Ezra Klein: Grassley Getting Squeezed By GOP on Committee Assignments
By Susie Madrak Friday Aug 28, 2009 8:00am
Ezra Klein on the real reason Chuck Grassley is trying to sandbag healthcare reform:
The more plausible argument is that Grassley fears his fellow Republican senators. I'm hearing that Grassley is getting reamed out in meetings with his colleagues. The yelling is loud enough that staffers in adjacent offices have heard snippets. But the real threat isn't the yelling of his colleagues. It's their capacity to deny Grassley his next job. Ruth Marcus hints at this in her column on Chuck Grassley today, but it's worth explaining in a bit more detail.
This is the final year that Grassley is eligible to serve as ranking member — the most powerful minority member, and, if Republicans retake the Senate, the chairman — of the Senate Finance Committee. His hope is to move over as ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, or failing that, the Budget Committee. But for that, he needs the support of his fellow Republicans. And if he undercuts them on health-care reform, they will yank that support. It's much the same play they ran against Arlen Specter a couple of years back, threatening to deny him his chairmanship of — again — the Judiciary Committee. It worked then, and there's no reason to think it won't work now.
So once again, I ask the question: Why are we negotiating with Republicans at all?
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"if Republicans retake the Senate"
Yeah, right.
It could happen...all it would take is a pretty face, with enough money saying the right things at the right times.
Every single one of us see through the repoblicans and the blue dog effords to destroy this presidency and make the health reform not worth the paper they write it on.
So if Obama is really for Americans , their wishes and to keep his promises WHY is he letting Emanuel lead him down this republican path of destruction..
There is no way in H... that Obama does not knwo what is going on..
How much will you pay for my vote?
if what the grass roots progressive/liberal organizations ought to do is just capitulate to the ugly reality that these slimey weasels are going to keep getting re-elected by their idiot constituencies, that they are irredeemably corrupt and that the criminal actions against them that should be happening never will; raise 200-or-so million dollars and then go to all these crooked Bribe-O-Crat and their amenable GOPer colleague senators and representatives, and say:
"Look, we know you are here only to line you own pockets and that you don't give a happy damn about either the people who elected you or about the country. You're a crook and a prostitute and are as dirty as they come...you know it, we know it. We're all adults, we recognize that. So let's just cut to the chase: how much money is it going to take to out-bid the corporations and lobbyists that have been bribing you for so long? They paid you 6 million? OK, we'll offer you 10 million to do the right thing. Cash in the Camen Islands bank account of your choosing. It's not like you actually give a shit either way, is it, so long as you get paid? After all, that's the only reason you're here. Take our bribe and start doing our bidding, like you're really supposed to have been doing in the first place".
Then, pay them the agreed price with the warning that things won't go well for them if they double cross the People. A freindly reminder offered with only the nicest of intentions.
.
That could be a possible way to enforce an agreement.
these bastards don't give a damn about fulfilling their Constitutional obligations to protect and defend and to represent their constituents. They care only about themselves and what benefits them personally and professionally.
Hear that Harry Reid and Ms. Pelosi? Threaten these fuckers, believe me, they'll jump.
The GOP will be lucky to keep 40 seats. I see them in the 35-36 range after next year.
Republicans retake the Senate. Bwahahahaha........, that's a good one. They are more delusional than I even thought.
to your own question?
"So once again, I ask the question: Why are we negotiating with Republicans at all?"
Because negotiating with them provdes cover for deliberately not doing what the mojority of the People demand? Don't want anything that serves the People? Just work with the GOPers and the Bribe-O-Crats. Nothing will happen, you get to make great theater of saying, "Well, at least we tried", and you keep the corporate masters who bought and paid for you happy. what's not to like?
BTW, knowlingly screwing the People and selling the best interests of the country down the river just for the promise of personal power or a career advancement, takes a special kind of moral degradation. there are so many of these clowns in positions of trust and authority who are, as defined by the kind of choices they make, utterly unfit for not only the office they occupy, but for any person's trust.
the Democrats are so good at getting in their own way, it's a wonder the GOP have anything to fear.
who are so good at getting in their own way are only good at doing that because they are, to a person, GOPer operatives. The terms "Centrist Democrat" and "Conservative Democrat" are oxymorons.
I would be hard pressed to find someone as Weasely looking as Grassley.
I think he looks a lot like Billy Bob Thornton.
no one gives you anything.
And once again I answer:
Because the Democrats are under the direct control of the Republican Party.
That is the ONLY explanation that makes any sense.
