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Opposition, Not Obstruction
I'm going to make this my slogan. I was thinking of doing a post to outline it's true meaning, but better, perhaps, to simply illustrate. My post on tax reform at Tapped is one such example. What Atrios has to say is another. The massive disrespect for the rule of law that Alberto Gonzales represents is a clearly a characteristic he shares with his boss. Blocking him from becoming Attorney-General, even if possible, would do almost no good. And there would be a political price to be paid. The thing for Democrats to do is to raise all the objections to him (practically speaking, Senator Salazar probably ought to take the lead here), note how unfortunate it is that the president has so little respect for the rule of law or for the safety of our troops, vote "no," and let him get confirmed.
Democrats need to closely horde their (very limited) capacity to actually prevent things from happening. Like a parliamentary minority, their main role is simply to raise objections and frame an alternative vision. They're not partners in the running of the government, not legislators in the traditional American sense. They're an opposition, that needs to be clear about what it stands for, clear about what it thinks needs to be done, and basically willing to let the party of government govern until they get a chance to contest the government's visions with their own on an election day.
November 12, 2004 | Permalink
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Tracked on Nov 13, 2004 1:43:16 PM
Comments
Democrats need to closely horde their (very limited) capacity to actually prevent things from happening.
The filibuster should be reserved for wingnut SCOTUS nominees and the truly insane.
I fully expect Frist to nuke the filibuster as soon as the Dems use it, so they might as well save it for when it counts. Maybe then the "process story", as Atrios puts it, will reflect poorly upon the GOP.
Posted by: def | Nov 12, 2004 1:22:14 AM
You are right on. A related point is what one blogger said [maybe even you, Matt]: starting 1.1.05 the Dems have to make sure that the Reps OWN the federal government. They control all 3 branches. Everything that happens is the Reps fault. Pure & simple. The Dems need only put together a coherent alternate vision or, to lower the bar, version.
Posted by: renecharland | Nov 12, 2004 1:28:42 AM
I agree. Democrats should bring out the obstruction guns only for those fights that will have the longest term consequences if we lose. SCOTUS nominations are the most obvious. The gutting of Social Security would be another. Beyond that, the Democrats are probably just going to have to "allow" the Republicans to do their worst.
It sucks. But that is the reality of the situation we find ourselves in.
Posted by: Chris Andersen | Nov 12, 2004 2:03:53 AM
I understand we won't be able to block much, but I wouldn't mind the democrats being obstructionist next week.
The debt ceiling has to be raised by the 18th. A fiscal responsibility amendment would be of great use to us vis a vis social security reform, tax reform, missile defense, and so on.
It's a little ironic that the Republicans would think a fiscal responsibilty amendment was a poison pill. Do you think they would risk economic meltdown over a fiscal responsibility amendment? Will we blink first?
If Frist ever tries to use the nuclear option -- it will make him look like a megalomaniac. Might as well make him use it to beat down a traditional Republican value and look like a hypocritical megalomaniac.
I think we have a very low chance of getting a decent supreme court justice no matter what we do. Judging from their history with the lower courts -- they are going to send wing nut after wing nut at us and we will have to fillibuster for four years straight -- so much so that the entire populace will think we are insane. My guess is that each new nominee will be worse than the previous and we will eventually have to give in.
As for this obstructionist vs. opposition stuff . . .
You may have noticed that as a party we are not that unified on message. If our congressmen don't look like their fighting the Republicans with everything they have -- we'll have a large number of shrill liberals freaking out. Not saying it's neccessarily a bad a idea. Just get ready to play wack a Naderite and have a few of them try to strangle you for giving in to the dark side and being Republican-lite.
Posted by: fle | Nov 12, 2004 3:02:49 AM
Reading this blog and the comments I see no reason given why Gonzales should be opposed as our next AG.
Telling the 48 Democratic Senators what they should do is all fine and dandy. But I am sure they don't even read this blog.
Your audience would be better served if you told us why Gonzales is the wrong choice for AG. I know that is not as much fun as telling the US Senate what to do, but it is more usefull.
