Sherry Chandler

Warning: I think this post is incoherent with outrage.

Cloture is a parliamentary procedure intended to close debate on an issue. In the United States Senate, cloture is the method by which U.S. Senators can force an end to a filibuster. It requires a 60-vote majority to pass a cloture vote.

A cloture vote is also a way to let a filibuster take place without anybody having to talk for hours the way James Stewart did in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” If, say, the Republicans declare their intention to filibuster a bill requiring longer rest periods for our troops in Iraq, and the Democrats can’t get a cloture vote to force the bill onto the floor, then the filibuster is taken as read and everybody can go on about their business. There can be legitimate reasons for not allowing the work of the legislature to grind to a halt while opposing Senators engage in endless debate.

However, the New York Times says it’s time to make the Republicans actually filibuster:

On Wednesday, the Senate failed to vote on two major bills. One would have restored basic human rights and constitutional protections to hundreds of foreigners who are in perpetual detention, without charges or trial. The other was the one measure on the conduct of the Iraq war that survived the Democrats’ hasty retreat after last week’s smoke-and-mirrors display by Gen. David Petraeus and President Bush.

There were votes, of course, but not on the bills. They were cloture votes, which require 60 or more Senators to agree to cut off debate, eliminating the possibility of a filibuster, so Senators can vote on the actual law. In both cases, Democrats were four votes short, with six Republicans daring to defy the White House.

We support the filibuster as the only way to ensure a minority in the Senate can be heard. When the cloture votes failed this week, the Democrats should have let the Republicans filibuster. Democratic leaders think that’s too risky, since Congress could look like it’s not doing anything. But it’s not doing a lot now.

The country needs a lot more debate about what must be done to contain Iraq’s chaos and restore civil liberties sacrificed to Mr. Bush’s declared war on terrorism. Voters are capable of deciding whether Republicans are holding up the Senate out of principle or political tactics.

Via Kevin Drum, here’s the McClatchy chart reflecting the Republican’s increased use of filibusters.

There’s a debate about this tactic going on over at TPM here and here. It is a truth that Bush will veto any of the bills in question, should they pass.

What boils my blood, though, is that the Democrats just can’t ever seem to see the Republican banana peel. They just keep taking the stupid pratfall. As, for example, in the vote to condemn the MoveOn ad. Here’s Art Brodsky on the subject:

From the rhetorical standpoint, the setup was brilliant. Democrats were forced by the Republican logic to choose sides. On one side, there was MoveOn, the villain du jour for running an ad in the Sept. 10 New York Times questioning whether Gen. David Petraeus was cooking the books on Iraq. The ad cited any number of sources to show that the war isn’t a sterling success, and many Democrats made the identical points before, but no matter. The ad’s headline, “General Petraeus or General Betray Us?” was all Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and company needed to trigger the Democratic auto-response to being accused of being weak.

MoveOn is a group that, according to McConnell, wanted a “pacifist response” to Al-Qaeda and “ran an ad on its website equating the president to Adolph Hitler.” On the other side, there is a four-star general, the commander of the multi-national force in Iraq, former commander of the 101st Airborne Div. So it was either stand with the general or stand with people who think the United Nations can rid the world of Al-Qaeda.

There are three possible responses to something like this. Senate Democrats, of course, ended up with the worst possible result. By giving the Republicans a 72-25 victory, splitting the Democratic caucus in half, surpassing the magic 60-vote requirement that stifles almost every other piece of legislation, the Democrats look, again, divided and weak, because they bought into the logic system that the Republican resolution proposed.

So — Democrats let Republicans get away with all these silent filibusters and then fall right in with their distracting tactics. When the right-wing Swift Boaters ruin a candidate’s reputation, no one can do a thing about it. But when a lefty organization uses similar tactics, everybody gets to have a hissy fit. When will the frikkin Democrats grow up?? I hear they’re furious at MoveOn for providing this distraction, but maybe they’re really furious for being called on their enabling tactics.

Says Kevin Drum:

If there’s anything interesting to be drawn from the reaction to MoveOn’s ad, it’s the Republican reaction. I mean, they’ve practically been slathering over this ad for two straight weeks now. Am I the only one who thinks this shows a desire to change the subject so palpable as to be almost desperate? You can practically feel the flop sweat rolling down their cheeks. These guys want to talk about anything other than the underlying reality of what’s going on in Iraq. Anything. It would be kind of creepy if it weren’t, you know, actually important.

And is MoveOn chastened? Not so you’d notice.

In response to a question at a news conference yesterday, the president said that few Democrats had condemned the ad, “which leads me to come to this conclusion: that most Democrats are afraid of irritating a left-wing group like MoveOn.org, or more afraid of irritating them than they are of irritating the United States military.”

For MoveOn’s supporters, the special notice from Bush may only serve to validate its confrontational style. “I think he just raised MoveOn several million more dollars,” said Erik Smith, a Democratic media consultant.

“Why is the box covered in black, then?”

“Because it’s for Buster’s funeral. She died.”

She? “Was she a pet?”

“My cat.”

Jury was fascinated. “Did you bury her?”

…

“So now I guess I get sent to Lowood School,” she said, sitting stiffly. He opened his mouth to reply but she didn’t give him a chance. “Well, if they think I’m stupid like Jane Eyre, they’ll see. There’s no headmaster going to hang a cardboard around my neck.” Her eyes narrowed, her mouth tightened, as if the grisly scene were being enacted right before her. “And if they think they’re going to make me walk round and round out in the rain like that dumb Helen —” Swiftly she fired a glance at Jury. “Stranger’ll be outside that wall and he’ll get me out. I’m not walking round and coughing in the rain.” Here she mimicked a coughing fit. “And then that Helen just lies in bed dying and smiling like the angels are all sitting there feeding her Kit-Kats.” Furiously, she shook the black bobbed hair.

—Martha Grimes, The Old Silent (Little, Brown, 1989)