The Filibuster: Friend or Foe?

Senate Democrats, liberal interest groups, and their allies in the media are growing increasingly angry at the perpetual filibuster threat posed by the Republican minority. Over the weekend, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) announced plans to reintroduce legislation that would effectively eliminate the filibuster.

To be fair to Senator Harkin, he did introduce similar legislation in 1995 when the Democrats were in the minority. However, news stories and op-eds questioning the wisdom of the filibuster are more prevalent now that the Democrats control both chambers of Congress. On the CBS News Blog, Bob Fuss laments the filibuster in an article entitled "How Filibusters are Strangling the Senate." The liberal columnist Paul Krugman makes a similar argument in his New York Times column. But these columnists didn't object when Democrats used the filibuster during the Bush Administration. This is because the left-leaning media is indignant that the Republican filibuster could derail a liberal agenda, but were all too happy too see a Democrat filibuster undermine a conservative agenda. 

This kind of transparent bias and hypocrisy extends beyond the politics of the filibuster. TV anchors and pundits are quick to echo the Democratic Party line that Republicans are "obstructionists" and label the Republican Party the "party of no." Yet when Democrats were in the minority, Republicans also accused Democrats of obstructionism and the media did not legitimize that talking point.   

In 2005, after the Democrats successfully filibustered ten of George Bush's high-profile nominees to the federal courts of appeals, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist threatened to invoke the nuclear option, which would have required a simple majority to approve a judicial nominee. The Democrats and most in the mainstream press cried foul. Now the tables have turned, and the Republicans (and centrist Democrats) use the filibuster threat, while Democrats ponder some variation of the nuclear option. But as Byron York points out in the Washington Examiner, there is a major substantive distinction between filibustering judicial nominees and filibustering legislation:

The argument was that the judicial filibuster undermined the Senate's constitutional responsibility to give advice and consent on the president's judicial nominations. When legislation is filibustered, it's possible for a bill's sponsors to make changes that will satisfy opponents. But what happens when a nominee is filibustered? No advice and consent. The Constitution does not require the Senate to pass a national health care bill, but it does require it to confirm or deny the president's appointees...So Republicans came up with what was called the "nuclear option"... GOP lawmakers made clear at the time that they were not going after the legislative filibuster...(emphasis added)

It is understandable for politicians to support a parliamentary tactic when it advances their agenda, and oppose it when it does not. It makes sense for those in the majority to label the recalcitrant minority "obstructionist," and then when political fortunes are reversed, turn around and obstruct. This is somewhat hypocritical, but such is the art of politics that self-interest usually trumps consistency. What is not acceptable or intellectually honest is for so many in the media to bemoan the filibuster when it threatens a liberal agenda and celebrate it when it hinders a conservative one.   

The Sin of Omission Revisited

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL), who gained national fame earlier this year when he accused Republicans of wanting "sick people to die", compared America's healthcare system to the "Holocaust", and declared that Fox News and the Republicans are "the enemy", is back. Following in the footsteps of Hugo Chavez, Rep. Grayson wrote a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder demanding that Florida resident Angie Langley be prosecuted and imprisoned for five years. Her crime? Ms. Langley has launched a website critical of Congressman Grayson. The website documents Grayson's various improprieties and allows visitors to donate to a Committee seeking to defeat the Congressman in next year's election. As far as partisan websites go, it is fairly tame and respectful. Much worse things have been said about much better men than Mr. Grayson.

Yet the Congressman will have none of it. He is demanding Ms. Langley be sentenced to five years in prison, citing a laughably flimsy set of criteria. It is only fitting that one of the most hateful and unhinged elected officials is embracing his inner-Stalin.

And is the media at the forefront of this unprecedented Congressional hubris? As is almost always the case when a Democratic politician does something untoward (never mind outrageous), the mainstream press is largely silent. It seems that only Republican misdeeds are met by scorn and indignation. Conservatives have justifiably grumbled about this glaring double standard for years, but their objections have fallen on deaf years. It is a constant source of frustration for conservatives that liberal sins are downplayed, while Republican indiscretions, trivial or not, are gleefully flaunted.

Just imagine the headlines had a Republican Congressman written a letter to a Republican Attorney General demanding that the owner of a liberal website be prosecuted and imprisoned for dissent. Cries of fascism would have been ubiquitous. The liberal dissident would have popped up on every network and cable news show and celebrated as a hero. Yet because Grayson is a Democrat, there is little news coverage and almost no outrage.

