Closer To the Edge

U.S. House Speaker John Boehner finally got a debt ceiling bill over the finish line in the House of Representatives Friday evening with two more votes than he needed. The bill passed included $917 billion in spending cuts over ten years and increase the debt limit enough to cover about six months. But it didn't go nearly as far as most Tea Partiers want, even without tax increases included, and Boehner had to include a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution - which has no chance of making it out of Congress without a two-thirds majority in either house, which it cannot receive - to get it to pass.

Boehner comes out of all this severely diminished as a leader, because he had to keep delaying the vote on this bill on account of not getting enough votes to pass it. This victory was a Pyrrhic one; as soon as the bill reached the Senate, the upper house killed it, as Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said it would. However, the Democratic Senate plan offered by Reid has fared no better. It would cut $2 trillion in spending over ten years (again, no tax increases) and extend the nation's borrowing authority through 2012, sparing incumbent politicians the task of having to deal with it in an election campaign that's already guaranteed to be contentious. That plan has been shelved, and the Republican House has already rejected it. So Reid doesn't exactly look like a hero either.

Reid and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell have been trying to formulate a compromise that the House might have to swallow, but they haven't apparently made and meaningful progress on that front either.

The best thing that could happen if the United States defaults is if the Tea Party is discredited (like the nation's finances) once and for all. As for progressives who thought we were on the cusp of a new golden age in January 2009, they'd better find themselves another candidate. They know what I'm talking about.

If At First You Don't Succeed . . .

Harry Reid still can't shake noted crazy lady Sharron Angle in his bid for a fifth term in the U.S. Senate representing Nevada, and his wussy performance in their only debate demonstrated why Reid's election in 2010 may be more unthinkable than Angle's.

I once thought the only way Harry Reid would win this election was if Sharron Angle were to say something incredibly vicious, insane or offensive on the campaign trail. But I can't think of anything incredibly vicious, insane or offensive that she hasn't already said. Until today, when a tape of Angle making vicious, insane and offensive comments to Hispanic high school students about her stand on illegal immigration surfaced. Angle insisted that she did not know the men in her TV spots about the issue were Hispanic - she insisted that her ads were misinterpreted as pinpointing Latinos as the source of controversy over immigration - and tried to make case that it can be difficult to pinpoint someone's ethnicity. "You know, I don't know that all of you are Latino. Some of you look a little more Asian to me. I don't know that," she told the students, who responded with what was described as "a flurry of gasps and whispers."

And she might still win, because Harry Reid is hated that much in Nevada. But you know something? If she loses, you can expect her to try again for a Senate seat. Because if John Ensign, Nevada's other senator, chooses not to seek re-election in 2012 - and, given the marital scandal he's involved in, he just might choose so - Angle, should she lose this year, could conceivably go for Ensign's seat and win it.

Why? Because Republicans don't quit trying for elective office. They just keep trying. Look at John Ensign himself. He lost his own bid to unseat Harry Reid in 1998, so when Nevada's other senator, Richard Bryan, chose not to seek a third term in 2000, Ensign ran for that seat and won. Likewise, Jon Thune in South Dakota tried unsuccessfully to unseat Senator Timothy Johnson in 2002. So he went after Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle in 2004 and defeated him. This year he's running for a second term virtually unopposed. Good grief, look at John Raese in West Virginia. As I noted, he opposed Governor Jay Rockefeller for a Senate seat in 1984, and now he's back to win Robert Byrd's seat in a special election, the most competitive Senate race in the Mountain State since that 1984 election.

Oh yeah, I think noted failed businesswoman Carly Fiorina is going to fall short of her bid to unseat Senator Barbara Boxer in California. But should that happen . . . well, if I were Dianne Feinstein (up for re-election in 2012), I'd watch my back.

