The Importance of Dick Lugar’s Farewell Warning

[pnwest]

Smart man:


http://swampland.time.com/2012/05/09/the-importance-of-dick-lugars-farewell-warning/#ixzz1uOkvduKH

[msongs]

1. Lugar doesn't get it. The new guy is NOT about effective legislating, he is about slash

and burn destruction, total war against democrats and accomodationist values.

[emulatorloo]

4. Actually, he does get it. Lugar agrees with you

[Enrique]

2. he ruins it with the "both parties" crap

that falsehood mars an otherwise righteous message.

[CBHagman]

7. I agree with you on that, and the media keeps reinforcing it.

Don't get me wrong. I have considerable respect for Lugar's efforts in foreign policy, particularly in terms of dealing with nuclear arsenals, but he did join with other GOP senators (including oft-cited moderates Snowe and Collins) in the December 2010 refusal to pass any legislation in the lame-duck session unless the Bush tax cuts were extended. He provided much-needed support on the new START treaty, but the fact remains he's accepted the GOP MO, which is basically to clog things up.

We see in this in particular with the abuse of the filibuster. I'll bet only a tiny percentage of the electorate realizes what's happening in the Senate -- i.e., that bills with majority support cannot move because Republicans block them unless there's a supermajority.

Remember too what happened when Bill Frist was majority leader and threatened the nuclear option to stop overuse of the filibuster. A bipartisan agreement was hammered out to give the GOP what they wanted while still preserving the filibuster, but once the GOP was back in the minority in the Senate, and Ted Kennedy died and the MA seat went to Scott Brown, the Republicans developed a convenient amnesia.

And feckless, brown-nosing members of the media who start chanting the myth that "Both parties do it" ought to be called out every time.

[gateley]

3. I was so sorry to see him defeated - especially by a bagger. nt

[emulatorloo]

5. Lots of "Americans For Prosperity" money flowing into that state

As well as Club For Growth money.

[gateley]

6. I fear it's flowing into ALL States. The somewhat-sane Republican party is in its

death throes. I think it's going to be Dems against the Baggers in the not-too-distant future. I hope I'm really wrong.

[villager]

8. Interesting, yet it repeats this false meme:

"Partisans at both ends of the political spectrum are dominating the political debate in our country"

No -- there is no one on the actual left debating in Congress, on cable TV shows, or in the Oval Office, on any kind of regular, represented basis.

There is a center-right party and a far-right party, and that's it.

[pscot]

9. Lugar consistently supported GOP filibusters

and voted with his leader against women's rights, taxing the rich, raising the debt ceiling, a budget deal and many, many more. In other words, he voted pretty much just the way Jim Demint and Jim Inhof voted. Lugar lacked the courage to vote his convictions, so maybe he should just go home and shut the fuck up.