Alan Grayson may be a national disgrace, but the media's gross under-reporting of the Congressman's abhorrent antics is just as disgraceful.        

The Missing Doctrine

After hearing President Obama deliver two of the most seminal speeches on foreign policy so far into his Presidency, historians and pundits have been trying to discern the Obama Doctrine.

Following the West Point speech, disillusioned liberals were infuriated that Barak Obama chose to escalate the war in Afghanistan, while hawkish conservatives were pleased by the President's decision to follow the counsel of his generals (and not his left-wing base), but critical of the arbitrary timeline. Thus, both factions found the speech confusing; liberal doves could not understand how a Nobel Peace Prize winner could double down on President Bush's war, and conservative hawks didn't get why a necessary war mandated an arbitrary exit strategy.

After the Oslo speech, liberals were once again perplexed by the ostensible contradiction of sending more troops to promote peace (really, a non-contradiction as I explain in the Peace through War blog post) and conservatives resented the frequent admonishments of controversial Bush era policies.

No one seemed to be completely satisfied by the President's two major foreign policy speeches. But I think the larger story--and one that does not bode well for Obama's legacy-- is that no central Obama Doctrine emerged. There was nothing unique in either of the speech. Obama declared that as Head of State he has a responsibility to defend his nation. Ok. Obama argued that success in Afghanistan is critical to America's national security. Ok. Virtually everything Obama said has been said before, often by his much maligned predecessor. Interestingly, there were times when Obama enunciated elements of the Bush Doctrine:

And we must make it clear to every man, woman and child around the world who lives under the dark cloud of tyranny that America will speak out on behalf of their human rights and tend for the light of freedom and justice and opportunity and respect for the dignity of all peoples. That is who we are; that is the source, the moral source of America's authority.

This is a fascinating declaration considering that the idea of America fostering freedom around the world is perhaps the central Bush Doctrine to which President Bush devoted the bulk of his Second Inaugural Address. The left never gave George Bush credit for establishing a link between America's national security and global freedom, and then candidate Obama joined the chorus of liberal detractors who mocked the idea of America's exceptionalism being used as a vehicle for freedom. But that is precisely what Barack Obama implies in his West Point speech.

To many liberals the President's Oslo speech was reminiscent of George Bush. And they are right. Throughout the speech Obama invoked numerous Bush themes, most notably his recognition that there is evil in the world. Recall how mercilessly the left mocked George Bush for his characterization of Al Qaeda fighters as "evildoers". Well, presumably to the chagrin of left-wing moral relativists, here was Obama making the identical claim.

In the end, President Obama made a case for war but he failed to unveil an Obama Doctrine. Liberals were left disheartened, conservatives lukewarm, and historians scratching their heads looking for the missing Obama doctrine.  

   

Peace through War

It is amusing hearing disaffected liberal Democrats struggle to understand how President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize squares with his Afghan war strategy, which entails sending 30,000 more troops to the troubled region. These detractors seem to think that there is an inherent contradiction between fighting for peace and waging war against violent extremists.


This false paradox is emblematic of the Nobel Prize Committee's sophomoric world view: war is never justified and peace is achieved through handshakes, smiles and concessions. According to this world view, Neville Chamberlain should have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1938 and Winston Churchill should have been denounced as a war monger.

Over the course of history, hundreds of millions of people were slaughtered (and continue to be slaughtered) by tyrants. In cases where these tyrants were finally stopped, war, not peace, was the primary instrument of deterrence. It is staggeringly ignorant to uphold pacifism as an absolute good, for pacifism in the face of violence being waged by a tyrant is tantamount to sanctioned mass suicide.

The merits of the Afghanistan War are debatable, but what is not debatable, is that war is sometimes necessary to achieve peace. Free and noble men have for centuries taken up arms against tyrants and murderers, thereby saving and liberating millions of people. Had they instead chosen peace and compromise, men like Hitler would have slaughtered masses with impunity. It is therefore intellectually naive to contend that any leader who escalates a war is by definition not advancing peace, and any leader who veers away from armed conflict is a peacemaker.

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The Art of Hypocrisy

As sex scandals involving celebrities and politicians pile up, a common theme is emerging among liberal commentators: conservatives who commit adultery are hypocrites, because conservatives defend traditional values and the institution of marriage. Therefore, the argument goes, the sin of adultery is more heinous if committed by a conservative.