Because that's what Republicans do. They keep going back to the voters until they hit pay dirt. And not just would-be senators. Former Indiana Republican senator Dan Coats is running to get his old seat back, now that Senator Evan Bayh is leaving, and he's going to win it easily. And this isn't restricted to Senate elections. Richard Nixon came back in 1968 after having lost the Presidency to John F. Kennedy to win it against Hubert Humphrey. Ronald Reagan and George Bush each made unsuccessful bids for the Republican presidential nomination before winning the nomination (and the Presidency) on their second tries. With few exceptions, Democrats have not been so tenacious. They mostly get one chance for elective office, and one strike is usually out. Second tries for, say, the Presidency, lead nowhere. Ask George McGovern. Ask Richard Gephardt. Ask Albert Gore. On second thought, don't. He actually did win on his second try, but his victory was stolen. And national Democrats were so scared of Hillary Clinton, they were ready to draft him for a presidential run in 2008. So he's an exception to the rule that losing Democrats go away quietly. Actually, he's the exception.

If Angle loses, she'll be back. If Carly Fiorina loses, she'll be back. I wouldn't even rule out Linda McMahon resurfacing to challenge Joe Lieberman in 2012 if she loses her Senate bid in Connecticut. But when Massachusetts Democrats bring up names of possible challengers to Scott Brown in 2012, Martha Coakley's name likely doesn't come up.

Unless they're contemplating intraparty suicide.

Sex and the Capitol

My, Washington, D.C. is quite involved with sexual politics, isn't it?

Yesterday the Senate tried to move on repealing the "don't ask, don't tell" policy in the military that allows gays to serve in the armed forces as long as they stay in the closet. Harry Reid that that this would be a great way to gain some momentum in the midterm congressional elections by firing up the homosexual segment of the Democratic base - especially on an policy that an overwhelming majority of Democrats and an overwhelming majority of Americans support. But no one bothered to count the votes, and the Democrats thought it would be clever to attach the provision as a rider on a defense bill. It was Reid - still facing a serious challenge from Sharron Angle despite her incurable case of foot-in-mouth disease - that got taken for a ride. Not one Republican - even those few Republicans who support repealing "don't ask, don't tell" - would vote to bring it up for consideration on the grounds that the process wasn't proper.

So the bill failed, there are no chances of letting gays and lesbians serve openly in the military any time soon, and the Democrats only managed to further discourage an already discouraged segment of their base. Gays and lesbians aren't even in a mood to give them an E for effort because Reid and his fellow Dems didn't come across as having made much of one. You know you're politically ineffective when Lady Gaga makes the case for open gay service in the military better than you do.

And what the @#** was she doing injecting herself into the issue, anyway?

I kind of like the days when pop musicians like Joan Baez tried to stop soldiers from going off to war rather than fighting for the rights of people to enlist. These times weren't meant for me.

From sexual orientation to sexual disorientation. Noted unindicted sex criminal David Vitter has had a case brought against him by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. The CREW crew charges Louisiana's junior senator with subsidizing the personal expenses of staff member and domestic violence perpetrator Brent Furer after he was charged with abusing and threatening to kill his girlfriend. At issue is the charge the Furer was mostly on paid leave during the three months it took to resolve the case. Vitter's office has brushed it off, mostly by saying that the senator had merely expressed concern over Furer's behavior before he finally resigned, and that the media have misrepresented Furer's case. Furer's lawyer, meanwhile, has insisted that the case is behind him, and that he's putting his life back together.

And Louisiana Republicans have all collectively said, "Good enough for me!"

Four words: Charlie Melancon For Senate.

The details of the case are available here.

Grayson Matters

The second word in the title of this post can be read as either a noun or a verb.

Alan Grayson's influence of the Democratic party as a member of Florida's U.S. House delegation is palpable. It was Grayson who distinguished himself as a Democrat who refused to apologize to Republicans after attacking them heartless bastards in the health care debate when he said the Republican plan was to tell people not to get sick and to die quickly if they do. Now Grayson seems to be emboldening the embattled Senate Democratic leader. Harry Reid, normally a milquetoasty kind of guy, said on the campaign trail in his home state of Nevada, declared that he can't understand how Hispanics can be Republicans. The GOP demanded an apology; Reid wouldn't give one. Grayson must be proud.

