Should it go without saying that the current Congress is Democratic? The Democrats have the majority, control the agenda, and chair and hold a majority on every committee. But does that make the Congress Democratic?
Liberal commentators averse to criticizing Speaker Nancy Pelosi have begun flailing around for a reasonable explanation for the behavior of her Congress. Matt Stoller has latched onto the idea that, even though there are more Democrats in the House than Republicans, the Republicans secretly have a majority. This is an appealing proposition, since all of us on the left view the Republicans as worse than the Democrats. We'd like to be able to blame them for everything, not just most things. And, as an added bonus, this theory transports us into the enjoyable realm so often inhabited by those on the right, the realm of thoughtless belief in utter nonsense.
Stoller's argument is basically that the conservative, or "blue dog" Democrats insist on voting with the Republicans. True enough. But that's not the whole story. Stoller also acknowledges in passing a couple of other problems:
"Democratic leaders aren't able to [stand up to Bush] out of a mixture of fear, incompetence, and insufficient liberal voting strength."
There's the blame for the blue dogs, but it's preceded by two other items: fear and incompetence on the part of the Democratic leaders. Stoller leaves it at that and does not add any additional sentences to these two themes. Stoller's not doing a detailed analysis here. He doesn’t actually know whether the problem is fear or incompetence or a combination of the two or some third factor. All he is doing here is acknowledging that the Democratic leaders are human agents, capable of completely caving into the blue dogs or not.
Does Pelosi have a tough job trying to enforce party discipline on the blue dogs? Of course she does. But it's made harder every day she refrains from even trying. How did it come about that this Congress, elected to end the occupation of Iraq , dumped another $100 billion into it? This happened because Pelosi showed she was very good at enforcing party discipline. She badgered the rest of her party into doing what the blue dogs (except Congressman Michaud) wanted. She and her colleagues in the Democratic leadership, pleaded, cajoled, threatened, bribed, and harassed progressive Democrats to vote for more war. As a result, the blue dogs were almost completely hidden from the public, and the public's anger is now directed at the progressives who betrayed them and above all at Pelosi.
What alternative did Pelosi have? She could
have badgered the blue dogs into voting to end the occupation of Iraq .
Or at the very least she could have tried. To assume that such a
project would be impossible is to refuse to break out of playing all
defense all the time. Going on the offense can change your perspective.
It may be that the progressives only have a mild inclination toward
peace whereas the blue dogs really really want war badly, but at the
very least going on the offensive would expose the blue dogs' unpopular
position and party disloyalty to public view. Currently they look like
the essence of loyalty. (And with 69 progressive Democrats and one
Republican having announced that they will only fund a withdrawal, the
progressives' position may now be as decisively intractable as
anybody's.) If Pelosi and the rest of the Democrats push a progressive
position, and the blue dogs block it, she'll isolate them, and they'll
take the heat. Pelosi has thus far preferred to cover for them, which
makes them her party, which makes the Congress both Democratic and
guaranteed to behave like Republicans.
Now, if Pelosi had
managed to push through a bill to end the occupation by winning over
enough blue dogs, the effort might have died in the Senate or on the
President's desk. Or if she had failed to win over blue dogs, the
effort would have died in the House. Either way, Pelosi would have had
the opportunity to announce the end of the occupation of Iraq . In
fact, all that is needed to end the occupation of Iraq , and the only
way Congress can end it, given the readiness of Bush's veto pen, is for
Pelosi to announce that there will be no more bills to fund the
occupation. The only downside to jumping straight to that announcement
is that it would not isolate the blue dogs and pressure them to
represent the public demand for peace.
On other issues, Pelosi
has exactly as little to lose. She can obey the blue dogs and the
Republicans and send Bush destructive and unconstitutional bills that
he will sign, such as the recent Fourth Amendment Elimination Act
granting the presidency dictatorial Big Brother powers. Or Pelosi can
pass bills that would do some good for someone but that Bush will veto.
If these bills are killed by blue dogs prior to reaching Bush's desk,
that will identify for the public which Congress Members need to be
sent packing. We already know how bad Bush and Cheney are. They are the
least popular people ever to hold their offices. Most of the blue dogs
are names nobody's ever heard of.
But passing bills or failing
to pass bills, either way, is just for show as long as Bush is there
prepared to veto or signing statement or simply not comply with the
law. What is the point, for example, of trying to ban permanent bases
in Iraq again and again, as if they were ever legal, while Bush just
goes right on building them? The point is show, spectacle, theater. The
point is to accept the idea that reality doesn't matter, television is
more important. The point is that Congress does not exist to govern the
country but to serve as a sideshow to the eternal presidential election
campaign.
If Congress were a real part of our government
serious about the task of governing, Pelosi would do two things on
September 4th. The first would be to announce that there will be no
more bills to fund the occupation of Iraq . Bush has already been given
far more money than he needs to bring every troop, contractor, and
mercenary home. He can simply be told to do so. And can you imagine the
size of the party the citizens of the nation would throw for Nancy
Pelosi? Can you imagine the strength of the Party she would begin to
build?
But Pelosi wants to pass bills, any bills, at any cost.
Is it fear? Incompetence? Campaign contributions from weapons makers
and war profiteers? Who knows. Who cares. The point is that she intends
to put on a show for another year and a half of pretending to try to
pass good bills and actually passing bad bills, and the one thing that
cannot be mentioned in polite company is that she could do what she
pretends to want to do (get us out of Iraq) by announcing that there
will be no bills.
Another liberal pundit who (out of fear or
incompetence or insufficient liberal voting strength within his head)
will never question Pelosi is David Sirota. His new plan is for Pelosi
to push a bill that combines bringing 14% of U.S. troops home from Iraq
with something the Republicans and their base of voters really want.
That way, supposedly, either the Republicans (and blue dogs?) will go
along with a bill that can be advertised as "anti-war," or the
Democrats will get to run television commercials before the next
election attacking the Republicans for not doing something that
Democratic voters actually don't want done. This is a new height in
self-defeating defensiveness. Ultimately, the worst defense is a lack
of offense, and that's what we've got.
The second thing Pelosi
should do on September 4th is announce that impeachment is on the
table. Voters know that bills will be vetoed and that impeachment
cannot be. There are no guarantees that Pelosi could badger the blue
dogs into impeachment, but one thing is certain: attempting to do so
would make Pelosi a national hero among Democrats and Independents. And
this approach would, again, show the public who is with them and who is
not. Pelosi's current approach of promoting the policies of the
Republican National Committee (impeachment and cutting off the war
funding both off the table) will never persuade anyone that the
Congress is Republican, only that the Democrats and Republicans are the
same.
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