Government By Whim

"In politics...never retreat, never retract...never admit a mistake."

-- Napoleon Bonaparte

Over at HuffPo, Jane Hamsher gets it right...

Harry Reid's back is against the wall.

Founder, FireDogLake.com
Posted January 2, 2009 | 12:30 PM (EST)

...
[Harry Reid] thinks that if he doesn't oppose Rod Blagojevich's appointment of Roland Burris to fill Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat, John Cornyn and the Republicans will make the Democrats wear Blago around their necks for the rest of their natural lives.

And on that count, he's probably right.

But the decisions Reid is making right now are politically motivated, with little regard for the law. And the Democrats are only in this position, and looking so compromised, because of bad decisions Reid has made in the past.

How will it look if the Sergent-At-Arms bars Burris from the Senate floor, but did nothing to Harriet Miers and Karl Rove when they defied Senate subpoenas?

How will it look if they refuse to accept Burris into the Democratic Caucus after having accepted Joe Lieberman, who spent years enabling Bush administration crime and corruption as Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee?

How does it look to be screaming about Burris's "taint" when they did nothing for decades about Ted Stevens, and gave him a standing ovation even after he'd been convicted? Or for that matter, their inaction with regard to Larry Craig?

How does it look now that Reid is manipulating Senate procedure to exclude Burris, but simply shrugged his shoulders over Samuel Alito, warrantless wiretapping and the Military Commissions Act?
…

...but does not carry her argument quite far enough.

This is failure at every level.

It is failure of the Illinois Democratic Party that Lil' Rod was ever permitted to come within styling-mousse distance of the highest office in the State.

"In politics stupidity is not a handicap."
-- Napoleon Bonaparte

It is a cascade failure of the Illinois Republican Party, who have been so corrupt, tone-deaf and idea-starved for so many years that they cannot get their shit together long enough to mount serious opposition for any statewide offices. (These are the brain wizards who, when Golden Child Jack Ryan's candidacy imploded, pulled Alan Keyes out of the crazy box to run against Barack Obama. 'Cause, y'know, melanin.)

"Men are more easily governed through their vices
than through their virtues." -- Napoleon Bonaparte

It is primarily a failure of the Democratic-controlled legislative bodies at the state and federal level who were terrified that doing the right thing would cost them politically.

"A man will fight harder for his interests
than his rights." -- Napoleon Bonaparte

And what would the right thing have been?

To strip Blago of his appointment authority, and then hold a special election.

And why didn’t they do the right thing?

Because they wanted a sure thing. Because they didn’t trust the voters. Because the stink coming off of the open sewer of Blagojevich-style politics might very well be enough to drive voters to punish his Party by electing a Republican.

And losing that particular seat – the seat vacated by the wildly popular African American Democratic President Elect from the Bright Blue State of Illinois -- would not just be a loss; it would be a humiliation.

"I can no longer obey; I have tasted command,
and I cannot give it up." -- Napoleon Bonaparte

So rather than manning-up, taking their lumps, facing the real problem and the possibility of an embarrassing-but-not-fatal electoral reversal, national and state Democratic Party Leadership from Senate Majority Leader Reid, to the Illinois Secretary of State and Attorney General have instead been desperately bending themselves into the seventh dimension tossing out progressively weirder ad hoc workarounds, hoping that no one would notice that their “solutions” are illegal, ridiculous or both.

So now they’re all stuck with the prospect of offering the GOP and the national press this lovely tableaux:

A Capitol Hill cop blocking the Senate doorway George Wallace-style and preventing a legally appointed and credentialed African American man from being seated…

…as newly-appointed Senator Caroline breezes past the velvet rope to her reserved table in the Hart Senate Cafeteria because the one of the Kennedy family heirlooms is apparently the Bunny Key

to the front door of the Old White Guys Club…

…while the Democratic Party leadership -- which was willing to spend the next four years lovingly braiding the grizzled yam-sack mullet of their dear, close, personal friend Holy Joe Lieberman in exchange for a shot at cobbling together a McConnell-proof Senate – cowers in the Senate cloak room, hoping that somehow it’ll all just go away.

Sigh.

This is what happens when leaders at every level refuse to lead because leading is hard.

This is what happens when the makers and interpreters of the law decide that, when the rules won’t produce the political results they want, then fuck the rules; give the rules twenty bucks and a bus ticket out of town and fuggedaboutdit.

Christ Almighty, we’ve had eight years of that kind of thinking, and it nearly killed us. And if we’re going to pull this country out of the grave that Republicans have dug for us, we dare not sit quietly by studying the tips of our shoes as the Democratic Leadership stumbles their way into Act One, Scene One of the Obama Administration by showing their collective asses to the world, exhibiting the same contempt for the democratic process and the rule of law for which we on the Left have always been more than willing to call out Republicans.

Of course, on the upside, the amount of clean, rotational energy capable of being tapped from Abraham Lincoln spinning in his grave

will be more than enough to power every home, school, church, bar, mall, gummint building and office complex from Funk’s Grove to Navoo.

"I am sometimes a fox and sometimes a lion.
The whole secret of government lies in knowing
when to be the one or the other."
-- Napoleon Bonaparte