Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Hey, Joementum! Read This
Another winner from Atrios, echoing Yglesias:
Josh Marshall wonders about possible deal-cutting Democrats on Social Security. What's the point? Let's imagine that Lindsey Graham and, say, Senator Snoe Snieberman manage to hammer out some sort of compromise bill that even I would find almost reasonable. If there's anything reasonable in it, those reasonable parts won't actually appear in the House version of the bill. So, it'll go to conference, where the White House and DeLay's goons will just turn it into the bill they want. There's no reason for any Democrat to take this course for strategic political purposes. They can win this issue in all 50 states if they have any sense. And, there's no way anything approach sensible will emerge from conference, no matter what lovely deal they manage to strike with Graham in the Senate.Silly and cowed Democrats (as well as some faux-Democrats) say that with the GOP's big leads in the House and Senate that we must compromise. As Atrios points out, compromise and "bipartisanship" gets us diddly. (Look at how Bush is siccing his goon squads after the AARP, even though AARP did him a huge favor last year by backing the Medicare bill.) Better to make sure bad bills don't get on the House or Senate floor in the first place, than to make all sorts of "compromise" changes that DeLay will just undo anyway. And c'mon: This is one issue where for once we have the upper hand from the start, and for very good reasons. Why give that away, when giving it away doesn't help us or America?
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