I Blame Capra

For whatever reason, the filibuster has a romantic appeal to people who should know better, and you often hear from those who dislike the current rules that changing the rules to require "real" filibusters would have some sort of salutary effect. My position continues to be that the effects of such a rule change are probably overstated, but more importantly that since the practice serves no legitimate purpose the best way to reform the filibuster is to eliminate it.

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Nihilists and Wets

Bart Stupak is happy to blow up health care reform, denying countless people medical care and hence unnecessary illness and death, if access to abortion can't be made more inequitable. Just another reminder, pace Charles Lane, who actually stands in the way of a health care bill.

In other news, Jay Rockefeller now seems to oppose the public option because it would be too "partisan." Yes, it would be a shame if excessive partisanship caused the number of possible GOP votes in the Senate for health care legislation to go from zero to zero. (And, yes, this really is a case where Obama deserves considerable blame for a lack of leadership.)

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"Mixed Feelings, Buddy. Like seeing Larry Wildmon going off a cliff...in my new Maserati."

My official, rational, considered position is that Evan Bayh's retirement is a bad thing, given the near certainty that he will be replaced by a Republican with a much worse voting record. My emotional reaction is that it's hard to be that upset about a quintessential centrist wanker leaving the World's Worst Deliberative Body.

...and as Matt correctly points out, his manner of departure itself constitutes a major act of immoral center-right wankery.

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Today In Ethics

Shorter President Max Baucus: public options are for my mistresses, not for people without decent health insurance.

Seems like a good time to return to the archives for this classic. And to wish again that, if we couldn't have a parliamentary system, we could have at least had unicameralism.

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The Blunder

I will admit that in the immediate aftermath of the election, it wasn't 100% clear that Reid blundered by letting Holy Joe keep his committee chairmanship; it was certainly the most plausible scenario, but there was at least some chance that in exchange for keeping his perks Ried had good reason to believe that Lieberman wouldn't join Republican obstructionism of major Democratic legislation. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Well, the pudding is ready, and it sure tastes like shit.

I wish I could be confident that if Lieberman goes through with making the legislation far worse for reasons that couldn't be more incoherent, at least after the midterms he'll lose all of his perks and be reduced to the lowest-seniority position on a committee determined to have the least possible relevance to the interests of Connecticuit voters. But I don't even believe that. "Please, Sir, May I Have Another?" still seems to be the organizing principle of Senate Democrats.

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If Democrats Wanted To Be Serious

This wouldn't even be debatable. The idea that Senators who vote to filibuster major initiatives of the party -- filibusters that are highly deleterious not only on the policy merits and for democracy but politically -- should be entitled to special policy-making privileges from the party is absurd. (For Lieberman, of course, this doesn't go far enough; his office should be transferred to a broom closet somewhere in Camden.) It should also be noted that while there may be certain risks in alienating Senators in red states, this doesn't apply at all to Lieberman.

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