The unforgiving minute: Sigh. Marco, Marco, Marco.

You had one job to do. Just one.

And you couldn't get it right.


Minute's up.

The unforgiving minute: Feels like fan fiction to me

(Updated below.)

Add my name to the list of people who fail to understand why Sen. Elizabeth Warren's time would be better spent attending the funerals of foreign leaders for the next four to eight years instead of pantsing Mitch  McConnell and making Debbie Wasserman Schultz eat grass (to say nothing of getting under Donald Trump's skin).

Minute's up.

Update:  (6/20/2016) Still think Warren for VP nominee would be a mistake, but if it gives these guys a case the sads, then I'm willing to say I'm no longer 100% against the idea. 

Quote of the day: And then all of this happened

It turns out that what has held together American government is less the elaborate rules hammered out by the guys in the wigs in 1789 than a series of social norms that have begun to disintegrate. Senate filibusters were supposed to be rare, until they became routine. They weren’t supposed to be applied to judicial nominations, then they were. The Senate majority would never dream of changing the rules to limit the filibuster; the minority party would never plan to withhold all support from the president even before he took office; it would never threaten to default on the debt to extort concessions from the president. And then all of this happened.

- Jonathan Chait, taking time out from his many other responsibilities to personally depress the living daylights out of me.

Chait's New Yorker piece from which this is excerpted is going on the p3 Reading List, at right.

Shifty. Untrustable.

So this happened:

At the recent CPAC gathering, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a likely Republican presidential candidate, seemed to stumble on one of the basic facts of the Middle East. “The reason Obama hasn’t put in place a military strategy to defeat ISIS is because he doesn’t want to upset Iran,” the Florida Republican said.

Alas for Senator Rubio, Iran and ISIS are enemies. (Much like al Qaeda under bin Laden and Iraq under Saddam were , although that didn't stop the Cheney-Bush administration, did it?)

Still. Iraq, Iran, ISIS -- all four-letter adversaries beginning with "I." You know who's next, don't you?

Ikea.

I mean, seriously -- what's the deal with those sneaky Swedes?

Winifred Ames: What have they done to us?

Conrad 'Connie' Brean: What have they done for us? What do you know about them?

Winifred Ames: Nothing.

Conrad 'Connie' Brean: See? They keep to themselves. Shifty. Untrustable.

At the academy, they said I was mad!

The conventional wisdom about Karl Rove – back when he was Bush's Brain, and paid for it with the presidential nickname "Turdblossom" – was that he was a genius. (Of course, back in 1994 they said that about Gingrich, too.)

Almost ten years ago, in one of the very first posts here at p3, I put my foot down on that. Rove was smart in his own way, sure – even Junior was, in his own way – but Rove's unique gift wasn't his ability to think up ideas no one had ever thought before. It was his ability to look at ideas that others had also considered, but rejected because the collateral damage was too great compared to any short range political gain – and then go ahead anyway because he didn't care.

Charlie Pierce helpfully collects the same sort of he's-a-genius stories – even from Mother Jones! – about Texas madman Ted Cruz, and concludes:

Over the last two days, the Tailgunner has put his off-the-charts intellect to interesting use. First, he argued that repealing the Citizens United ruling would enable the federal government to take Saturday Night Live off the air and declare political satire to be illegal, which is just nutty. Then he went before an audience of Christians of Middle East origins and got booed off the stage.

I shudder to think what he might have done had he not been so off-the-charts brilliant.

The gradually-shrinking expression of regard for one's country

Originally (although there were similar-sounding expressions that predated it), the quote attributed to Carl Schurz went as follows:

My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.

Schurz – who was born in Germany and eventually ended up in America in his early twenties after what you'd have to call a politically-stormy youth – coined the phrase while a U.S. Senator in 1878. He delivered the line during a floor speech opposing arms sales to France and responding to suggestions by a fellow Senator that Schurz's opposition, combined with the facts of his origins, meant he was not what we would later call "100% American" and therefore somehow his patriotism might be called into question. Just so you know that some things never change. (In addition to his time as a Senator, at one time or another Schurz also served as Secretary of the Interior, General of the Union Army, and Minister to Spain.)

By the time of the virulent anti-communism of the McCarthy era, and reaching its peak in the Nixon years of the Vietnam War, the slogan had been halved, since the possibility of actual error apparently seemed no longer worth considering or at least insufficiently jingoistic. Thus:

My country right or wrong.

And, of course, there were no automobiles in 1878, so it hadn't been a requirement back then that expressions of political sentiment must fit on a bumper sticker.

