The defection of Arlen Specter from the increasingly schizophrenic GOP is truly good news for the future of this country. With his presence in the Democratic Senate caucus, and the inevitable addition of Al Franken to the Minnesota seat, the Democrats will have the filibuster-proof 60 seats in the Senate. While this doesn't mean that Specter will always vote with the Democrats it does mean that it will be very difficult, if not impossible, for the Republicans to block Obama's agenda. This is crucial because it is also the time when Obama is pushing through the Congress two major initiatives of his presidency and the Democratic party's agenda in general: health care reform, and an energy bill. Both of these bills are essential to the fulfillment of Obama's campaign promise to provide affordable health care to all Americans and weaken our dependence on foreign oil while at the same time crafting a sound environmentally-friendly energy policy. Obama's rock-star popularity even in the heartland of the country, the increasing signs of the economy's stabilization (or at least moderate thawing), and the filibuster-proof of Senate majority for the Dems means that Obama will get his way on almost all of his agenda items. And this is good news for all of us, even the Republicans who will benefit from getting more affordable health care and breathing less polluted air.
At the same time, GOP's response to Specter's defection shows the depth of their insanity and points to the probability that the Republicans are going to stay in the crazy wilderness for election cycles to come. The GOP commander in chief, Rush Limbaugh said "good riddance" to Specter and told him to take McCain and his daughter with him. The GOP nominal chairman Michale Steele said that Specter was doing this for self-preservation and that somehow his defection was inevitable due to Specter's "left voting record." And finally, this morning in his WashP op-ed Bill Kristol (the venerable ideological "brain" behind the GOP and who has been wrong on every single issue!) said that this is good for the Republican party!
What this collective response shows is the GOP's continuing belief in some imagined "purity" of the party's ideology. Reacting to any challenge to their right-wing narrow-mindedness with aggressiveness that reminds one of middle-school gym locker fights (even if the challenge comes from McCain's daughter), the Republican ideologues have really resigned themselves to being the far right-wing party of the South. Their argument that Specter is doing this for survival is so blatantly shallow that it really merits now comment, but I can't help it: of course he is doing this for self-preservation! He was facing an impossible Republican primary challenge in Pennsylvania and running on that ticket against a Club for Growth far-right winger (a man who I think truly needs medical attention) would have been insane and politically stupid. Specter has always been treated like an outcast by the Republicans especially with the recent descent of the GOP into the far right-wing nuttery. After all, Specter entered politics as a Democrat and switched to the GOP in order to win a District Attorney seat on a Republican ticket. But this is what politics is all about! And instead of figuring out how to reshape their party's platform in order to keep people like Spector and draw millions of Americans to their party tent, the GOP reacted with such stupid, shallow aggressiveness that it really makes one concerned for the future of our two-party democracy.
The resigned criticism of Specter also shows that the Republicans have lost their mind if they think they can win on their ideology alone: this country's demography necessitates that the party in power support: gay rights, abortion rights, more activist government, and less belligerent foreign policy.
For their part, the GOP operatives keep railing against Obama's "socialism" (or fascism, depending which side of his bed Glen Beck got up that morning), roaming the dense inhospitable jungle of their wilderness increasingly resembling rabid dogs and not mature political opposition!
I really don't mind them staying in the wilderness for as long as it is humanly possible, but I do worry about the Democrats having unchecked power. Not because of their agenda: in fact, this is one reason we all should be happy right now, in fact thrilled! The Democratic agenda is good for this country and we should make no secret that we want it. But what I worry about is Democrats' lately dormant but inevitable propensity for infighting and the possibility of several camps being established within the Democratic caucus in both houses. The simmering fight over investigations of Bush's torture policies might present the first opportunity for the Democrats to start dividing. But even these divisions (if they are over substantive policy differences) might be good for this country because they fill the never satisfied need of this country for a true multiparty system.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I heard the split was about something much deeper - the GOP leadership held closely to a philosophical realism that stated that held a theory truth predicated upon an object physical reality. Mitch McConnell went on record stating that "verifiable truth claims could be made about the physical world, if not about morals, because physically reality pushes us around, values do not."
Specter then asked "what does 'being pushed around' have to do with accurate representation or objectivity?' Specter then accused McConnell of confusing contact with reality with dealing with reality. The unmediated pressure one feels when she encounters physical reality has nothing to do with the act of coping with reality - describing, rediscribing, drawing regularities, and predicting - which, in Specter's belief, is the true purpose of philosophy.
McConnell called Specter a "relativist," and Specter in turn called McConnell a "vulgar materialist."
Its getting nasty.
Post a Comment