fills me with an urge to defecate
The Republicans are sort of privately publically conceding a loss of four Senate seats in the next election. The state of play of the two parties and the seats up suggest that a Democratic majority of 60 seats is not out of the question — and, generally speaking if 2008 is as good a year as 2006 was for the Democrats (with a much slimmer Senate map up… going into 2008, the Republicans have 22 Senate seats up to defend and the Democrats have 12) they probably would. Theoretically this would mean that magical “Filibuster-proof” seat, as right now the Republicans tact is to filibuster anything worth anything, but the reality is that the number is arbitrary — Nebraska would be sending us unrepetent Iraq War supporting Democrat Bob Kerrey, for instance. Knowing the Democrats, electing Kerrey will probably be Job #1, (or 2?) which exposes the politics as a sort of Good Old Boy Network.
Bush has an approval rating somewhere in the twenties. Congress has an approval rating in the teens. The Democrats were elected out of disgust with the War in Iraq, but are impotent in doing anything about it. Rhetorically I saw how people viewerd this non-binding resolution of several months back to the effect that they were “cutting money off to the troops” — which is the effect of how money rolls in and out of the pot handed to President Bush. A political coup for the Republican Party, such as it is.
They are gridlocked. This past week, the Republicans filibustered a measure that from one of my favorite Seantors, Jim Webb of Virginia, that would have given the members of the military as much time at home as in action. As an “anti-war” measure, it’s a toothless joke– but our political discourse has deemed it as such nonetheless methinks partially because it’s a sort of safe way for the Democratic Party honchos to oppose something or other with regard to “The Reason they were put into the majority”. It was a worthwhile measure nonetheless. Former supporter of the measure John Warner ceased supporting this measure, perhaps taking the margin of supporters with him, and proposed a different measure — which was a non-binding version of the same exact thing. A pointless gesture — into the ether– pleasant enough, easily ignored by President Bush because it doesn’t require him to do a thing.
What the Congress did pass was a resolution condemning a newspaper ad from moveon.org that called General Petraeus a name. This is sort of a sick joke, a pointless measure which I can’t imagine anyone outside the orbit of Fox News and Republican talk radio paying attention to. It is difficult for me to see what is the point of Congress passing resolutions that do not do anything at all, passing into the ether, but that seems to be what our closely divided Congress is doing these days, out of inertia.
Hillary will come into office, with a Congress that includes somewhere between 55 and 60 Democratic Senators. And it will be the equivalent of Lyndon Johnson handing the Vietnam War over to Richard Nixon.