Now we find ourselves watching the slow-motion spectacle of Cliven Bundy, a squatter on federal land, who firmly believes he's in the right because he does not recognize the federal government – which is odd, because the federal government feels certain it recognizes him. Rather than being shunned as a crackpot or a grifter, or both, Bundy has been cheered on by D-list local politicians (many of whom work, or would like to work, for branches of that non-existent government) and grasping media personalities (whose access to the broadcast spectrum is protected by that non-existent government), not to mention armed camo-wearing men (who proudly claim that armed standoffs like this are precisely the reason that the U.S. Constitution, which established the non-existent federal government, has a Second Amendment).

(Or at least they were cheering him on, until he uncorked some nostalgia for the Peculiar Institution – old times there are not forgotten; did you know that? – that made even some of his loyalists feel that some temporary distance between themselves and Bundy might be for the best. One imagines they'll patch all that up shortly.)

So now, the remains of Schurz's original, balanced expression of reasoned support for one's government have been whittled away to something so simple and easily-learned that it's one of the first words a two-year-old masters:

My.

And you don't even need a bumper sticker for that. You could fit it on the head of a thumbtack.

Our condolences to Senator Schurz.

Double quote of the day: Now I know why Scotty died young

These two pieces turned up in my reading list this morning. I believe what both of these people have to say.

Perhaps that means I have what  that F. Scott Fitzgerald  would consider a first-rate intelligence, so I suppose I should feel sort of good about that. But to believe both of these things at 9 in the morning . . . now I guess I can understand why Fitzgerald was hammered by noon most days.

First:

Self-government must be an educational enterprise, with lessons learned over and over again, and that is what Elizabeth Warren is about these days. She is still teaching. She teaches because she has learned, and she has learned because she teaches. The great teachers are the ones who remain students at heart, who keep learning from their students, and from the world around them, and from their own drive to know even more about even more things, and who then are able to transmit that knowledge—and more important, the drive to know more—to their students.

Charlie Pierce

Elizabeth Warren Is the Teacher

And then:

No doubt, the Internet and cable television have allowed various political and corporate interests to spread disinformation on a scale that was not possible before, but to have it believed requires a badly educated population unaccustomed to verifying things they are being told. Where else on earth would a president who rescued big banks from bankruptcy with taxpayers’ money and allowed the rest of us to lose $12 trillion in investment, retirement, and home values be called a socialist?

Charles Simic

Age of Ignorance

The quotes only capture the direction of the two pieces; you should read them both – they're going to the p3 Reading list, just in case. But you should also consider whether you'll need a big dose of your self-medication of choice at your elbow when you're through.

Just sayin'.

In what, we sincerely hope, will not have to become a p3 Christmas tradition:

Via Charlie Pierce, We are Two Nations: A Christmas Serial.

Part One.

Part Two.

Part Three.

Good news, everyone: Well I'll be damned

And what better way to inaugurate this new p3 feature than with this news: I was wrong, and Harry Reid actually threw the ball.

True, the filibuster is only disabled for presidential appointments and judgeships below the SCOTUS level, meaning that it's still a weapon with which the Senate GOP can (and will) obstruct legislation, but it's certainly something.

Pretty much right: Charlie Pierce.

And, it must be said, the fact that it was necessary for the Senate to take this step further belies as naive the president's star-making speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention.

Not quite so right: Robert Reich.

Turns out Harry Reid knows the only way to deal with bullies is to fight back.

Actually, the record shows that Harry Reid knows more than one way to deal with bullies, one of which is to give them your lunch money for several years before fighting back.

Still, better late than never.

Let's see what happens next.

And congratulations to Oregon's senators, especially Jeff Merkley, who's been fighting for this change, and getting the football pulled away by Reid, for some time now.

Quantum of umbrage: Throw the damned ball, Harry

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is like some third-grader getting his first chance in the outfield. He catches the hopper, then takes a step toward the infield, ball in hand, arm cocked . . . then another step . . . waiting for the runner to stop because he's really gonna throw the ball if he doesn't stop!

So the runner comes into third standing up.

Except that most third-graders catch on a lot faster than Senator Reid – the living embodiment of the reason that the phrase "as courageous as a former Nevada Gaming Commissioner" never really caught on – seems to have done.

I'm putting the odds at 60-40 that Reid, acting on exquisite respect for the courtesies and traditions of the Senate out of which the Senate Republicans have made a sad joke, will fail to pull the trigger and that either (1) those three Appeals Court positions will remain unfilled, or (2) he'll broker some sort of compromise in which Obama's original slate of nominees will be withdrawn and replaced by three candidates who are less qualified, well to the right ideologically, or both.

My sympathies to Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley – who even Reid now admits was right the last time he warned Reid he was about to get pantsed again – as he finds himself publicly saying he hopes it isn't Groundhog's Day.

Separated at birth: The special guest edition

Quote of the day: Choosing your friends

"Friend of mine owns 52 Wendy's, he's put pen to paper, he has 40 percent of his workforce insured today," Graham explained. "Under Obamacare, if 20 percent choose insurance, his insurance costs will double.”

