarding illegal might well become moot, because the Senate was considering a law making clear that it is illegal.”
Better to support the leadership we have than the leadership we might get if we don’t support the leadership we have. We might get leadership even worse. In the words of protest marchers: This is what democracy looks like.
New York Times Editorial Board: purity trolls.
congress is doing this for political purposes, 08 elections, it is bad politics. The Danby’s, Hoyers and Emmanuels, are placing themselves solidly in line with a administration that has been revealed to all (except your hardcore nuts) as more frightening then the dangers they profess to save us from. The public cares little for these nuanced, cowardly political processes. Can’t these Democrats who are empty ‘strategists’ read polls? 11% says to me that the only purists who are benefiting from this are the extremists on the right who end up with their nightmare agendas in place. Apologists on the left who explain the inexcusable, call this realism?
that after Alito, he “wouldn’t get fooled again,” or some such tripe.
the Democratic leadership, which seems uninterested in or incapable of standing up to Mr. Bush
There is no “or” about it any more. The sentence should read:
the Democratic leadership, which is complicit with and completely uninterested in standing up to Mr. Bush
All of this leaves me wondering whether the NYT Editors want to raise some doubt about and hope that people won’t clue in to the fact that Mr. Schumer and other Democratic leaders [are] more focused on the 2008 elections than on doing their constitutional duty.
Certainly, being made to look weak on Bush might make it harder for them to expand their majority.