Posted by: Ken | Nov 12, 2004 4:33:53 AM
Matt, I am a longtime reader and admirer of your site, but this line of reasoning really bugs me, I must say. Why in God's name should the Democrats not be obstructionists? We certainly don't have a parliamentary system. When we see things that will hurt the country, why not do our best to block them?
I understand the "political capital" line of reasoning, but isn't that the same sort of thinking that so devestated us in '02? I think part of the job of Democrats in Congress is to make very clear that we object to the agenda of this Administration.
You may not consider yourself a down-the-line Dem, but by your own reasoning, Gonzales could be a disastrous choice for AG. Why not make this clear?
Posted by: JD | Nov 12, 2004 4:59:28 AM
Plus, there will be no Senator Salazar while this is debated. Not to nit-pick or anything.
I guess the thing that is bothering me is that you are suggesting a course of action that will leave us not only impotent, but voiceless and emasculated. We should clearly and forcefully register our objections to what they're doing at every opportunity.
Posted by: JD | Nov 12, 2004 5:07:49 AM
I think we will all know a lot more about Gonzales after the confirmation process. I, for one will be very interested in hearing his explanation for the pro-torture memos.
I am certain that he is an intelligent and articulate man -- but I suspect that the reason he was chosen was more for his partisanship and loyalty. The FBI is actively investigating the administration and still has a lot of classified reports about the war on terrorism and 911. They need to run a tight ship and it wouldn't hurt if they coordinate with the political wing to make key announcements.
I have an acquaintance who works for Gonzales. He's all proud about going to Iraq in the near future to be an advisor to the Iraqis trying Saddam. I guess its especially fun for lawyers when they just get to make shit up. To me he's just a douche bag who still thinks he might get with my sister. Apparently an expendable douchebag.
--------
I don't think we are really telling the senate or congress what to do. The senate is unlikely to filibuster much and democrats in the house are going to at least try to tack on a fiscal responsibility amendment to the debt legislation next week. We're just rationalizing their actions to keep our morale up.
A blog like DailyKos or Eschaton can bury congressmen or media members in emails or phone calls. Mostly they just look like fools or get negative press for jumping on tinfoil stories -- but I think they might start to surprise you. There will be some interesting grass roots efforts that take off from the blogs in the next couple years. The blogs will also have a big say in who gets a headstart in the 2008 Democratic primaries.
Posted by: fle | Nov 12, 2004 5:13:14 AM
"safety of our troops" my ass. Hows about you tell that Biden twit that the last US enemy which paid any attention to the Geneva convention was Nazi Germany?
Posted by: am | Nov 12, 2004 5:25:40 AM
I think it's interesting that Gonzo learned how to be a lawyer at Vinson & Elkins, the same Houston firm that told Ken Lay his Enron scam was perfectly legal. Describing a V & E lawyer is like the old Miller Lite commercials, where the two sides argued which was the greater product virtue Less Filling or Tastes Great. Except in shouting the virtues wrought by a V & E lawyer the lines would be Legal Torture on the one side, and Pure Fraud on the other.
Posted by: poputonian | Nov 12, 2004 7:08:59 AM
What ever happened to learning from our opponents? "Attack, attack, attack!" for goodness sake. Obstruct and undercut everything.
Stop trying to do clever things with political capital; stop navel-gazing and wondering about your party "vision". Start trying to make sure that people outside the liberal blogosphere knows that this man advocated torture!
Posted by: Anonymous | Nov 12, 2004 7:34:21 AM
This from Howard Dean's website, Democracy for America:
"Two weeks before the election, the Bush administration passed a bill that was supported by too many Democrats, giving $139 billion away. The argument was that we couldn't win if we didn't support this legislation, which had lots of goodies for everyone. Well, the bill passed, and we lost anyway.
If you want to win, you have to fight, and you have to stand for something."
Posted by: Anonymous | Nov 12, 2004 7:40:06 AM
Hows about you tell that Biden twit that the last US enemy which paid any attention to the Geneva convention was Nazi Germany?
