HuffPost asked Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), the lead Blue Dog negotiator, why he succeeded and the progressives failed.

“Because I didn’t threat[en]. These are the facts,” he said.

But you did threaten, a reporter pointed out.

No, Stupak said, it wasn’t a threat. It was a promise. “No, they know I’ll vote against the rule,” he said.

Stupak said the Blue Dogs have gradually been sending a message to leadership and that much of it goes back to a previous vote involving an appropriations bill that Blue Dogs wanted to include pro-life language.

In July, the House considered a Financial Services Appropriations bill that would allow publicly-funded abortions in the District of Columbia. Stupak and allies were not allowed an amendment, so they sought to “take down the rule” — in other words, round up enough votes to deny he bill a chance to get voted on on the floor. When time expired, the pro-lifers had prevailed. But Pelosi held the vote open for extra time and persuaded four members to switch their votes.

They didn’t win in the end, Stupak said, but they accomplished their goal.

“We wanted to send a message,” he said. “We went back and I said, ‘See, I can take down your rule.’”

He has held his fire since then, saving his strength for the health care bill.

“Now, I have not threatened that every time that we went to Rules Committee and we didn’t always get our pro-life amendments, I did not try to take down any rules. You have to pick your fights at the right time. You can’t be crying wolf all the time because you lose your wolfiness. You lose your credibility,” he said. “So I’m not going to lose my credibility. So you use it at certain times when it’s appropriate.”

Viewed through the lens of Stupak’s C Street membership, this victory lap (and all the others he has been doing) comes off as what it is: a naked grab for power through hypocritical moralizing.

Too bad that formula works so well for so many in Washington.

So, a couple of Gitmo detainees walk into a bar. . . .

I believe the answer is none.

I have seen a lot of bullshit bonhomie over years of Washington watching, but I was still shocked by the exchange featured here. Joking that a few extra hours in a cramped committee room are like being a prisoner at Guantanamo, and doing so without even the slightest hint of self-awareness, is far outside the bounds of good taste, even for Congress.

I didn’t think it needed saying, but obviously it does: Having to sit through a half-day’s worth of partisan wrangling, where you have access to water, food, staff, and the warm glow of TV cameras is not worse than (or even akin to) years of indefinite detention in a prison cell on a remote island, cut off from anyone you know or love, subject to routine abuse and frequent torture, all conducted under a cloak of official secrecy, outside the rule of law, without any recourse or any reasonable expectation that this hell will ever end. Further, such jocular comparisons are singularly insensitive to the denigration of human rights perpetrated under the color of authority, and, what’s more, are not in the least bit funny.

Given the complete lack of sensitivity or self-awareness, is it any wonder that we seem to lack as a nation any sense of urgency to close this American gulag and restore the rule of law?

And, given this complete lack of sensitivity and self-awareness, is it any wonder that just a few hours later, these same august men and women thought it acceptable to trade away the reproductive rights of a broad swath of poor and middle-class Americans?

If there are equivalencies to be drawn here, they exist in the cavalier attitudes that Members of Congress seem to have about basic human rights and the protections guaranteed under the US Constitution.

Alas, those doing the joking are off camera, so I can’t place their imperious mugs on any wall of shame, but I have reason to believe that at least one of those buffoons is a Democrat. That, too, should probably not be a surprise. When a Republican was in the White House, Democrats failed to exercise there power to stop the Military Commissions Act or prevent anti-abortion judges from taking seats on the Supreme Court; now, with a Democrat in the White House and commanding majorities in Congress, Democrats seem incapable of rolling back the extra-legal regimes put in place by the Bush administration, but quite capable of rolling back rights granted under Roe v. Wade.

It shouldn’t be acceptable, it isn’t funny, but guess what, America? Once again the joke’s on you.

(If you are feeling inclined to make some calls to these purported public servants over whether health care reform will deny abortion coverage to any individuals or groups that get insurance, public or private, from the new health care exchange, HCAN has a list of numbers.)

New York's 23rd Congressional District

The biggest overlooked aspect of the NY-23rd special congressional election is Democratic candidate Bill Owens. NY-23 is a Republican-leaning district but not overwhelmingly so. George W. Bush just barely beat Al Gore in 2000 (49%-47%), and in 2008 Obama easily carried the district (52%-47%). It is a reddish district but not deep red.

Bill Owens is a conservative Democrat. He is arguably more conservative than the official Republican candidate was (Dede Scozzafava dropped out over the weekend). For example, his opposition to the public option puts him not only far to the right of the bulk of the Democratic party, but significantly to the right of the majority of Americans. He was selected because he fit the Rahm Emanuel philosophy that the only way for Democrats to win right-leaning districts is with conservative Democratic candidates.

