Tuesday, April 26, 2005
Reid 1, Rove 0
Reid's plan (as detailed yesterday by Josh Marshall) worked! For those of you playing at home, Harry Reid, knowing full well that Frist's religio-racist right backers will not accept anything less than total victory on the nuclear option and judgeships, offered Frist a compromise: We'll let two judges go, if you take the nuclear option off the table. The idea is that if Frist rejects the compromise -- and as Josh states, he HAS to, or James Dobson will call for his head -- then Reid and the Democrats look like reasonable grownups while Frist and Company look like either pigheaded Gingrichian buffoons or totaly spineless tools of the Fundies. Well, Rove's rejected the compromise offer out of hand. ROVE, mind you, not Frist. It's in the dead-tree and web editions of USA Today. So the Democrats can say "Hey, we tried one last time, but Rove said no -- and by the way, notice those strings running from Rove's fingers to Bill Frist's body? And the ones running from James Dobson's fingers to Karl Rove's body?" Not only does this give the Democrats all the political cover they need, it also undoes the pathetic attempts by the GOP to hemi-semi-demi-distance themselves publicly from the Fundy fanatics that they started in the wake of their disastrous interference in the Terri Schiavo case. Perfect.
To me, it looked like Spineless Democratic Donkeys, if you recall that image.
But maybe the Dems are brilliant.
Reid made his offer knowing full well that Frist (and Rove) couldn't take him up on it.
Think about it for a second:
What would Dobson and Company do if Rove and Frist were to cut that deal and then tell them "Sorry we couldn't kill the filibuster for you, hope you won't mind these two judges instead"?
You know what they would do. They'd scream bloody murder.
Remember, Dobson et al have tossed aside the cautious incrementalism pitched by DeLay crony Ralph Reed. They want the nuclear option AND the judges, and they want it NOW. Nothing short of that will satisfy them.
Reid knows this, so he took the opportunity to make the offer he knew Frist and Rove would have to refuse.
Now that they've refused it, Reid looks like an adult who's willing to work things out, while Frist AND Rove look like exactly what they are: Stubborn jerks, and/or pawns of the same ding-dongs that ordered them to meddle in the Schiavo case.
Depend on it, that's how it's going to look to the public. Which means that if the nuclear option goes through and the government shuts down in October, it's the GOP's fault.
: 4/26/2005 01:11:00 PM I think Frist just blundered, saving Reid from his own missteps.
But maybe the Dems are brilliant.
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