'sfunny, America's Moron, because John McCain doesn't believe that, and he's in a position to know.
Posted by: ahem | Nov 12, 2004 7:42:52 AM
On purely practical grounds, if we're engaged in the messy of business of trying to create democracy in the Middle East by blowing shit up, wouldn't it also be nice to send signals to the Arab world that democracies, by not endorsing torture, are in some way morally or ethically superior to the shithole governments under which they currently live?
Or not? I realize that real Americans don't give a shit about world opinion, but there's my two cents. We don't have to expect the Geneva Convention to work, but the U. S. once did a better job (I think; I'm a little young for most of the Cold War) at projecting a REAL moral superiority to its communist foe. I think we can use all of that we can get now; clearly, it's never been a top priority of our current leadership.
Posted by: govols | Nov 12, 2004 7:57:04 AM
Gonzalez = Torture = Lyndie England with a leash
KISS. Repeat,repeat.
Obstruction is pretty pointless, but the opposition should be so shrill that Leahy and Hatch are Cheneying each other as they pass in the hill. Castrati Demo Senators want to make nice and be friends with their Republican masters. I want them all gone.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | Nov 12, 2004 9:13:31 AM
MY, when have they not let the party of government govern? They've confirmed over 95% of his nominees. They were neither oppositional nor obstructionist before re-election.
Posted by: Kriston | Nov 12, 2004 9:13:33 AM
Democrats need to closely horde their (very limited) capacity to actually prevent things from happening.
It's "hoard," dammit! "Hordes" of Mongols swept through Asia; "hoards" of WMD remain unfound; "hoarding" is the act of pulling together a "hoard" of stuff.
I put it all in quotes so that a person so familiar with semantics and philosophy could figure it all out.
Posted by: bobo brooks | Nov 12, 2004 9:29:57 AM
Bobo,
We all love Matt here, but as you will come to realize after a while, Matt is Matt, spelling is spelling, and never the twain....
Posted by: The Navigator | Nov 12, 2004 9:45:52 AM
Simply raising objections only works if a massive effort -- probably involving major media campaigns sponsored by party of issue groups -- is made to disseminate those objections and etch them into the national consciousness, rather than just raising them on the floor and hoping the media cooperates.
Ads underlining the Gonzalez Torture Memo and tieing it to Abu Ghraib should saturate the airwaves. And then, if the Republicans want to confirm him, the Dems should vote against it, but need not take extraordinary means to block it.
Then again, they can take extraordinary means, accompanied by another round of ads underlining the torture connection and the desperate measures being taken to stop Gonzalez. And if the Republicans still want to "go nuclear", well, let them.
The issue is not primarily "obstruction" versus "objection". Its whether or not the party makes sure the message gets out as to what the objection or obstruction is about. A party line no vote will be reported as a process story just as much as a filibuster will be. The message on substance has to get out in a way that bypasses the media or forces them to address the substance.
Posted by: cmdicely | Nov 12, 2004 9:48:36 AM
We all love Matt here, but as you will come to realize after a while, Matt is Matt, spelling is spelling, and never the twain....
Well, for somebody who spends columns explaining the difference between referring to words in quotes versus without--because one must be ever-so-precise when one talks about the nature of words--such imprecision is unbecoming.
Posted by: bobo brooks | Nov 12, 2004 9:54:14 AM
"such imprecision is unbecoming"
19th century industrial ethos. I disigree. Speling onle importent to the degry it obscures meening. Utherwise moore abowt mannurs and soshul cunformity.
U maybe thowt Matt was tawking abowt Attila?
Posted by: bob mcmanus | Nov 12, 2004 10:11:22 AM
Utherwise moore abowt mannurs and soshul cunformity.
Absolutely true. But again, Matt makes a big deal of shredding linguistic imprecision among those talkin' philosophy--really, he does. And he's openly elitist, to boot. He has it coming.
