Feeling Depressed

New Democratic congress, massively unpopular president, total surrender on budget negotiations. Why not?

The agreement signaled that congressional Democrats are ready to give in to many of the White House's demands as they try to finish the session before they break for Christmas -- a political victory for the president, who has refused to compromise on the spending measures.

The whole thing actually gets more depressing in the details. But to make a long story short, a combination of Senate filibusters, White House veto threats, and Democratic unwillingness to push the envelop of confrontation, has the Republican minority getting its way on overall domestic spending levels, on war funding, on AMT offsets, and basically on everything else.

Comments

More than a little bizarre, this Democratic majority . . .

- They don't pass the (popular) legislation they claim to want.
- They investigate things, but won't pursue people who obstruct their investigations through perjury or contempt.

Lack of ambition? Lassitude? Fear? I can't say I have a persuasive explanation, but yeah, a weird phenomenon in politics.

Posted by southpaw | December 13, 2007 9:03 AM

If Pelosi and Reed get their leadership jobs back in 2010, after this dismal performance, I will be very upset.

Posted by Spike | December 13, 2007 9:05 AM

Perhaps we might want to make the new face of the Democratic Party someone who's been campaigning on the need for our Party to have a little backbone for a change...

Posted by Petey | December 13, 2007 9:07 AM

People wonder why I tell them that simply campaigning for more Democrats is a waste of time.

A lot of these people aren't doing anything because they don't want to be doing anything.

Posted by Soullite | December 13, 2007 9:15 AM

Perhaps we might want to make the new face of the Democratic Party someone who's been campaigning on the need for our Party to have a little backbone for a change...

Edwards has a number of selling points; I'm not sure moral courage and a killer instinct are among them.

............

If Pelosi and Reed get their leadership jobs back in 2010, after this dismal performance, I will be very upset.

This reminds me . . . I often hear that Harry Reid was a boxer, but I don't think I've ever heard his record. Anyone know it?

Posted by southpaw | December 13, 2007 9:17 AM

Cheer up, Matt: The troops will get the funds they need and we'll have a tiny bit of fiscal discipline on the domestic side. Bush actually did the Dems a favor by standing up to them here. Now Dems can claim credit for fiscal restraint and supporting the troops next year, even though, if they had had their way, neither would have happened.

Posted by Fred | December 13, 2007 9:19 AM

Perhaps we might want to make the new face of the Democratic Party someone who's been campaigning on the need for our Party to have a little backbone for a change...

Oh no, we can't do that. Why? Er...because.

IOW, it's not only *congressional* Dems who are hand-wringing, spooked and cowed. Just read the comment sections on this blog when primary politics come up: 'if we do THIS they'll say THIS, if we do THAT they'll say THAT', etc. etc. To a non-trivial extent, we get the pols we deserve.

Posted by jonnybutter | December 13, 2007 9:20 AM

I dunno...maybe everybody in Washington is still impressed by the Gingrichian lesson of what happens when Congress shuts down the government in conflict with the White House. As I recall, Clinton wasn't that popular--it was his nadir in the polls--when Newt got too clever. Clinton immediately made hay out of the throwdown and his poll numbers never looked back as he marched to reelection. Couple years later, Newt was the head of a think tank.

Perhaps it's that the people pretty much accept the crude notion that the guy in the White House is the guy in charge. They can 't wrap their head around the idea of a regency ruled by a Congressional majority--or it reminds them of the Watergate era. And it's true to some degree; a weak executive is a disaster on a number of levels. Of course the fact that the current executive is already terminally weak is a problem that won't go away.

Posted by elle loco | December 13, 2007 9:21 AM

Maybe this is why conservatives tend to call the Democrats the party of "surrender-monkeys"...

Posted by RKU | December 13, 2007 9:33 AM

"Edwards has a number of selling points; I'm not sure moral courage and a killer instinct are among them."

You ought to read up about him...

Posted by Petey | December 13, 2007 9:34 AM

IOW, it's not only *congressional* Dems who are hand-wringing, spooked and cowed. Just read the comment sections on this blog when primary politics come up: 'if we do THIS they'll say THIS, if we do THAT they'll say THAT', etc. etc. To a non-trivial extent, we get the pols we deserve.

This seems a bit off. Politics is the art of the possible. I doubt it would be a good thing if politicians went off on quixotic missions without first considering how the opposition would respond and how it would play with the public. The point here is not that they shouldn't make considered political judgments. The point is that their judgments are wrong. Their strategy is unnecessarily and counterproductively timid.

