http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/12/17-4?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter"Given his druthers, Obama will pursue the most left-leaning course that he can get away with." So says Jennifer Rubin, a right-wing pundit at the neoconservative-leaning Washington Post. "Obama," Rubin claims, "would have marched through his entire liberal agenda--if he had the votes."
This, of course, assumes that Obama ever had a liberal agenda. There's not much evidence of that. Moreover, Obama did have the votes in Congress to get almost everything that he wanted. But he chose not to even try.
It is also not true. He did have the votes. In recent years, for example, minority Republicans in the Senate have threatened filibusters on most major Democratic initiatives. When they have or more votes, Democrats file a cloture motion to stop filibusters before they start. In practice, Democrats say—and the media has been repeating their meme—that it now takes 60 votes to pass a bill in the Senate.
It isn't true. Not now. Not ever.
What Dems fail to understand is that they are depriving themselves of a big political opportunity by embracing automated parliamentary procedure. If Republicans want to filibuster, let them drag out their District of Columbia white pages and start reading on C-Span. Footage of GOP senators stonewalling popular legislation—extensions of unemployment benefits, eliminating tax breaks for individuals who earn more than $1 million a year, or healthcare benefits for 9/11 first responders—would make for awesome attack ads in 2012.
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