DEMOCRATS: Pelosi: What do you think of her?

I don't think highly of Pelosi. But in all fairness, I can't think of any Speaker of the House I've liked in my lifetime. The nature of what they do and what it takes to get the position pretty mean they won't be my kind of leader.

 

yes she is pretty much a total failure thus far

I cannot think of a single Democratic accomplishment of the last 8 years

 

i'm not a democrat but it is truly amazing how the bush admin has been able to maintain a stranglehold over almost anything the dems try to do. i wish one party would step up and lead with intelligent forward looking plans but neither seems willing or able...

 

She's a continuation of a line of SoH's that we've had recently who seem to think their job is to lead their party instead of the House. I was too young to really pay attention back then, but I've heard that people like Tip O'Neill were, while partisan, also effective leaders of the House as a whole.

Sort of like (though not as bad as) Craddick here in Texas. She was a horrible choice for Speaker from day 1.

 

Maybe they liked to trash Bush in public but really agreed with most of his policies. If you don't think Bush's approval rating (and Congress for that matter) has everything to do with the price of gas then you're naive. A Democrat wouldn't be doing anything drastically different than Bush has done.

 

With a less than 60 majority they are vulnerable to veto. Bush, having never vetoed a single thing when there was a Republican Congress, has repeatedly promised to veto anything he didn't agree with.

That means that unless they got 10 Republicans to crossover and vote with them it was impossible for the Democratic Congress to oppose any Bush policy in any meaningful way.

Sad but true.

Now, they could have gone ahead and passed more stuff that they knew would get vetoed (and I wish they did) but ultimately that would have been nothing but theatre.

It's not Pelosi's fault that they rules work that way.

 

This is what people always say but that doesn't mean it makes any sense.

I don't like it any better than you do but they've tried it a couple times and Bush did veto. If he doesn't like what Congress does, he will veto it. Every single time. And he has the power to do that. And, unlike previous presidents with a Congress controlled by the other party, he just doesn't care. Do it his way or he will veto. But, yeah, blame the powerless Congress. That makes a lot of sense.

Learn math. Here. I'll help.

With a 50 vote 'majority' (51 only with Lieberman who won't vote with them on Iraq), they need every single one of those votes PLUS one more to vote for something they know for a fact will be vetoed. It's not just Pelosi or any other Democrat making the decision. It's every one of them making the decision not to waste time on anything that gets less than EVERY ONE of their votes PLUS ten more votes because they know it won't amount to anything. And if 49 of them get together and say screw it, we're doing it anyway, and ONE says no, it's dead. And if that one says yes, Cheney comes to break the tie.

A majority of 50 in a Congress with a Bush presidency is NOT a majority. And it has no power.

And still people say, "THEY COULD HAVE DONE SOMETHING."

Like what, Rocket River?

Seriously.

Like WHAT?

The law is the law.

What do you want them to do? Beat him up?

 

she passed minimum wage. which was big.

but yeah. dems have no balls. when we were in the minority in the senate filibuster was anti-american and we we caved. when we're in the majority we don't have 40 votes so we can't push anything thru.

reid is completely impotent as well.

however i'll give both of them a chance to see how they perform after november. we'll have huge majorities in congress (especially the house) and the presidency. there will be no excuses.

 

well i want them to not pass legislation like FISA. sure i understand they can't do throw much down bush's throat. but they can refuse to give him stuff. or attach enough strings. but everytime they've been vetoed because of strings they end up giving bush what he wants.

 

The Democratic position was never going to win FISA. Lieberman wasn't on board so that means without drawing a Republican vote it was lost already - not just lost to veto but lost before veto. And there were many Dems that voted to pass it. The Democratic position was never going to win out.

The idea that Democrats control Congress is a myth. With 50 votes, they control some procedural stuff and they can shut the government down. Other than that, they have no power whatsoever to do a single thing Bush doesn't want. That's not on Pelosi or Reid or any other part of the leadership. I agree they ought to have done more, but at least I understand the doing of more would have been nothing more than symbolic.

And a lot of Congressmen and Senators are uncomfortable tying up Congress over symbolism.

 

Also, they end up giving Bush what he wants because he is a stubborn, veto-happy president with no concern whatsoever about his legacy or public opinion.

That means that, if he can manage not to lose 10 Republican senators on any particular issue, he has basically absolute power.

Democrats or other progressives who pretend this isn't the case and continue to hammer party leadership don't help a single bit either.