The theory is that a center-right Democrat will win the entire Democratic base, most of the independents, and a few of the more liberal Republicans. That theory is getting blown out of the water in NY-23rd. Bill Owens’s remaining competition is the ultra-rightwing Conservative party candidate Doug Hoffman. The vast majority of the district should be ideologically much closer Owens than Hoffman, yet Hoffman is leading in the polls.

If Hoffman wins it will be a big loss for the misguided ideal among some Democrats that the only way to win right-leaning districts is by diligently staking out bland center-right positions. Having a candidate that seems “real” and can really fire up the base is very important. People often vote because they feel elected officials are ignoring them and they want to send a message. Right now, there is a real populist rage out there directed at Washington in general.

Most people don’t vote based on a checklist of positions, but vote for candidates they think are honest, even if they don’t agree with them. If a blue dog like Bill Owens can’t even beat an ultra-radical like Hoffman in a mildly red district, the idea of trying to run more blue dogs needs to be seriously re-examined. In 2006 and 2008, all Democrats rode a wave of anti-Republican sentiment. If they want to remain in power, they need to show the regular people that they are working to make their lives better.

House Judiciary Committee members Reps. Jerry Nadler and John Conyers

Well, lookee here. Look what the House Judiciary Committee has scheduled for Thursday.

Classified Hearing on: the PATRIOT Act and Related Matters

Thursday 10/29/2009 – 2:30 A.M.

HVC-301

Full Committee

By Direction of the Chairman

As you’ll recall, the Senate Judiciary Committee had such a classified hearing, as well. The day after that hearing, the Democrats gave up their plans to actually improve the PATRIOT Act, and instead gave the Administration everything they wanted, making it easier to conduct fishing expeditions on Americans. As you’ll probably also recall, the Administration submitted those changes via Jeff Sessions, one of the most loathsome Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, giving the Democrats thin cover for utterly caving on the Fourth Amendment.

So which Republican do you think the Administration will hide behind while gutting improvements on the PATRIOT Act this time? Some choices are:

• Lamar Smith, the Committee’s Ranking Member and a Texan, with all that suggests
• Darrell Issa, former member of the House Intelligence Committee and quite a capable asshole
• Steve King, a close match for Sessions in terms of being a loathsome idiot

Enter your guess in the comments for a chance to win a coveted hub cap. And ready your calling fingers Monday to remind Democratic Committee members of their duty to protect the Fourth Amendment.

[Ed. Note: Monday is today! So, Call the Democrats on the Committee and remind them that the Fourth Amendment does not include any exceptions for fishing expeditions.]

Honestly, I didn’t expect the conservative freefall to happen virtually overnight, but the movement really has come apart at the seams. The "Big Tent" party, the Party of "personal responsibility", has devolved into a giant sandbox filled with bed-wetting, Nazi-fretting, hissy-fitting, pants-shitting, name-calling, bill-stalling, spiteful schoolchildren. 

The One Who is Shrill put it thusly:

“Cheers erupted” at the headquarters of the conservative Weekly Standard, according to a blog post by a member of the magazine’s staff, with the headline “Obama loses! Obama loses!” Rush Limbaugh declared himself “gleeful.” “World Rejects Obama,” gloated the Drudge Report. And so on.

So what did we learn from this moment? For one thing, we learned that the modern conservative movement, which dominates the modern Republican Party, has the emotional maturity of a bratty 13-year-old.

I would have said that the Republicans were behaving more like bratty 8 year-olds, but I’ll work with Mr. Krugman here. Like obnoxious, sullen, pimply-faced adolescents, the conservatives are going to spend the next four years locked in their collective bedroom with the "ADULTS STAY OUT!" sign on the door, running up the phone bills while they bitch and moan to their friends about how unfair and how stupid, ugly, and authoritarian their parents are.

The Virginia gubernatorial race took an ugly turn this past weekend when a prominent endorser for Republican Bob McDonnell mocked the slight stutter of Democrat candidate Creigh Deeds.

At a rally for McDonnell’s campaign, Sheila Johnson was taped discussing the importance of communication skills in the state’s next governor.

"We need someone who can really communicate," she said. "And Bob McDonnell can communicate. The other people that I talk to, especially his o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-opponent… could not articulate what needed to be done."

How seemly. How mature. How gracious. I think someone needs to be grounded for at least a month.

Also like typical, narcissistic, melodramatic tweens, the conservatives have a bizarre, hyper-aggrandized image of themselves:

I’m interrupting my career. It’s not like I want my new career in politics. But I’m willing to interrupt it the same way that somebody interrupted their career and joined World War II and went off to fight the Nazis. 