Posted by: bobo brooks | Nov 12, 2004 10:17:50 AM
Hey, Matt, it's "hoard," not "horde" in this context. Spell-checkers ain't that smart.
Posted by: Dr. Limerick | Nov 12, 2004 10:28:09 AM
I think this is a worthwhile debate, but could someone clarify what exactly the difference is between "obstruction" and "opposition." Are we talking about the perceived differences here or actually different legislative tactics?
Posted by: Jay Bradfield | Nov 12, 2004 10:37:02 AM
Hey, thanks for sharing your racism with us Matt. I'd think that it actually matters what Salazar thinks about the AG nomination, instead of assuming he's bought the party line, and I wouldn't favor using him for political purposes just because of his ethnicity. But, then, I'm a Republican and a conservative, so we differ on these issues.
Besides, anything you want to do to tar Salazar as out of the mainstream is great for us. Colorado is not blue.
Posted by: Thomas | Nov 12, 2004 10:39:01 AM
Matt, I think you and Josh Marshall are both right on with the "opposition, not obstruction" argument.
But I don't think you take it far enough.
The Dems need to EMBRACE that role and present clear and compelling
policy alternatives to every major GOP agenda item from here through '08.
To do that, the DNC Chair would be the ideal
spokesperson.
But that involves reconfiguring the job. The LAT over the weekend had an
op-ed advocating Bill Clinton for DNC Chair. Ignoring Clinton for the
moment, the bigger idea in the piece was splitting the Chair into a
"COO"-type operations-and-fundraising director and a "CEO"-type
charismatic spokesman.
If the DNC could do this -- and enforce party discipline up and down the
ranks to ensure that the "CEO" spokesperson was indeed the single lead
voice of the Dems, then this position could essentially function as a
"shadow president" for the next four years. This "shadow president"
could speak out weekly/daily/what-have-you, giving the Dem agenda and
counter to the b.s. from the White House.
This would also essentially position whomever fills this "CEO" role to
be the presumptive nominee in '08. He would be able to say, "I have over
the last four years given the American people a clear policy alternative
to the ding-dongs who screwed everything up."
My personal choice for this "DNC CEO" would be John Edwards (filling
this role for four years would fill in the c.v. gap he'd otherwise have,
and would give him the "gravitas" some feel he lacks), but I can see
good arguments for Howard Dean, Mark Warner, and several others.
More here:
http://croatan.blogspot.com
Posted by: The Confidence Man | Nov 12, 2004 10:42:35 AM
Matt,
You write as if the dems are playing a zero-sum game. That they are allowed to obstruct X number of things, and they ought to, therefore, chose their obstructions cautiously.
The dynamics are probably very different. I suspect that the more you obstruct, the easier the next obstruction will be. Obstruct everything you find grossly objectionable. If the Democrats in the senate act bravely, they won't need to curry favor with republicans. The democrats in the senate have a job to do. They were elected to serve as senators, not to prepare the democratic party for the next election. They should do what they were elected for.
Clearly, a filibuster is a difficult tactic. It can't be used on every issue. But practice improves technique, and it's time for the dems to start practicing. If you don't think having an AG who aids and abets war crimes is a serious problem, what is the threhold for action?
Let's hope the Democrats in the Senate don't err on the side of caution.
Posted by: John Kubie | Nov 12, 2004 11:44:25 AM
No. It's not that if we do X # of filibusters we'll be seen as obstructionist, but if we do X-3 we won't be. They will say we are obstructionist no matter what, and in deciding whether the charges are accurate voters are not going to look up the actual number of fillibusters and compare it to historical data.
Similarly, the Republicans will eliminate the filibuster as soon as they decide it's in their interests.
It's all about HOW we filibuster.
For instance, here is what I think they should do with Gonzales: filibuster, but say they will be HAPPY to allow a vote when the Bush administration releases this list of documents that they've withheld on Abu Ghraib, ghost detainees, and prisoner abuse in general, or their Republican colleagues vote to issue subpoenas.