- Republican Senator Lindsay Graham, demonstrating why it might be better for everyone if he knew 52 people who ate at Wendy's.

The unforgiving minute: This was utterly foreseeable

Charles Pierce quotes Rep. Paul Ryan (R - Innumeracy) on something most Oregonians would prefer to forget:

In 2011, Oregon's Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden and I offered ideas to reform Medicare. We had different perspectives, but we also had mutual trust. Neither of us had to betray his principles; all we had to do was put prudence ahead of pride.

(Briefly lapses into W.C. Fields impression) Ahhhhh, yessss. (Regular voice resumes) This was one of Ryan's previous scams, and he still hasn't learned that I Found A Sucker isn't a demonstration of bipartisan problem-solving. The Ryan-Wyden plan, which would have mixed private plans with a Medicare "public option," thereby blowing a hole in the Medicare guarantee, attracted the support of exactly nobody and went exactly nowhere. (In fact, to this day, it's hard to see what Wyden ever got out of the deal.)

I liked to think, then and now, that this unforced error by Wyden is attributable to: (1) his not having kicked the “senatorial courtesy” fetish that made him never turn down a photo op invitation with Oregon's then-Junior senator Gordon Smith, whether Smith was sticking to Bush like the skin on a weenie or desperately trying to put daylight between himself and Bush as re-election time grew near; (2) his evident and lingering disappointment that his Healthy American Act had been overwhelmed by events, including Obama's health care plan, to which Wyden's HAA was in some ways superior; combined with (3) a desire to stay relevant in the health care conversation.

Whatever the reason, it was inevitable that Senator Wyden's move would accomplish nothing he wanted as far as policy goes, while handing Ryan a free ticket to claim his plan to eliminate Medicare enjoyed “bipartisan support.” And it certainly left a lot of dents in a lot of desks that perfectly matched the foreheads of a lot of Oregon Democrats.

Minute's up.

A quantum of umbrage: The only smart thing Newt Gingrich ever said

Updated -- you'll see.

I haven't been able to track down the specifics -- Yes! As of May 2014 I have been! -- but I vividly remember a story Newt Gingrich told back before he became a disgraced former Speaker of the House (which was, in turn, before he began making a comfortable living as the Harold Stassen of modern Republican presidential politics and an inexplicable green room legacy). It was the one smart thing I ever remember him saying.

He told about driving along the Autobahn in Germany like a bat out of hell, and reflecting on the reduced speed limit that his own country had not long before placed on federal highways (in the name of fuel efficiency, or fewer deaths, or some other reason he didn't see any point to). If the German government imposed a 55 mph speed limit on the Autobahn, he reflected, the Germans would all begin driving 55 mph, and would vote that government out at the next election, whereupon they would all go back to driving like bats out of hell. Americans, faced with the same problem, complained about the speed limits, continued to drive 90 mph on federal highways, and re-elected their same representatives anyway.

All of which brings us to this (emphasis added):

With a potential government shutdown now looming, Americans find it unacceptable for either a president or members of Congress to threaten a government shutdown in order to achieve their goals, according to a new CBS News/New York Times poll.

Eighty percent of Americans say threatening a government shutdown during budget debates is not an acceptable way to negotiate; only 16 percent think it is.

While partisan divides may exist on a number of issues, majorities of Democrats, Republicans and independents all agree that threatening a shutdown of the government is not the way to negotiate.

Now you probably remember that it was Gingrich forcing two government shutdowns in the mid-1990s in the belief it would harm Bill Clinton, and the attendant political backlash, that cost Newt his speakership. So there's that.

And yet Gingrich's Law will no doubt apply in the present case: Although every member of the House will be up for re-election next year (including every single break-the-government Obama-contrarian Tea Partier), and one-third of the members of the Senate (including too few of the worst of the worst like Cruz and Lee, but a big slice of their colleagues who enable them), would anyone bet actual money that there will be a noticeable electoral price to pay for their narcissistic, nihilistic antics?

There are never German voters around when you need them.


(Hat-tip to C&L.)

A quantum of umbrage: Most. Ghastly. Beltway. Rumor. Ever.

On the buzz about who might replace Janet Napolitano as head of Homeland Security:

In the political world, former Senator Joe Lieberman is also a rumored possibility to take the job, in part because he could help make a possibly contentious Senate confirmation process a bit easier

Okay, I realize that it's the job of rumor mongers to . . . you know, monger rumors. But:

If Obama puts Lieberman – the same Lieberman who was the first Democrat [sic] to step into the well of the Senate and board the Clinton penis train, the same Lieberman who would have been gloriously unknown outside his home state had not Al Gore decided to run for president in 2000 by running away from Clinton (thus giving Holy Joe an undeserved elevation to national prominence for which Gore has yet to atone, thirteen years later), the same Lieberman who never missed a chance to go on the Sunday talk shows and threaten to derail whatever consensus his party had struggled to achieve in the previous week, the same Lieberman who never saw a chance for getting America into another war that didn't make him tingle all up and down his thighs – up for DHS head, it will confirm my steadily-increasing conviction that Obama doesn't see his job as fixing what's wrong with America, but rather as presiding over and softening the blow of our growing national awareness that we can't have nice things anymore.

