Further thoughts on the nuclear option
The cloture and filibuster rules of the Senate have been instrumental in keeping our government from careening wildly back and forth between two extremes. In other words, they have given us stability and forced a certain amount of bipartisanship on us. I never was for the nuclear option no matter who was proposing it, left or right. Sometimes what Madison referred to as the “overbearing majority” will consist of one side, sometimes the other (unless Democrats manage to create the permanent majority they think they see ahead). But the result of activating the nuclear option will always be extreme, and always tend toward the more tyrannical.
The framers were smart and tried their best to prevent this from happening—for example, by originally having senators be appointed by the states. But the country has been edging more and more in the opposite direction, step by step, for the last 200 years.
The only thing that kept the line from being crossed was the reasonableness of our elected officials. Each side realized it was in its own best interests to step back from the brink, and each side did step back from the brink—until now. But Reid and Obama (who definitely was behind it, as well) jumped over the brink, and nearly all the rest of the Democrats followed them, lemming-like.
It makes me think of this:
So here we are; I don’t think it’s possible to ever go back once the precedent is set. Each side, when in power, would have to be supremely noble to relinquish the simple majority vote, and would have to trust the other side not to cross the line all over again when they were in power.
One of three exceptions to the Democrat leap was Carl Levin, who’s about 80 and retiring, although he would have won his Michigan seat handily had he not announced he was stepping down. He spoke out strongly against the action taken by his own party:
Yet for all the one-sidedness of Levin’s speech, it was still fundamentally sound, grounded in principles once shared by leaders who understood the danger of unchecked majoritarianism. In 2005, then-Sen. Obama declared that “majoritarian absolute power on either side” was “not what the founders intended.” Those sentiments, like most Obama pronouncements, were false. Carl Levin, by contrast, is true to his word.
Why did Levin do it? Was it because he could risk offending Reid because he’s leaving the Senate? Or was it that rarest of political motivations, integrity and sincerity? If so, he may be one of the few left: a dinosaur about to become extinct.
And although the WaPo took the same obligatory swipes at the awful Republicans as Levin did, its editorial board surprised me by really scolding the Democrats, too. A little bit of integrity at the WaPo?:
Democrats who are celebrating will soon enough regret their decision. The radical action, a product of poisonous partisanship, will also be an accelerant of poisonous partisanship.
The Chicago Tribune is even harder on the Democrats than the WaPo. But funny thing, what the MSM doesn’t realize (assuming it’s sincere in these editorials) is that those who perpetrated this power play laugh in their faces. They know the press can’t hurt them; the press has put them where they are today, and will continue (even in these editorials) to support them as opposed to the Republicans.
So, how many divisions does the MSM have, again? Forget that “pen is mightier than the sword” business. The press was an enabler in all this when it abdicated its pens, or rather, when it used them in the service of the administration. They have no one to thank but themselves.
The only power of the press was to tell the truth, and they muffed it. They thought they were kingmakers, but they were the ones who were being used.
[NOTE: Would the Republicans have done the same in 2014 if they won: activated the nuclear option? I don’t know, but my guess is that they would not have, although they might have threatened it, as in the past.]
Some in the GOP are too timid and some too wise. But the GOP would never have actually gone nuke. Just like the GOP still hasn’t gone full bore poison on the Democrats’ judicial nominees (esp to the Supreme Court).
It is Democrats who never appreciate the long term negatives from short term gain — pretty much in every aspect of policy and politics.
“Would the Republicans have done the same in 2014?”
Nope.
That’s how the Stupid Party has been giving it all away for decade after decade. The GOP never goes for the jugular; it doesn’t even know where it is, and does not seek to learn.
I read a post several days ago (didn’t note it, sorry) pointing out that this may well be very beneficial for the conservative future. The author noted that since the public election of senators in 1913 Republicans have held several majorities but have never held sixty seats. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in 2015.
“The press was an enabler in all this when it abdicated its pens, or rather, when it used them in the service of the administration.” Let’s also remember that the press was also an ardent enabler of the administration during the second world war. Power structures always support power structures. Nihil sub sole novum.