And yes, there’s always that one kid whom the rest of the pack assiduously avoids, the one who always seems to be sporting a case of ringworm, and who prefers to socialize with the voices in her head:

In a 24-page filing littered with all-caps, bold, and underlined text, Birther attorney Orly Taitz is demanding that a federal judge recuse himself in a case that has morphed from a soldier’s attempt to resist Barack Obama’s orders to what Taitz sees as a prosecution of herself.

All this would be terribly amusing, but for one small matter: each time the conservatives who control the Republican Party act like Veruca Salt on steroids, the Democrats, despite their solid majorities in both Houses, respond each time like permissive parents who try to mollify tantrum-throwing tweens by acceding to their every demand. Let the Republican Party continue its lightning descent into puerility and irrelevance. Consider it tough love. . . or tough shit.

Old Joe the Coyote @ Rocky Mountain NP

While watching Ken Burns’ miniseries The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, I was struck by the parallels between the creation and maintenance of the National Park Service and the health care reform battles. Both have been long, long struggles, with progress coming intermittently and never easily.

Progress has required strong political leaders. I mean presidents willing to boldly act, cabinet secretaries willing to stand up for what they are called to do, and members of congress dedicated to serving not only their districts and states but the nation as a whole. Former cattle rancher, Wyoming governor, and US Senator Cliff Hanson, was one of the leading voices against the expansion of Grand Teton National Park in the 1940s. In the mid-1960s, at a luncheon in New York, he said:

I fought against the establishment of the Grand Teton National Park as hard as I could and I lost and I want you all to know that I’m glad I lost, because I now know I was wrong. Grand Teton National Park is one of the greatest natural heritages of Wyoming and the nation and one of our great assets.

I’d love to hear some of today’s opponents of health care reform say the same kind of thing in twenty years.

Progress has also required dedicated women and men in government. They are often young and always lower down in the power structure, and are people who see what needs to be done and can push their superiors to recognize it as well. People like George Melendez Wright, who died far too young.

Progress has also required people who can inspire the general public to get behind change, like the NPS rangers (the Cook family, Sheldon Johnson, and Gerard Baker, among others) as well as passionate outsiders like John Muir and Ansel Adams.

Progress has also been consistently opposed, and in retrospect, the opposition has been from those concerned with short-term profits, the lobbyists they employed, and those politicians who catered to them. When Burns highlights the secretaries of the interior who did the most to preserve, defend, and expand the parks, I couldn’t help noticing that these were generally Democrats (with Teddy Roosevelt and his administration being the notable exception). 

Finally, progress has required political persistence. "It’s a marathon, not a sprint" kept going through my head watching The National Parks. For health care, the story is the same. You can go back to Teddy Roosevelt and early public health laws, to Harry Truman and his push for a more systemic approach to health care, to the Medicare and Medicaid battles of the 1960s, and to the battle being fought today.

At the end of the whole series, as I pondered these parallels to the health care battles, I am ever so grateful for those who have come before and for those taking a lead today. People like the House members who are standing up for the public option, like Jay Rockefeller in the Senate, like Jane and others pushing from outside the halls of Congress, and like the thousands who make the phone calls, send the faxes, and show up in the local offices of their Senators and Representatives.

Someday, there’s going to be a documentary about public health care in the US, and maybe Marcy’s YouTube will be featured. And we can each say "I knew her when . . ."

Rep. Tom Price is introducing a resolution to censure Alan Grayson in the House for saying that the GOP health care bill is: "don’t get sick." There will be debate on Grayson’s actions at 2pm today on the floor which you can watch on CSPAN.

The Republicans are now likening it to Joe Wilson’s outburst in which he called the President a "liar." The difference being, of course, that Wilson was heckling the President during the State of the Union speech, and Grayson was not saying anything nearly as bad as what Republicans have repeatedly said about the Democratic health care bill:

Take Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite (R-Fla.), who said in July: "Last week, Democrats released a health care bill which essentially said to America’s seniors: drop dead."

Or Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.), a doctor, who reviewed the public health insurance option in July and diagnosed that it is "gonna kill people."

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), not one to pull punches, suggested on the House floor that Congress "make sure we bring down the cost of health care for all Americans and that ensures affordable access for all Americans and is pro-life because it will not put seniors in a position of being put to death by their government."

July was a busy time for House floor death sentences. Also that month, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), noted: "One in five people have to die because they went to socialized medicine…I would hate to think that among five women, one of ‘em is gonna die because we go to socialized care."

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) had a similar assessment. "They’re going to save money by rationing care, getting you in a long line. Places like Canada, United Kingdom, and Europe. People die when they’re in line," he said on the House floor in July.