Majorities of Americans would like to see the administration taken down a peg, whether through a humiliating legislative confrontation or a flurry of indictments. Democrats have the means to satisfy those majorities and achieve a political victory, they substantively believe it would be right to pursue those outcomes, yet they resolutely refuse to take the initiative. That's just weird.

Posted by southpaw | December 13, 2007 9:35 AM

elle loco:

Yes, I see the argument:

maybe everybody in Washington is still impressed by the Gingrichian lesson of what happens when Congress shuts down the government in conflict with the White House.

The problems with that defense is:

Bush is not Clinton, either in numbers or skills.

More importantly, surely everybody knew this was coming. The Republicans have always marched in lockstep, Bush has always been intransigent, and the Senate numbers have been obvious since election day.

Wouldn't it have been nice if the Democrat leadership, back when they still had some credibility, had said: Given the givens, we're never going to be able to do legislation. Let's push oversight as hard as we can, and blow the lid of everything the Republicans have done. But no. They decided to go with legislation (100 hours...) and only tinkered round the edges of oversight. (Which is why "sternly worded letter" has become the signal for hilarity that it is.) They had a year to completely trash the Republican brand and every operative in it and they let the chance go.

And now, here we are!

Posted by lambert strether | December 13, 2007 9:39 AM

I wonder what BushCo has on all of these spineless Dems. Warrantless wiretapping can provide a windfall of information. Hell, it's as good an explanation as anything as to what's keeping them as so unwilling to shake the boat.

Posted by Terraformer | December 13, 2007 9:40 AM

"Edwards has a number of selling points; I'm not sure moral courage and a killer instinct are among them."

You ought to read up about him...

Posted by Petey | December 13, 2007 9:34 AM

I have

Posted by southpaw | December 13, 2007 9:45 AM

Politics is the art of the possible. I doubt it would be a good thing if politicians went off on quixotic missions without first considering how the opposition would respond and how it would play with the public.

Did I say that how the public or opposition might respond doesn't matter? No. Politics is the art of the possible, and the 'possible' includes calculated risk. Congressional dems, and many rank and file Dems, are utterly risk-averse. No one's political judgement is going to be perfect all the time. Dems fail because they are terrified. Taking a risk, no matter how small, means there is a possibility of failure, no matter how small. When Repubs risk and fail, they shake it off and just keep going, take more risks, and end up doing well overall, in no small part because they have such flaccid opposition. To paraphrase Julius Caesar: Weenie, weenie, weenie.

Posted by jonnybutter | December 13, 2007 9:49 AM

"Politics is the art of the possible, and the 'possible' includes calculated risk. Congressional dems, and many rank and file Dems, are utterly risk-averse."

The way to change that is to show risk-averse Congressional Dems that you can run nationwide as a proud progressive and still win.

Blazing a trail for how Democrats can have a backbone and still win is going to be one of the most important effects of the Edwards triumph.

Posted by Petey | December 13, 2007 9:56 AM

You guys are too harsh on Congressional Dems. Political capital is finite. They used up most of theirs trying to sabotage the war effort in Iraq. Despite their efforts, the situation on the ground in Iraq has dramatically turned for the better. For Congressional Dems to now force the DoD to furlough civilian workers to satisfy the pique of their base would be folly.

Posted by Fred | December 13, 2007 10:08 AM

There have been no filibusters, only threatened filibusters. No one knows what would have happened or who would have backed down first if a filibuster had been had on any of the many bills on which one was threatened. Instead, Reid caved without a fight, only the threat of a fight. Reid should try one on for size. This current legislation would be a good start. If he's right, the bill will get passed. If he's wrong, well then, some interesting things could happen.

Posted by po | December 13, 2007 10:13 AM

You left out the part about the even more massively unpopular Democratic Congress.

I suggest that over the recess that each member of Congress, especially the Leadership of both major parties, should look up in a dictionary the definition of "bi-partisan". I expect they will find it doesn't mean the other side just caves.

Once they understand this concept, I would hope they will come back with a little more respect for the other side of the isle. This applies to both sides. I also suggest the Speaker reread her promises of bipartisanship and congeniality that she professed this time last year, and figure out out to make them come true, else the name of the first woman Speaker of the House will go down as, let's call it "disappointing" to be generous.