See also: No More Mister Nice Blog.

He couldn't even wait a full news cycle before going there

[Updated below.]

“He,” in this case, is Rand Paul (R [Need you ask?] - KY [Surprise!]), who reacted to this morning's SCOTUS news that DOMA is dead as a dodo with a General Zod-like plea for the purity of our genetic heritage:

I think this is the conundrum and gets back to what you were saying in the opening -- whether or not churches should decide this. But it is difficult because if we have no laws on this people take it to one extension further. Does it have to be humans?

This was on Glenn Beck's show, so there was no possibility of anyone with good judgment standing nearby ready to stuff a towel in the Senator's mouth before he said something exactly like this.

But once again, we have to ask the awkward but necessary questions:

Why is it that this is the first place their minds go?

Can you really be this worried about stopping something that you haven't already been thinking about -- a lot?

H/t to Pierce.

[Update: John Oliver writes a concurring opinion.]

Eight years ago today on p3: Senate Republicans try to decide how bad they really feel about lynching

And it wasn't anything that would make you proud of the World's Greatest Deliberative Body^TM.

How embarrassing was it, for those of us who don't wish Jim Crow was still in place?

Well, Oregon's junior senator at the time, Gordon Smith, was one of the very last senators to cosponsor – after the damned bill was already passed, mind you – the resolution saying that the Senate should have stepped up about a hundred years sooner to say that, you know, lynching is bad.

Oregon is so fortunate to have dumped Smith for Jeff Merkley. On so many levels.

Turtles in modern conservative history: A very special edition of Separated at Birth

In the beginning, there was Burt the Turtle, who brought the Cold War into the grade school classroom, convincing a generation of American children that horrible death could come raining out of the sky at any instant of the day or night, but that those old flimsy wooden school desks were adequate protection against a fireball hotter than the surface of the sun and a shock wave moving faster than the speed of sound.

Then there was Phil Gramm, who as a notional Democrat from Texas helped push through Ronald Reagan's first Laffer Curve/Trickle-Down/Starve-the-Beast budget – increasing the military budget, slashing social programs, cutting taxes, hoping for the best – whereupon his fellow Democrats threw him off the House Budget Committee, whereupon he resigned his seat, switched to the Republican Party, ran for and won his old seat in a special election, and spent the rest of his career in the House and later the Senate pushing tax cuts and banking deregulation.

And finally, there's Mitch McConnell, Republican Senator who denies he ever supported reasonable gun control measures in the early 1990s, announced in 2009 that he was dedicated to making Barack Obama a one-term president, and has currently been dragged so far to the right by his fear of getting primaried by a Tea Partier that his only accomplishment as Senate Minority Leader – except for pantsing Harry Reid time and again on procedural reform – has been making sure that the Senate has accomplished nothing, lest Obama somehow get credit for anything, ever.

p3 readers, we proudly present the return of Separated at Birth with a three-fer: Terrapene ornata conservatatum, the American conservative box turtle.

Acknowledgment of the works of Rick Perlstein.

The unforgiving minute: Oh please, oh please, oh please!

Can we be this lucky?

But despite that presidential fade-out and close call back home, [Minnesota Republican Representative, conservative whackjob (but I repeat myself -ed.) and political Gaffe-O-Matic Michele] Bachmann is again being mentioned as a candidate for higher office -- this time as a potential challenger to first-term Democratic Sen. Al Franken in 2014.

As Charlie Pierce tastefully frames it:

Surely, I don't have to explain all of the eight million reasons why this race would set the political Orgasmatron at about a 12, do I?

A quantum of umbrage: Thanks for all your help, Harry

The Senate Republicans have made it official: filibuster “reform” -- and Harry Reid -- are a joke, at our expense.

A little more than a week after Senate Democrats decided not to weaken the filibuster, Republicans are vowing to filibuster President Barack Obama's nominee to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau unless its powers are reduced, Reuters reports.

Senators Merkley, Udall, and Warren -- maybe especially Warren  -- should pants Reid in the well of the Senate and run them up the flagpole on the Capitol.

Actually, if they told Reid the Senate Republicans demanded it as a condition of bipartisan comity, he'd probably do it himself.

This must be the reason that the phrase "as courageous as a former Nevada Gaming Commissioner" never really caught on.