It’s insane that this has reached this level, and that progressives are being once again sacrificed to a right-wing hissy fit when Republicans regularly engage in the most extreme eliminationist rhetoric with absolutely no consequences.

We expect Democrats to take to the floor to defend Grayson, and that the Speaker will not allow this travesty to come up for a vote.

Leadership is obviously not going to stand by their progressive members, who are being sacrificed to a right-wing hissy fit like Van Jones, Yosi Sargent and MoveOn have been before.

Please send a powerful message to those seeking to silence progressives by donating to Alan Grayson and showing your support.

Republican Yeas: 7.  Democratic Nays: 12.

House vote to "condemn" MoveOn for insulting General Petraeus in a newspaper ad: 341-79.

Democratic Yeas: 146.  Republican Nays: 0.

Yes, it’s apples and oranges for a variety of reasons, but does anyone think the Republican-controlled House wouldn’t have gotten over 340 votes to "rebuke" (if not censure) Pete Stark if he had called Bush a liar in the middle of a congressional address blaming 9/11 on cockroaches from Mars?

And can anyone imagine any Republican voting to "condemn" FreedomWorks for running an ad accusing an Obama appointee of being a terrorist Martian cockroach?

The problem with our government isn’t that there’s not enough bipartisanship, it’s that there’s too much unilateral bipartisanship.

No heads turn

Heads Turn

Now, all of us have been in a room when a scream comes out of nowhere. It’s impossible not to look. Speaker Nancy Pelosi turned. Vice President Joe Biden Turned. Obama turned. Why aren’t Wilson’s Republican colleagues startled? Not one has turned to see what the outburst, coming from right next to them, is all about. This is, at the very least, quite odd. One thing that might account for the stoic response from those around Wilson is that they knew it was coming. Were they prepared? It’s a question that should be pursued. Despite the feigned GOP repudiation of Wilson, one could conclude it was a planned disruption.

The comparison of these pictures is not conclusive proof. I’m not much for conspiracies, not because I’m naive, but because people usually foul them up and are easily found out. But this sure has all the typical features of an old trick: stepping on your opponent’s story.

Faced with post-Obama speech coverage about the President and the case for health care reform, the GOP wouldn’t want to just react and feed into that. They needed a stunt. Wilson would be their man. Of course, it would have the additional benefit of pointing out to the racists (the GOP is counting on them to stay fired up) that it’s entirely appropriate, even necessary, to disrespect a person of color. Judging from the reaction, it appears to have fired up the extremists. They are handing out T-shirts adorned with Wilson’s picture and carrying signs that say, "You Lie."

When Republicans criticize Wilson, it just extended the interruption. More minutes of TV coverage, more space in the newspaper, less space and coverage of health care. Democrats had little choice but to condemn Wilson, though the White House tried to keep the focus on health care.

The GOP could have picked their moment ahead of time, since the speech was pre-released. Or maybe Wilson picked his moment — conveniently, while the subject of immigration was discussed — and merely told those around him. Or maybe they were so embarrassed they couldn’t look at him. However, they appear to have avoided any surprise, and how they could manage that is a mystery, given that even the millions of Americans watching at home were startled.

It’s not news that the GOP would engage in dirty tricks. Knowledge of the tricks, or even the possibility of the tricks, can help us defend against them and call them out when they happen again.

Before that, it was the firing of Van Jones, and before that it was giving Bush administration officials a pass for promoting torture and politicizing the DOJ.  Before that, it was taking impeachment "off the table."  And way way back before that, it was voting to give Dubya the authority to invade Iraq.

Each time, Republicans screamed and hollered and lied and smeared like it was the end of the world, and Democrats decided that instead of fighting back, they would simply remove the offending piece from the board in hopes of short-circuiting the debate.  After all, they weren’t giving up any of their core objectives or personnel, merely getting rid of "distractions" so they could pursue their policy goals unimpeded.

And how has that cowardice-as-strategy worked out?  Every time the Democrats caved, the country moved backward.  We got sucked into an idiotic war which blew up the budget and thousands of lives to make the world less safe.  Concepts like rule of law and government accountability have become quaint relics of a bygone age.  Passionate, committed, talented people are discarded like garbage while always-wrong corporate creatures like Geithner, Summers and Rahm are bolted to the White House floor.  And unless the progressives hold firm (because no one else will), the public option will be the next sacrifice.

And the Republicans are still screaming.

The Democrats have mastered the political moonwalk: They’re looking forward, they’re swinging their arms like they’re moving forward, but it’s quite obvious that they’re sliding backward.