(There's a list that exists already, it's been ignored for months & all votes on subpoenas have been on purely partisan lines.)
If we have to do an actual filibuster, great. It's not like we'll need to do a lot of additional speechwriting for the occasion. Read from the Taguba report annexes released over the summer. Read the statement of Maher Arar. Read the most incriminating paragraphs from the torture memo.
A filibuster gives us news coverage and leverage. It's our only bully pulpit. It's not how often we use it--though it would be stupid to filibuster everything--it's how smart we are about it.
Posted by: Katherine | Nov 12, 2004 12:59:04 PM
(in general, the "opposition, not obstruction" argument can easily degenerate into a nicer way of saying "we'll just cave and hope they overreach.)
Posted by: Katherine | Nov 12, 2004 1:01:06 PM
Have a problem with the Confessore piece on Gonzalez at Tapped. If Bush is appointing Gonzalez to AG in order that G can establish his conservative credentials to the base...and...Bush wants to reward the base with a strong conservative justice...and Bush wants to do it early in his 2nd term when he is at his strongest...then it seems unlikely that Gonzalez will be nominated for justice in the first quarter of 2005. Not enough time.
I also do not think Gonzalez would be that difficult a confirmation. Unfortunately. So I would expect a much more obviously conservative nominee, and save Gonzalez for the 2nd nomination.
The fight and filibuster (and going nukular on closure rules) over an ideologue is something I think Republicans want to do right away.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | Nov 12, 2004 4:11:22 PM
" And there would be a political price to be paid."
Uh, Matt? Where you been?
There's a political price to be paid for being a Democrat. There's a political price to be paid for not dancing precisely to the tune of the GOP leadership.
The Democrats are going to pay a political price no matter what they do. Even if they vote along with the GOP, the GOP will find some reason to criticize and penalize the Democrats. Even if the Democrats bend over backwards to be accommodating, the GOP will probably still move to change Senate rules to penalize the Democrats.
So why give this "political price" any weight at all in deciding on strategy and tactics?
Posted by: Jon H | Nov 12, 2004 4:49:32 PM
Matt - I read the Tapped post. Why are you so confident Bush has no real plans to reform the tax code? I assume an inside-the-beltway guy like yourself has access to insiders in the know. Without naming names, can you confirm this is the source of your certainty?
Listening to the president the other day, and just hearing the scuttlebut on the subject hither and thither, I could've sworn the White House was serious about introducing legislation (though undoubtedly of an insufficiently radical nature to suit my decidely radical views on this subject) to reform the taxcode, even if they were none-too confident of its passage. I mean, in such a scenario, they at least could beat the Democrats about the head with the label "IRS protector". But it's tough to do that if you don't at least try and make it look like you're attempting to get legislation passed.
Posted by: P.B. Almeida | Nov 12, 2004 5:21:56 PM
"If you can't fight them, join them."
They don't want you. You can't join them.
"If they won't let you join them, fight them as hard as you can."
The question is only what form that should take.
My best suggestion is not exactly practical at the moment. I say the Democratic party should dissolve itself. Then each Democrat can join the Libertarians or the Greens, whichever they like better, or start new parties with new messages and see which messages get the most support.
The Democratic Party's message has gotten diluted to the point that it mostly stands for the status quo. If we save social security we can keep the status quo instead of have a meltdown. If we get a sensible healthcare system we can continue to afford adequate healthcare, status quo. Keep abortion legal, status quo. This isn't just because Bush has pre-empted the discussion by doing radically wrong things that must be opposed. It's true beyond that.
I would like to see a party that co-opts Libertarian and Green ideals to the point it absorbs part of both of those parties, and most of the Democrats, and also the liberal republicans and the conservative republicans. Bush can keep the dixiecrats and the neocons. I can't see the current Democratic party doing that. And they're in the way of it, because as long as they're the 2nd largest party they pre-empt any third party.
I sure can't expect them to do that, but it looks to me like the right thing to do.
Posted by: J Thomas | Nov 14, 2004 12:55:29 PM