Grayson himself was in the news again this week, as he blasted White House spokesman Robert Gibbs for complaining about how unappreciative and ungrateful the "professional left" ("Professional left?" What, he thinks all progressives are making money from voicing their opinions?) are for what the Obama administration has achieved so far, even grousing about the Democratic liberal base for complaining about what they didn't get, like a government-administered health insurance option. Grayson has been angry at Gibbs's fight picking with the base, saying that liberals should have their concerns taken more seriously - especially when a majority of Americans wanted the public option only to see it traded away in backroom dealing. Grayson - who wants to see the White House pick more fights with Republicans - has demanded that Gibbs resign, but Gibbs, like Reid, is in no mood to budge. The White House must have taken some of Grayson's concerns to heart, as they are finally beginning to go after House Republican leader John Boehner - though, perhaps they should go after him harder.

Update on Georgia: Nathan Deal is the Republican nominee for governor, having bested Palin-endorsed candidate Karen Handel. The good news is that a Palinista lost. The bad news is that Deal's probably going to win the governorship in November.

Harry Chastened

The revelations from a new book on the 2008 campaign, "Game Change" by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, have been the talk of Washington, including a now-infamous tidbit about Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada having declared that Barack Obama was a plausible candidate for President because he was "light-skinned" black man who chose not to speak in the "Negro dialect." An embarrassed Reid apologized to President Obama for his remarks, and Obama accepted the apology, but Republicans have called for Reid to resign,. just like Senate Republican leader Trent Lott of Mississippi did when he lamented that noted segregationist Strom Thurmond wasn't elected President in 1948 . . . and the country would have been spared a lot of "problems" if Thurmond had made it to the White House.

Gee, were black Republicans - all five of them - that offended by Reid's remarks?

Comparing to Reid's comments to Lott's is comparing apples and spinach. Reid was expressing, however inarticulately, how Obama's personal qualities made him attractive to white voters who most likely would not have considered a black presidential candidate otherwise. Lott pretty much said that segregation forever -Thurmond's 1948 campaign slogan - was a desirable goal. The truth of the matter - and a political gaffe always occurs when a politician tells the truth - was that Obama was more like Will Smith than Jay-Z. As for Reid, his civil rights record and his record on social programs that benefit blacks is as commendable as Lott's is not. In fact, Reid was one of the first people to see Obama as a potential presidential candidate.

And regarding the use of the word "Negro" . . . . While you can argue that broken ghetto English isn't necessarily a "Negro dialect," I'm, still having trouble with the idea that there's any pejorative in the word "Negro." Martin Luther King used it himself: "The Negro is an American." It's an anthropological term, just like "Caucasian," and while blacks are a bit uneasy with the use of the word "Negro" on census forms, I, a Caucasian, am not offended when I see that word used in place of "white" on Internet forms, which has happened.

But enough about that. How about this? If Harry Reid had said Rudolph Giuliani had a plausible chance of becoming the first U.S. President of Italian origin because he wasn't short or swarthy-looking and didn't speak in the Italian-American dialect (saying "quandemose" instead of "big deal," "stunade" in place of "stupid person") and didn't gesture with his hands while saying words like "metagon" (meaning "whitebread American"), would we be having this conversation? Would we have been having it during a Giuliani Presidency?

I think I've made my point. Now can we please talk about something else, like the other tidbits in this new book? More of that later.

No Option

First, the good news - Harry Reid supports the public option. The Senate Democratic leader said yesterday that a government-run public health insurance program will be in the Senate bill.

Now the bad news, unless your politics is different from mine - it doesn't have a chance.

There are a least three senators in the Democratic Senate majority - Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut - who oppose the public option due to opposition to a government-run health insurance program in these states. Especially in Connecticut, where the insurance industry dominates and the insurance salesman is the state bird.

Senators Tom Carper of Delaware and Charles Schumer of New York have suggested making it possible for states to opt of out a public health insurance program. Hello - it's a national system! It's not a states' rights issue, like self-serve gasoline (and I'm still ticked off at New Jersey for opting out of that!) It's a nationwide issue! We can't have a national system that leaves states out! It would be like Amtrak not serving South Dakota. . ..

Okay, bad example! :-O