Joy Behar is just the latest liberal commentator to make this (almost) unbelievably idiotic argument. Tune into MSNBC, and you will hear David Shuster, Contessa Brewer and a host of left-wing commentators play the hypocrisy card.

Unbeknownst to most liberals making the claim, the implication of the hypocrisy argument is straightforward: liberals like Bill Clinton, John Edwards, Eliot Spitzer, et al, who commit adultery are not hypocrites, because they are pro-adultery. That's right, if conservative adulterers are hypocrites because they stand up for traditional values (like marital fidelity), then liberal aduleters must not be hypocrites because they don't think that adultery is wrong. The absurdity of this argument is self-evident. Liberal adulterers, like their conservative counterparts, always repent and usually issue a public apology. Naturally, the mea culpa suggests that liberal adulterers do in fact recognize that adultery is unethical. Therefore, they are equally as "hypocritical" as the conservative adulterers.

Because conservatives tend to highlight the importance of family values more consistently than liberals, liberals take a perverse pleasure in exposing conservative adulterers (even those who don't run on social issues) as hypocrites. This is understandable. But it certainly does not then follow that liberals aren't being hypocritical when they commit adultery. I have never heard a liberal adulterer caught in the act proclaim that he is "pro-adultery", and therefore immune to criticism. Perhaps it makes sense to hold conservatives who pontificate about family values to a higher standard than liberals, but it is ludicrous to suggest that liberal adulterers aren't hypocrites. Until we hear a liberal politician proclaim that he is pro-adultery, we can safely conclude that all aduleters, regardless of political affiliation, are technically hypocrites.        

Howard Dean's Change of Heart

In what is probably being treated as an insignificant footnote by traditional media and the blogosphere, Howard Dean made what I thought was a shocking confession on Fox News Sunday: he thinks Medicare Part D--George Bush's transformative health-care reform legislation, which lowered drug prices for millions of seniors-- has been working exceptionally well, despite Howard Dean's harsh criticism of the bill during passage:

Howard Dean: ...I think the Republicans actually did some good things with it with Part D. And I was wrong at the time about Part D. It's worked out very, very well.

The acknowledgement is particularly surprising coming from Howard Dean, who as the early frontrunner in the 2004 Democratic Presidential Primary, was one of the most visible and fierce critics of the Bush Administration. To my knowledge, Dean is the first prominent Democrat to publicly praise Medicare Part D. For years, Democrats demagogued the legislation, ignoring its positive effects, and using it as an opportunity to vilify two of its favorite targets, the Pharmaceutical companies and George Bush.

Many Republicans and movement conservatives also opposed Medicare Part D, arguing that it was unfunded, too expensive, and further expanded the size and scope of government. While the criticism from the right was predictably along the lines of traditional conservative opposition to an expanding Welfare State, Democrats' criticism was largely disingenuous because it belied the bill's practical effect of making prescription drugs more affordable for seniors. While I was never a big fan of Part D (it was not as targeted as I would like a government program to be), the Democrats' hypocrisy in blasting reform that many liberals have favored for years was glaring.

Howard Dean's change of heart is a welcome--albeit partial--reversal from what has been a concerted effort by the Democrats to demonize every aspect of the Bush presidency. Perhaps, in the next few years, other Democratic leaders will follow suit.       

 

Politicizing War

On last Sunday's Meet the Press, moderator David Gregory asked Mississippi Republican Gov. Haley Barbour about the possible political implications if President Obama does not send the additional 40,000 troops requested by his commanders. Here's an excerpt from the exchange:

GOV. BARBOUR: ...And I will tell you now, for myself and I think a lot of Republicans, if the president will stand up, make the tough decision to send more troops, Republicans like me will stand up and say the president's doing the right thing. He doesn't have to worry about Republicans trying to politic this. If he stands up and does the right thing that the military's asked for, we will say good for you, Mr. President.

GREGORY: And if he doesn't? Are you saying the opposite is true, that it'll become a political issue?

GOV. BARBOUR: It shouldn't become a political issue.

GREGORY: At all? Even if he doesn't?

GOV. BARBOUR: I don't think it should become a political issue.

GREGORY: Because implicit in that is if he doesn't do the right thing it will be.

