[CanYoAssDigIt] Compromise, or capitulation?

My laptop went belly up last night (I'm currently in the library at
the University of Alberta, logged n as a guest) so I've not been able
to hear that program people were discussing.

The last thing I heard on NPR to date was a positive assessment of the
compromise over the filibuster. After the usual cheerleading for
bipartisanship, they interviewed one expert, and one alone - John
McCain, who sports a completely undeserved reputation as a moderate,
reasonable person. I waited in vain for them to interview somebody
who represented the people's interests (that's you and me folks, not
millionaires and party apparatchiks).

The commentary at the end of this post is from the counterpunch.org
sums things up nicely (ie. this guy is saying what I've been saying
ever since the compromise was announced). If the Dems fell on their
swords, it would give people something to really around (people say
"remember the Alamo" and "remember Masada" - "remember Neville
Chamberlain!" doesn't exactly stir people's blood in the same way).
Now, I certainly don't listen to NPR 24/7 - perhaps on some other
program, they gave voice to other (accurate) opinions about what this
is really all about. I'd like to hear about it if they did. but the
fact is, they did most the damage upfront on morning edition - as Mark
Twain said "A lie can make it half way around the world before the
truth has time to put its boots on."

There was one interesting thing about McCain's comments - he was
positively filled with malice when they said that Democrats seemed
happier than Republicans with the outcome. He gloated that they were
just putting up a front, that they got next to nothing out of the
deal, the republicans really had their way.

How will the Dems respond to this blatant taunting? I expect they will
do what they always do (nothing).

Brain Dead Democrats
The Curse of Bi-partisanship
By DAVE LINDORFF

When a wolf and a fox agree on a modus vivendi, the rabbits and
woodchucks had better be on their guard.

The same is true about the March 23 agreement reached by 14 "moderate"
Democratic and Republican Senators which undermined the looming
confrontation between Senate Democrats and Republicans over the issue
of judicial appointments and the filibuster.

Anytime you have someone like Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), a
cheerleader for the War on Iraq, a stalwart backer of the worst
Zionist excesses of the Israeli state, and a man who even endorsed
former Attorney General John Ashcroft's horrific Operation TIPS
citizen spy scheme, lining up with Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a guy who
headed up the House impeachment campaign against President Bill
Clinton, a staunch conservative in moderate clothing (like his
over-rated colleague John McCain) who opposes abortion rights and
boasts a 5% rating from the League of Conservation Voters,
progressives need to worry.

And what's with this fear of political polarization anyhow? It's
really nothing but a media creation.

Newspaper editors and pundits love to talk about the need for
"bi-partisanship" and cooperation as though such comity were an
unambiguous public good. Yet it is precisely such bipartisanship that
brought us the war in Iraq, the Patriot Act, the North American Free
Trade Act, welfare cutbacks, the Anti Terrorism and Effective Death
Penalty Act and the new anti-bankruptcy law, and which threaten to
bring us a mortally weakened Social Security "reform," and who knows?
Maybe a war on Iran or Syria.

Sure, if the Democrats took a hard-line confrontational approach to
the dominant Republicans in House and Senate they'd lose on a lot of
things, including the appointment of judges with right-wing agendas.
But by standing for principle, Democrats would be paving the way for
serious election campaigns on important issues in 2006 and 2008.
They'd be rallying the electorate to fight back against the
Republican-led campaign to drag the country backwards to the 19th
century in economic, environmental and social policy.

Instead, people like Lieberman and Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) are paving
the way for further electoral defeats for Democrats in the coming
election cycles.

By lining up with Republicans on compromises that end up selling out
principle (the filibuster agreement will result in the approval, with
Democratic acquiescence, of several truly dreadful new appellate
judges), Democrats confuse and demoralize their potential electoral
base.

By demonstrating that Democrats are no better than Republicans-indeed
no different from Republicans-they turn elections into nothing but
issueless personal popularity contests, in which most citizens have
little or no interest. In fact, their bipartisanship may actually be
helping Republicans, because at least those so-called "moderate"
Republicans like Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) or Olympia Snowe (R-ME) or John
McCain (R-AZ) are showing the spine to buck their President and party
leadership in reaching agreement with so-called moderate Democrats.

All the so-called moderate Democrats are showing is political
cowardice and lack of principle.

The idea that this kind of Democratic sell-out would be happening when
the president is being viewed by a majority of the public as inept,
untrustworthy, stupid and politically out of touch, is both
astonishing and depressing.

As one Republican operative told the New York Times, the only reason
the opposition isn't having a field day these days in Congress is
because "the Democratic Party is brain dead."

Bipartisanship: a morphine drip for the terminally politically doomed.

Dave Lindorff is the author of Killing Time: an Investigation into the
Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. His new book of CounterPunch
columns titled "This Can't be Happening!" is published by Common
Courage Press. Information about both books and other work by Lindorff
can be found at www.thiscantbehappening.net.

He can be reached at: dlindorff@yahoo.com

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