A "shove it down their throats" approach is for little children, so I suggest they grow up. It ultimately did in the Republicans, and the Democrats are finding that history can repeat itself.

Posted by Neo | December 13, 2007 10:15 AM

You left out the part about the even more massively unpopular Democratic Congress.

Yeah, this is probably an immutable trait which has nothing to do with their performance in office. Good point.

Posted by southpaw | December 13, 2007 10:18 AM

A "shove it down their throats" approach is for little children, so I suggest they grow up.

Oh yeah, Neo, I'm sure the pols in DC would be really interested in that suggestion. Have you been following any news in the US for the last 25 years?

It ultimately did in the Republicans, and the Democrats are finding that history can repeat itself.

Have the Republicans been 'done in'? Could've fooled me. Everyone's entitled to dream about how they'd like things to be, but please don't confuse that with the way things actually are. Bi partisanship has been dead in this country for at least a decade, and it's not coming back anytime soon. At the risk of sounding slightly rude for a moment, I'd suggest that you are the one who needs to grow up a little.

Posted by jonnybutter | December 13, 2007 10:29 AM

The headline to these stories is certainly depressing. And the end result may well be as well. I do think that the dems learned the long lesson from the Gingrich shutdown. It was not that the public turned on the Congress because it was Congress. The public turned on Republicans in Congress because they were gloating about shutting down the government. With Bush gloating about vetoing anything that is just his way I think people would have the sense to blame Bush.

But somewhat buried in the story was at least a suggestion that what the democrats were doing is going with the Obey plan whereby they meet Bush's budget numbers by cutting 22 billion worth of republican friendly spending. (Rememebr the democrats, in order to get a "bipartisan" bill actually increased spending for abstinance only sex education.) Frankly, a budget stripped of 22 billion in Republican priorities is probably better than the compromise bill that contained them. So I am not sure that the headline was completely accurate. We will see only when the final bill emerges.

Posted by Lon | December 13, 2007 10:49 AM

Fred, the only party here stabbing the troops in the back is Bush.

The American people are actually quite upset about what you refer to in your own Orwellian way as "supporting the troops" (what, is it "for their own good"?)

Posted by Tyro | December 13, 2007 10:58 AM

I wonder what BushCo has on all of these spineless Dems. Warrantless wiretapping can provide a windfall of information. Hell, it's as good an explanation as anything as to what's keeping them as so unwilling to shake the boat.

Heh. Yeah, what he "has" on them is that they're spineless, they're brain-dead, and they believe in pretty much nothing.

But -- sssshhhhhh!! -- don't tell anyone! Nobody'd ever guess if it wasn't locked up deep inside the NSA vaults.

Posted by Samuel Glover | December 13, 2007 11:09 AM

Patience. Discipline.

Republicans haven't been able to affirmatively launch any new disasters. That's an enormous improvement.

Posted by Jalmari | December 13, 2007 11:39 AM

Fair enough, Jalmari. But doesn't that create a problem? After all, Republicans are great about taking advantage of good environments fostered by the Democrats. "Hey, we have plenty of money and a strong enough military that isn't being used to launch a war! Let's do it!" seems to be the Republican platform.

The Democratic platform seems to be, "we won in 2006 based on public discontent with the state of the war and the US. By keeping the US in that same dysfunctional state in 2008, we'll win again!"

Posted by Tyro | December 13, 2007 11:46 AM

More importantly, surely everybody knew this was coming.

This is really the key point. Democrats in Congress haven't planned worth a damn. Anyone could have told them neither the Republicans in the Senate nor Bush were going to budge an inch. Either you pick fights you're willing to fight to the end for--as they did with SCHIP, holding a veto override vote and failing--or you don't fight. Repeatedly picking fights and then pussying out is the worst of all possible tactics. If you pick the fights and lose, you can still come out ahead in the long run. If you pick fights and then back down, it makes it look like you don't really care.

Posted by Antid Oto | December 13, 2007 12:12 PM

More importantly, surely everybody knew this was coming.

This is really the key point. Democrats in Congress haven't planned worth a damn. Anyone could have told them neither the Republicans in the Senate nor Bush were going to budge an inch. Either you pick fights you're willing to fight to the end for--as they did with SCHIP, holding a veto override vote and failing--or you don't fight. Repeatedly picking fights and then pussying out is the worst of all possible tactics. If you pick the fights and lose, you can still come out ahead in the long run. If you pick fights and then back down, it makes it look like you don't really care.