GOV. BARBOUR: I'm one of those who believes in foreign policy, the politics ought to stop at the border's edge. And I've always believed that. I believed it when I was in Ronald Reagan's White House and I believe it no matter who the president is. Now, when the presidential comes--presidential campaign comes; but right now, if the president does the right thing here, I'm going to applaud him. If he doesn't, I'm not going to criticize him.

David Gregory pressed Gov. Barbour on the point that the Afghanistan War might become "a political issue", implying that there would be something untoward about politicizing war. Gov. Barbour quickly dismisses this notion, reaffirming the traditional view that "politics stops at the border's edge."

While Mr. Barbour's view ought to be commended, one can't help but recognize the remarkable hypocrisy implicit in David Gregory's line of questioning. As anyone who followed the Bush Administration knows, the Democrats politicized the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars for years, making the unpopular Iraq war a central political issue in the 2004, 2006, and 2008 elections. Criticizing Bush's handling of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars became the Democrats' pivotal line of attack against the Bush Administration as early as 2003. For David Gregory to suggest that it would be inappropriate for Republicans to use President Obama's handling of the Afghanistan War as a political weapon is disingenuous and intellectually dishonest, given the Democrats' and President Obama's track record of politicization.

There is also something to be said about the substance of the attacks against George Bush compared to the potential attacks against Barak Obama. In the early years of the Iraq War, Democrats criticized the Bush Administration for not sending enough troops into Iraq, while at the same time paradoxically arguing that it was the "wrong war at the wrong time". In later stages, Democrats were calling for a Congressionally-mandated withdrawal irrespective of the conditions on the grounds, fighting tooth and nail George Bush's counter-insurgency strategy, dubbed "The Surge", which among other things, called for more troops. In other words, the Democrats weren't merely against the tactics employed in the Iraq War; they were against the war itself. At the same time, Democrats were calling for more resources to be committed to Afghanistan, which President Obama argued was the central front in the War on Terror.

Fast forward to today. President Obama's field commanders are implementing the President's counter-insurgency strategy unveiled in March of this year. General McCrystal has called for at least 40,000 additional troops to help accomplish the mission that President Obama and the Democrats argued for years was at the heart of the War on Terror. While we await the President's decision, David Gregory wants to caution the Republicans against politicization. But if the President does in fact not meet the demands of his field commanders, how can anyone blame the Republicans for the War becoming a political issue? After all, it was President Obama who argued for more resources to be committed to Afghanistan, while calling for the end of the mission in Iraq. In his years as an NBC reporter and now as the moderator of Meet the Press, did David Gregory or anyone else in the left-leaning press question the ethics of the Democrats' politicization of the Iraq War?

Haley Barbour's old school attitude that politics stops at the border's edge may be noble and in the best interest of civility in politics, but that sentiment was entirely vitiated during the Bush Administration by Democrats seeking to exploit for political gain a difficult and increasingly unpopular war. If Republicans use the President's decision (or indecision, as the case maybe right now) on Afghanistan for political gain, it will be markedly different only in the sense that whereas Democrats criticized President Bush for trying to win the Iraq War, Republicans would be criticizing the President for not fulfilling his campaign promises, not implementing his March strategy, and not pursuing victory.   

Moral Absolutism

Recently, I published an essay in the American Thinker entitled The Left's Moral Absolutism, in which I argued that despite conventional wisdom, the far left does not subscribe to moral relativism. Rather, the far left adheres to a strict ethical code that condemns central aspects of Western Culture, most notably capitalism and individualism. As I explained:

Moral relativism holds that all morality is subjective; nothing is fundamentally good or bad. Morality is in the eyes of the beholder and no one can claim the moral high ground. I don't doubt that there are purists who unwaveringly adhere to this nihilistic philosophy, but the far left does not belong to this orthodox breed. In fact, the far left shuns moral relativism with as much fervor as the "moralizers" the far left purports to despise.


The far left has no qualms about defending third-world barbarism, yet proclaims with an aura of ultimate righteousness that corporations are evil and that the men who lead them are corrupt tyrants, who profit at the expense of the public good. They routinely vilify Republicans, conservatives, libertarians, Christians, and all others who do not adhere to utopian Marxist ideals and variations thereof. To many of these so-called relativists Dick Cheney epitomizes evil; a man who served not only as the Secretary of Defense for the imperialistic United States but as Chief Executive of the multinational corporation Halliburton, itself a symbol of evil.


