The so-called "60-vote requirement" applies only when it is time to do something to limit the Bush administration. It is merely the excuse Senate Democrats use to explain away their chronic failure/unwillingness to limit the President, and it is what the media uses to depict the GOP filibuster as something normal and benign. There obviously is no "60-vote requirement" when it comes to having the Senate comply with the President’s demands, as the 53-vote confirmation of Michael Mukasey amply demonstrates. But as Mukasey is sworn in as the highest law enforcement officer in America, the Democrats want you to know that they most certainly did stand firm and "register their displeasure."
The most amazing quote was from chief Mukasey supporter Chuck Schumer, who, before voting for him, said that Mukasey is "wrong on torture — dead wrong." Marvel at that phrase: "wrong on torture." Six years ago, there wasn’t even any such thing as being "wrong on torture," because "torture" wasn’t something we debated. It would have been incoherent to have heard: "Well, he’s dead wrong on torture, but . . . "
Now, "torture" is not only something we openly debate, but it’s something we do. And the fact that someone is on the wrong side of the "torture debate" doesn’t prevent them from becoming the Attorney General of the United States. It’s just one issue, like any other issue — the capital gains tax, employer mandates for health care, the water bill — and just because someone is "dead wrong" on one little issue (torture) hardly disqualifies them from High Beltway Office.
But hey, they passed the water bill. That took guts, didn’t it?
UPDATE: Greg Sargent at TPM explains the dealmaking that led to Reid’s allowing the Mukasey vote. Has to do with the defense appropriations bill. Read here for more on that and judge for yourself if the maneuver was worth it. But here are the key grafs about Reid’s not allowing a filibuster:
What of the talk that Reid might allow a filibuster of the Mukasey confirmation vote? Asked why this didn’t happen, a leadership source claimed that it was because Dem leaders were convinced that Repubs would be able to break off enough Dems to reach the 60 vote threshold and defeat the filibuster.
"They would have gotten 60," the leadership source says, adding: "Some on the Democratic side honestly fundamentally don’t believe in filibustering cabinet secretaries. We are on the cusp of a new administration, and we think it will be a Democratic one. Filibustering here would have set a bad precedent."
Of course, this argument will ring hollow to some. Good behavior by Dems now is hardly likely to produce the same on the part of Republicans; indeed, they’ve already been filibustering like nothing else. And it also seems likely that the Dem leadership preferred to avoid the filibuster because it really wanted to get the defense approps bill passed as a shield against GOP criticism (though it can also be argued that there’s pressure on Dems to get defense approps passed for other reasons) and so leaped at the chance to do this. That seems to be the reason that Dems rushed the vote through last night. Critics will point out that Dem worry about GOP attacks was hardly a good enough reason to wave the Mukasey vote through.
"It’s important for us to say that we gave money to the military," the source said. "Because when Bush starts coming at us and saying that the troops are running out of money [when the Iraq funding battle fight starts], we’ll be able to say, `We just gave you $450 billion.’ It kind of gives us a cushion here."
Sure it does, and that’s what you need–a cushion–because you Dems have that killer instinct to find the path that leads to the safe and soft. How marveolously apt.
The Dems play soft and mostly on their heels because the GOP isn’t reticent to play aggressively, and when the Dems have the advantage, they play not to lose. The result is that they lose. Anybody really believe that this maneuver to protect themselves
from GOP attack about being weak on defense is going to work? Why
should it? There are other agendas at work here, and they have little
to do with what is good for the country.
Anybody still have questions why the wingnut right like Coulter and Limbaugh have nothing but contempt for Democrats? Maybe it’s because they are, in fact, contemptible. You don’t have to be a wingnut to see that. Unfortunately they know how to use Dem weakness to their advantage even when every advantage should be with the Dems.
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