I would seriously like to hear one credible thing the Dem congressional leadership could have done differently that wouldn't be purely theatrical with no desired result at the end. Because I have yet to hear one yet. What I keep hearing instead is, "THEY SUCK! THEY SHOULD AT LEAST DO SOMETHING!"

When I asked if RR's solution was to kick the president's ass, I wasn't kidding. It's a much more realistic example of "AT LEAST DOING SOMETHING!" than any other posted so far from anyone disappointed by the Dem 'majority' in Congress. In fact, it's the only example.

The other day I was stuck in traffic, running late, and I told my car to AT LEAST DO SOMETHING. I was thinking, grow wings and fly over the traffic or grow monster truck tires and drive over it. And I kept telling my car it was an idiot and a loser for not doing those things but then I remembered that I was an idiot and a loser for thinking it could.

 

Pelosi and Reid reek of the same incompetence as Bush honestly. No leadership at all and really no plan to stop the war when that's what people voted for last time. That's one of the reasons Congress has a lower approval rating than Bush. Everyone jumps on Bush's Mission Accomplished but Reid is the dufus who said the war is lost. What kind of moron Congressman says something like that with 150,000 troops on the ground? Hanoi Harry in full effect.

 

No. Congress has a lower approval rating because people can't understand the most basic facts of how our government works. Your post here indicates you are one of those people.

People voted to put Dems in power to end the war but they failed to put enough of them in Congress to do it.

If we're out of beer and my gas tank is empty and you and your friends vote to have me make a beer run 100 miles away and you pool your money and give me five dollars for gas, it's really not my fault if I don't bring back beer. My car doesn't get 200 miles to the gallon.

I don't know how many ways to explain this to you guys without saying you're all very stupid so I guess I just have to say that.

This president has made it very clear that nothing he doesn't like gets through Congress without 60 votes. The rules of our gov't give him the power to make good on that promise. The Congress has challenged his will in this a few times and every time he has made good on his promise.

If you want them to "AT LEAST DO SOMETHING," say what that something would be. Would you like them to take up arms and stage a coup? I wouldn't. I'd prefer they just won the next presidential or won the ten extra seats they'd need to actually have any power.

You and RR and others would apparently just prefer to irrationally complain, offering no suggestion whatsoever as to how they could sidestep the laws of the land.

Great thinking. Oh wait, I said great thinking but I meant to say stupid thinking.

Stupid thinking.

 

Batman:

So you're saying that Democrats didn't have the power to cut funding for the war, and did they not blink when faced the thought of Republicans wailing on them for not supporting the troops?

 

Batman:

Your points regarding the inability of congress to get past the veto are well taken. But it doesn't do **** to make me less disgusted with these giant weiners we have in congress.

This is indicative of a lack of position, not an inability to move forward with one. And symbolism is definitely important, when it can draw more attention to an utter travesty like the FISA bill.

I don't want them to sidestep or whatever. I want them to take a position and stick with it. Especially Obama - who, it should be noted, has done the exact opposite repeatedly in the last month or so. I don't like to lamblast politicians for "flip-flopping" a la the republican infatuation with stubborness as a virtue... but, if there is anything to take a stand on, it's the fscking constitution and the brain-dead foreign policy of the Bush Junta. Fine, you can't change them right now - but for the love of all things holy, you could at least indicate that you consistently disagree!

 

Two side comments:

1. What all has Obama flip-flopped on? I see the FISA argument, but what else?

2. In terms of the unconstitutionality of FISA, I'd just like to mention that that if it's unconstitutional, it will be overturned by the Supreme Court. The Constitution basically sets them as the arbiter of what is or isn't constitutional, so if they don't overturn it, it's technically not unconstitutional - and arguing that it is would suggest people want to ignore the clauses in the Constitution about the judicial branch. Arguing that it's a bad law is a whole different thing, though.

 

Huh? To stop the war you simply don't fund it. Yet we passed funding over and over and over and over and over again. That's a basic fact. Bush can't pass legislation, he can only veto it. Stupid thinking is continuing to fund a war that nobody wants.

 

Except there's a very big difference between a responsible withdrawal and simply cutting funding. The latter would result in a lot of national security damage for the US in the region as well as a bunch of soldiers getting killed. I don't think anyone, Dem or Republican, believes that simply cutting funding is a good idea.

There's a reason why neither Obama or Clinton suggested an immediate withdrawal from Iraq. The idea is to do it carefully and properly in order to not screw ourselves in the process. Congress doesn't have control over that, unfortunately.