The far left's tirades against "evil" corporations and Christian (but almost never Muslim) zealots are not relativistic, neither in tone nor in substance. They are unambiguously absolutist. The left moralizes about perceived injustices -- be it the effects of capitalism or the war against global jihad -- with a religious-like conviction, never uttering the word "relative" in its condemnations.

In discussing this essay with my liberal and Democratic friends, I attempted to clarify that this essay is not about liberal Democrats or even social Democrats; it is about the far left, which is admittedly an imprecise characterization. Think Reverend Wright and Noam Chomsky, not John Kerry and Thomas Friedman, I told them. I think my left-leaning  friends were generally receptive to this distinction, but some questioned the pertinence of this essay to today's political environment. After all, they argued, Noam Chomsky and his cohorts are on the fringes of ideological discourse, and no one in mainstream politics takes them seriously.

While I agree that Chomskyite and other far left-wing doctrines have been marginalized over the last several decades, I believe that left-wing intellectuals, particularly academics, continue to be influenced by them and that influence inevitably trickles down to their students and apprentices. Moreover, I think that there are elements within popular culture and mainstream politics that reflect the far left's world view, particularly when it comes to questioning America's moral highground in world affairs, vilifying corporations, or embracing class warfare. So while most mainstream political and media outlets don't wholeheartedly embrace Noam Chomsky's world view, his influence nevertheless manifests itself discreetly throughout our culture.  

The Politics of Fear

A popular charge leveled by Democrats is that Republicans routinely use the Politics of Fear to advance their agenda and win elections. Used throughout campaigns and policy battles, this charge is arguably the Left’s most forceful and consistent talking point vis-à-vis Republicans. Whenever a controversial issue is debated at the national level—be it immigration, healthcare, terrorism, or education—you can count on Democratic leaders and activists to play the Politics of Fear card.

The transparent hypocrisy of this charge is perhaps best illustrated by the Democrats' efforts to portray mainstream Republican policies as being detrimental to the middle-class, minorities, or some other critical demographic or voting bloc. For example, George Bush's agenda of partial and voluntary social security privatization was disingenuously branded by Democrats as "full privatization" leading to severe cuts to social security payouts. As the anti-reform marketing blitz intensified, seniors became increasingly fearful that social security reform could undermine their livelihood. Similar tactics were used to attack and discredit vouchers for private schools, across-the-board tax cuts, and tort reform. The central theme of the left's opposition to most conservative policies is that bad things will happen to the average American if these policies are implemented. This is glaringly the much maligned politics of fear.

Whereas Republicans rely on fear and other negative emotions (e.g. hate, anger, etc.) to advance policies, Democrats are presumably armed only with the self-evident wisdom of their proposals. This is of course a farce. The global warming hysteria that has come to dominate the United States' energy policy is grounded in fear. Climate Change alarmists tell us that we either have to cut CO2 emissions or face a calamity of biblical proportions. Regardless of whether one views climate change as a serious problem, it is obvious that climate change activists use fear to raise awareness.

Throughout the War on Terror, when George Bush would say that there are terrorists who want to kill us—an incontrovertible fact—he was accused of using fear tactics. As Republicans and movement conservatives solidify their opposition to President Obama’s healthcare proposal, they are dismissed as fear mongers.

Yet when Democrats argue that the War in Iraq and a litany of other Bush-era programs have made us less safe and more vulnerable to attack, we are made to believe that this is straight talk and not an effort to scare Americans into opposing President Bush's policies. However, rightly or wrongly, instilling fear is the precise intent of these Democratic talking points.  

But there is a larger point here besides rank hypocrisy, which is that all politics is grounded in fear. The underlying message of every political movement is that bad things will happen unless the movement succeeds. Fear is at the root of political ideology. After all, it would be difficult to gain a passionate following for a cause if your followers did not believe that the alternative to your movement would adversely affect them. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but rather the nature of politics.

Barak Obama's message during the 2008 campaign was that John McCain's policies would further damage our economy, make our country less safe, and not move our country forward. In short, then-candidate Obama's message was that if you elect John McCain, bad things will happen to you. Of course, President Obama had a positive agenda--as do all candidates for office--but beneath the surface of "hope" and "change" was the central implication that John McCain would be bad for this country. This is undoubtedly the politics of fear.