Why have the Democratic leaders continually caved in to the GOP demands when the Dems have a clear majority and 70%+ public opinion behind them for the last 40 years?
There can be only one answer: The Democratic Leadership is controlled by the GOP.
Here's another example: Why was Dean not retained as DNC chair when he was a crucial key element in getting Obama elected? Because Rahm Emmanuel is a GOP operative (as is Obama).
Here's another: Why hasn't Obama overturned the unconstitutional policies of the Bush Admin? Because Obama is NOT a Democrat.
Does anyone else have any other possible arguments? No?
So let's all stop acting surprised that the Dems eagerly hand their majority power over to a tiny 20% minority. The Dems have been doing that since before Reagan was appointed Acting-President. How can anyone be surprised after all this time?
Frankly, because your paranoia makes no sense.
but that doesn't make it wrong. You cannot correct a problem until you acknowledge that it exists. And, you assume that Grassely is afraid of his fellow Republicans? Where does HE say that? Note Klein's statement, "The more plausible argument..." An interesting speculation, but not a fact.
If Grassley is so afraid of what his fellow Republicans might do, I wonder then....why isn't Baucus feeling similar heat?
exactly. just plain flat-out weakness. no pressure being applied on rogue Dems from the Dem leadership. the ONLY thing they bother to do is tell progressives to STFU every once in a while. useless Dems seem to just want to lose power. not that people are ready to hand it back to the Republicans, but watching the Dems just get nothing done and fail to even understand how and why they were elected is just unbearable for all concerned.
There isn't much difference between Democrats and Republicans.
55% disapprove of the way the Democrats in Congress are handling their job.
59% disapprove of the way the Republicans in Congress are handling their job.
Quinnipiac University Poll. July 27-Aug. 3, 2009. N=2,409 registered voters nationwide. MoE ± 2.
I like the way you cited the Polster, the sampling population and uncertainty.
The dems have the same disapproval rating as repukes, because their leadership is acting like repukes, and not doing what they were elected to do.
If they would have done the things they promised, and there is nothing holding them back except themselves, their numbers would go way up, and the GOPer's would hit the basement.
But that would require them to give up the bribery cashcow, and well...that just ain't gonna happen - wherein lies the problem.
My guess is the Democrats need to somehow obtain a bigger advantage than a mere crushing majority in the House, sixty votes in the Senate, and a new president.
.
Yeah I don't see the repugs taking either chamber back but in any event the Dems should just do it on their own. They've been on their own with this anyway. Clearly the repugs have no intention of voting for anything that will actually help lower and middle class people.
It's not the reason dems are negotiating with repubs but the fact that some of the GOP are "at the table" has them turning on themselves . . again. The far right is running attack ads against Enzi, Grassley, et al because they're actually willing to negotiate, albeit in bad faith.
Nothing better than watching the GOP eat its own.
exciting then the Dems to watch that's for sure.
Dems just kind of muddle along tossing out half baked promises lacking sincerity.
They don't have enough balls to eat their own. They're more likely to hurt each other by 1000 paper cuts.
That's why we're here - to give the backstabbing blue dogs a taste of hell!
the whole Dem party's in the pockets of Big Business.
They just pretend they aren't.
Really?
Wow.
This is why we need the public financing of elections and to get rid of PAC monies and contributions from corporations.
Wow! That is a shockingly pessimistic conditional. For one thing the Democrats have only 15 Senators up for re-election next year, versus 19 Republicans. Also, many of those Republicans are running in states that Obama won last year.
If they were doing any kind of job bringing the change promised the Dims could be aiming at an even bigger majority in both houses. Instead they are crawling on their hands and knees to the corporate trough - where they have learned to feed nearly as greedily as their Repiglikan counterparts. Methinks the electorate would prefer to vote for candidates who stood on two feet and did the right thing. Sadly, no-one is giving them the opportunity.
Ding ding! Today's winner.
That maybe his (former) constituents will deny him his next job.Especially if Act Blue gets involved.
Even though some of these GOPer Senators act dumb, they're not.
I'll betcha they would like it if the Dems passed the legislation through reconciliation. That way their constitiuents get some kind of reform (let's hope it contains a public option at minimum) and they can keep face with their supporters.
Look, they're pretty much much telegraphing to the Dems to go it alone, so the Dems ought to oblige them.
If this isn't a mental illness, what is? Grassley is in his 70s. He is rich. Yet he would sell out millions of Americans, just to keep his committee standing? How insane is that?
because this is all about Chuckles retiring covered in glory, not about his fellow citizens dying for lack of decent health care.
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