The content of both the WaPo and Chicago Tribune editorials make clear that it is not integrity that motivates their editorials but fear of the future.
“Let’s also remember that the press was also an ardent enabler of the administration during the second world war.”
Not to dispute your larger point but given Nazi Death Camps and Genocide and, the Rape of Nanking with the Bataan Death March…was there really a choice?
Geoffrey Britain,
I understand your question. First,most of those atrocities were not, to my knowledge, well known until after the end of the war. More importantly, my point is that during WW II the press was an equally ardent supporter of the govt and everyone thought that such was praiseworthy because the press reflected the popular point of view. During the Viet Nam war, the press also represented the power structure, only this time it wasn;t the administration,but the new vocal anti-war populism (they may n
Geoffrey Britain,
I understand your question.
To my knowledge, most of those atrocities were not publicly well known until after the end of the war. To acknowledge the acceptability of the press supporting the govt based upon what we know today is Monday morning quarterbacking.
My point is that fir the MSM nothing has changed. For whatever reason Hitler was considered evil and it was okay to join forces with the govt to oppose that evil. Today, it’s the Republicans and conservatives who are considered evil and from the MSM’s perspective it’s, again, okay to join forces with the govt to oppose that evil. Again, from the MSM perspective nothing has changed. It’s just that now the opposition voice has become more vocal and publicly recognized than in the 1940s.
T,
Churchill warned of Hitler and the Nazi’s evil long before the war started. Many others knew as well, in early 1940, my 18yr old father convinced my very reluctant grandfather to agree (under 21 had to have parental permission) to his enlisting in the army, persuaded by my father’s argument that anyone with a brain and absent blinders knew that war was coming with the Nazi’s. And that his chances of surviving would be greatly increased if he had real training when we were at peace, whereas if he waited, he might well get the typical 6 weeks WWI recruits received, something my grandfather well remembered.
The Rape of Nanking happened in Dec of 1937 and the Bataan Death March happened in early April of 1942.
We knew the character of the enemy we faced, if not all the specific crimes they were guilty of…
As for the MSM always supporting the gov., to some degree that’s true but I think you highly underestimate the degree of disconnect from the then traditional objective standards of evaluating the news and events and today’s agenda journalism. Most ‘journalists’ today don’t think that objectivity is even approachable, much less desirable. That was not the case with Edward R Murrow’s generation.
The MSM supports Democrats. Roosevelt, FDR, is a Democrat.
Geoffrey Britain,
“Most ‘journalists’ today don’t think that objectivity is even approachable, much less desirable. That was not the case with Edward R Murrow’s generation.”
This, I think, is where we disagree. I don’t see the “press” as ever anything but a vehicle to push an agenda. When that agenda agrees with our own we see the MSM as credible, when the agenda differs from ours we see it as deficient.
I’m sure you know that many newspapers even in the 19th century were created as mouthpieces for Democrat or Republican organizations (many, of course, still have the name “Republican” or “Democrat” in their name).
Specifically, even Edward R. Murrow has been revealed to have taken payments (if I remember correctly, for the purpose of insuring interviews). So we must at least ask the question: “How objective was he really?”
An anecdote:
I was watching a special on Annie Oakley and it reported that while she was on tour in England with the Wild West Show, she was all the rage. It seems that there was a reporter in the U.S. who supported her competitor (also a female sharpshooter) and consistently wrote articles which praised the English popularity of this competitor, reports which were absolutely contrary to the truth.
Now I know that a lie about Annie Oakley amounts to very little in the grand cosmic scheme but IMO it represents more the rule than the exception. None other that Walter Cronkite finally admitted to coloring his reportage about Vietnam because of his liberal persuasion [clutch pearls, swoon].
So I stand by my opinion that the so-called Golden Age of Journalism exists mostly (but not exclusively) in our perception rather than in fact.
