"Sweet Jeebus, is there nobody in the Democratic Party who understands national party unity?
They really *didn't* win in 2006, did they? It's much more accurate to say that *we* lost.
By Moe Lane
Speaker Nancy Pelosi didn't just cave: she caved stupidly. Just because the rest of her Party leadership can't see beyond their own bailiwick doesn't mean that she has to, too.
Pelosi backs down in spending battle
By Alexander Bolton | Posted: 12/12/07 11:50 AM [ET]
December 12, 2007In the face of stiff opposition from powerful fellow Democrats, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) has abandoned a proposal she supported less than 24 hours ago to eliminate lawmakers’ earmarks from the omnibus spending package.
Pelosi told the Democratic chairmen of the House Appropriations subcommittees, the so-called appropriations cardinals, that earmarks would stay in the omnibus and that Democratic leaders would accede to cut spending to levels demanded by President Bush in order to save 11 spending bills from a veto, said sources familiar with a meeting that took place in Pelosi’s office early Wednesday morning.
The House Democrats’ tentative plan is to finalize the package for passage in the next day or so, said sources.
Read on.
Why did this happen? These two passages give the clue:
Pelosi, however, ran into stiff opposition from her Senate counterpart, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who served as the senior Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Energy and Water Development Subcommittee before becoming Senate Democratic leader.
[snip]
Pelosi also faced strong opposition from the Democratic chairmen of the House Appropriations subcommittees, who in some cases had been waiting through 12 years of Republican control to finally wield a gavel on spending decisions.
Harry Reid, first. Our oh-so-powerful Senate Majority Leader has been no-doubt looking at his numbers lately, and they aren't good (H/T: Q&O). Shoot, they aren't even bad. If Reid wants to be a Senator in January 2011, let alone either the Majority or Minority Leader, he needs to get those numbers up, starting now. That means earmarks, and never mind all that nonsense that the Democrats spouted off about how they were going to stop with the pork. That was only agitprop to rope in more campaign contributions: nobody with the brains that God gave a goose actually believed it, right? Something related for the House Committee chairmen - except that in their case they're more worried about how embarrassing it'd be for them, personally, to not get anything done. Because while you can do quite well for yourself - perfectly legally! - as an appropriations chair, you need to be actually able to pass appropriations.
Let me put this in very stark terms: there is no Democratic Party in Congress. There are, instead, a bare majority of Congressmen and Senators who have banded together in order to gather power, influence, and money. Which is fine, as far as it goes - except that they are not actually using any of the resources that they are gathering to benefit the groups and causes who worked to put them in power. At best they are operating under terms of enlightened self-interest, albeit a very small-minded version of it: they are keeping their geographical constituents as sweet as is necessary to ensure re-election. And the Republicans know all of this, and will use this knowledge to pass the bills that we feel the country needs to thrive. And all of this is why 2007 was such a horrible legislative year for the progressive movement - and why 2008 will be no better for them.
I suspect that some will be distressed by the preceding paragraph. To those people, I offer the question:
What makes you think that anybody that matters, also cares?"