Posted by Antid Oto | December 13, 2007 12:13 PM

Depressing is right.

What i think may have actually happened is that they got suckered: early on, enough Republicans in each house signaled that their vote was up for grabs that the Dem leadership thought they could peel off enough of them to get veto-proof majorities on the appropriations bills. They tried to bargain with a handful of Republicans in each chamber to come up with the necessary 2/3s, only to find that those votes were never really up for grabs to begin with. It'd be very interesting to see a list of which GOPers lied to them, and what their intended quid pro quos were.

Wouldn't that make for an interesting inside-the-beltway piece? "Rep. So-and-so helped fake out the Dems by saying he'd vote for the Labor-HHS bill if it included funding for 'x', but in the end he was just goading them along." If something like that came out, at least they'd pay a price in terms of their credibility with the proponents of 'x' in their districts; and in the future lobbyists might be more suspicious of their real intentions & ability to 'stay bought' in ways that could hurt them a little.

Posted by TW | December 13, 2007 1:01 PM

The problem is not Pelosi. The problem -- as the Post made clear last night ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/12/AR2007121202837_pf.html ) is Reid, his fellow Senate Democrats, and their ridiculous adherence to "traditional procedural rules", specifically including the filibuster. NOTHING that the Democratic Party -- or any Democratic President -- ever wants will ever be achieved again, until a Democratic President gets good and mad and starts denouncing the Senate Democrats by name for not dropping the Nuclear Option on the filibuster (to say nothing of one-man Senate "holds", such as the one Coburn of Oklahoma is currently using to block a gun-purchase database improvement endorsed by even the NRA).

Headlines this morning, by the way:
(1) GOP filibuster blocks tax hike on oil companies, despite 59-40 approval. (Landrieu was the one Democrat who defected, and provided the crucial margin.
(2) Filibuster threat by most-GOP Southern Senators blocks cut on farm subsldies to the wealthy, despite 56-40 approval.
(3) GOP promises to filibuster contempt charges against Rove and Bolton (just approved by the Judiciary Committee).

How long are we going to let this poisonous cretinism go on? My main fear about Obama is that he will continue trying to play "Come, let us reason together" as a political strategy against a bunch of quite self-aware and rational thugs, and thus stupidly try to placate the implacable. Hillary's bad temper is actually one point in her favor.

Posted by Bruce Moomaw | December 13, 2007 1:10 PM

As for the "even more unpopular Democratic Congress" cited by Neo: please. That howler has been around for a long time, which doesn't alter the fact that it's a howler. Congress' unpopularity is ALWAYS far lower than the President's, because the people who say they disapprove of it come from two groups: supporters of the minority party, and supporters of the majority party who don't think it's trampling the minority effctively enough.

The only meaningful poll of Congressional popularity is one that compares the popularity of Congressional Democrats and Congressional Republicans, and ALL of those this year continue to show the Dems enormously more popular than the Congressional GOP -- who are even less popular than Bush. Latest examples: this week's ABC ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/postpoll_121107.html?sid=ST2007121101622 ) and CBS poll ( http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/politics/20071211_POLL.pdf ). In the ABC poll, the Congressional Dems have a net 13-point negative rating -- which looks terrible until you look at the Congressional Republicans' net 31-point negative rating. In the CBS poll, the Democratic party has a net 4-point positive rating, compared to the GOP's net 26-point negative rating. Which explains why the Dems also continue to hold double-digit leads over the GOP in all polls this year of the 2008 generic House races.

Posted by Bruce Moomaw | December 13, 2007 1:53 PM

Bi partisanship has been dead in this country for at least a decade, and it's not coming back anytime soon.

Then you have every reason to be Feeling Depressed. By your own account, it should be tugging at your shoulder for some time into the future.

Posted by Neo | December 13, 2007 2:56 PM

You left out the part about the even more massively unpopular Democratic Congress.

The polls have shown that the reason for its unpopularity is its failure to stand up to the Republicans.

You guys are too harsh on Congressional Dems. Political capital is finite.

It's pretty clear they'd gain political capital by standing up to the GOP.

Posted by low-tech cyclist | December 17, 2007 9:01 AM

We need a liberal-to-progressive party. Simple as that. The Clinton wing of the Democratic Party can keep the brand name.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | December 17, 2007 9:17 AM