I’ve never been a big fan of Levin’s politics, but for a politician on the left, I think he is relatively sincere and has a spine. Oh for the days of Scoop, Nunn, Humphery, Tsongas, and Moynihan. They actually loved America.
T,
I’m not so naive as to think there was ever a ‘golden age of journalism’. And I’m familiar with how brutal early political journalism could be.
That said, Patrick Moynihan famously said that, “politics stops at the waters edge”. In that same way, the majority of journalists had a point where they would not cross when it came to reportage of news. The opinion page and the front page had clearly defined boundaries. Most would not fabricate stories out of thin air, justifying the means by the end sought. That is not the case today.
I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree as to how it once was but we’re much in agreement as to how it is today.
Wasn’t it back around the time of our founding that Freedom of the Press was deemed important enough to codify in the Bill of Rights? And anyone who has read the press of that day sees those journalists so protected were not lesser hacks than those of today.
This supports T’s view of the press, above.
T: “So I stand by my opinion that the so-called Golden Age of Journalism exists mostly (but not exclusively) in our perception rather than in fact.”
There was a time after WWII when there were a number of conservative newspapers and, as Geoffrey B. says, almost all journalists were observant of the nostrum that politics ended at the water’s edge. Unfortunately, Vietnam ended all that. In the 60s progressives flooded into academia and journalism schools. The derailing of the Nixon administration by Woodward and Bernstein became the new Holy Grail of journalism. Ask any young reporter today why they went into journalism and their answer will almost surely be, “To change the world.” And their world view has been shaped by the very leftist ideas of the country’s journalism schools. Thus, there will be no young investigative reporters today who will dig into the corruption of the Obama administration.
Back in the 50s the Rocky Mountain News in Denver and the Seattle Times were conservative rags juxtaposed against the liberal Denver Post and the Seattle Post Intelligencer. Today, the Rocky Mountain News and the Seattle Times survive, but both are deeply liberal now. My local rag, the Skagit Valley Herald parrots the AP and the Seattle Times. There is no diversity of opinion. Also, as G.B states, the news and the editorial pages are now of a piece. The liberal narrative is uniformly pushed.
The Millinials that hang around here had no interest what so ever in the Seattle Times and they were glad when it was dropped as it was by far the biggest source of recyclables for them to haul out of here. They do not get their news from any source other than Internet. Print is dead and networks are dying.
These Millinials may be poorly educated but they are not uninformed. One of them told me now that they are old enough to get in at the party, they got there just in time to get handed the bill as band leaves.
A “press” was merely a publishing device. Thus the Constitution protected anyone that could publish their stuff. Back then that included private individuals that owned publishing houses and newspaper presses.
In the modern age, it somehow is supposed to protect a “class” of people we call journalists?
JJ . . . and Geoffrey B,
I understand your citations about “the water’s edge” and don’t disagree with that at all. However, I offer isn’t that also a form of an agenda driven journalism? (i.e., “We can criticize our country, but when an outsider does so, we will stand united. Our country right or wrong, but our country.”)
As for journalists wanting to change the world, perhaps such a concept helps to explain the difference. I suspect we would agree that a journalist’s job is to report the world, not to change it, and to the extent that journalists in 1930s, 40s or 50s did this, perhaps they were of a different breed. Then again, my point is that they were simply driven by a different agenda (a “water’s edge” agenda) to which we were more likely to subscribe.
I’m about to get quite busy in preparation for the Thanksgiving holiday so I suspect my attention to this site will be sporadic for a while.
Let me take this opportunity to wish Neo and all the long-time commenters here a most wonderful and meaningful Thanksgiving/Chanukkha as we take the time to recognize the many daily blessings we enjoy.
Have a nice and safe Thanksgiving.
The Senate’s written and unwritten rules of procedure and civility were the grease that kept things sliding along in D.C. Now, in service of a very transitory goal, the Democratic party has started a cascade failure of those rules. The damage will be deep and great over many years to come. Harry Reid has bought himself a shameful place in history, and I’m very grateful not to be a lobbyist nowadays!