The Strange Death of Liberal America

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You can tell a great deal by reading faces, their lines and folds a kind of hieroglyphic of the mind that forms them. In our visual, media-driven world, faces often are all we have when everything else is packaged. Faces, of course, can be slathered in enough make-up so they resemble characters in a Kabuki drama. Yet even beneath the artifice, you cannot hide the eyes, that certain turn of the mouth, the involuntary twitching of muscles that can give away intimate secrets.

The face of George W. Bush after this past election presented a most curious set of contradictions, even more than usual for a man whose face always seems to be trying on a new identity as if the mind controlling the muscles and the depths of the eyes was never sure who it is or even where it is.

The President appeared visibly shaken by the reports of the beating his policies and his party had taken, yet he also failed to hide completely that famous smirk, the smirk of a school boy who has just chucked an eraser at the teacher and knew he would get away with it.

We Liberal Americans should never forget this particular smirk, for what it said was, go ahead and party now, but I’ve got a few erasers yet to throw. To begin with, I’ve got more votes than you think. Let’s take the Senate which after the first of the year will have 51 Democrats and 49 Republicans.

The smirk tells us it isn’t quite so simple. One of the Democrats is Joe Lieberman, who even if he does honor his pledge to stay a Democrat, has already supported Bush over his own party on a host of issues. So that leaves it a 50-50 tie with the Vice President to break the tie. According to Project Vote Smart, which tracks voting records, Lieberman voted against funding for low income energy assistance, yes on the Defense of Marriage Act, and no on judicial review of terrorism detainees. His support for the Bush Administration on Iraq, as everyone knows, was a key factor in his losing the Democratic Party endorsement.

More ominous–and little commented on–is the continuing survival and defiance of Democrats who openly support the GOP on key issues and all but dare their own party to discipline them. In some ways they are like the Dixiecrats of old, who were only nominally Democrats. The New Dixiecrats exhibit none of the fiery, states’ rights defiance of Strom Thurmond, whose switch to the GOP in the 1960s set the stage for so much that has since come to pass. Yet these New Dixiecrats can be as anti-Washington, anti-government, and socially conservative as Thurmond.

The chief exhibit for this is Louisiana Senator Marie Landrieu, a self-styled “centrist” who breaks with her party enough to put a smirk on Dubya’s face. Senator Landrieu supported the interests of the National Right to Life Committee 50 percent in 2005-2006. She has voted with the far right Americans for Tax Reform 30-40% of the time and has a 76% rating with the Chamber of Commerce and a 69% rating with the National Association of Manufacturers. Senator Landrieu supported the interests of the Republican Liberty Caucus on personal liberties 53 percent in 2005. She earns low ratings from most environmental groups. In 2006 Citizens for Global Solutions gave Senator Landrieu a rating of C+. Finally, Landrieu was one of the first Democratic senators to announce her support for Lieberman. So now the margin is 49-51 GOP.

The there is Senator Max Baucus of Montana. A must-read post by blogswarm at TPM Cafe titled “Senator Max Baucus to Enable Dick Cheney Senate Vote,” lists Baucus’ sins against the party over the years. blogswarm writes, “What Baucus does is use his influence as the top Democrat on the Finance Committee to systematically undercut his party and enable George W. Bush’s most egregious domestic legislation.” Almost three years ago, Matthew Yglesias wrote an article for the American Prospect on titled “Bad Max” in which he said:

Notably, Baucus’ behavior has drawn condemnation not just from liberals but from centrist Democrats outside of government who can normally be found extolling the virtues of such willingness to work across party lines.

Blogswarm’s conclusion, “Even in the minority Republicans can still rule the senate, all they need is Max Baucus.” Baucus, Lieberman, and Landrieu together now make it 48-52 GOP.

Meanwhile on the House side there are the so-called Blue Dog Democrats, a group as strange as their name that remains one of the curious mutant offspring of the Clinton/Gingrich years. They purport to support fiscal conservatism, with a balanced budget almost a 11th Commandment, but they also have sided with Republicans over a number of issues.

Currently there are 35 Democrats who will be members of the Blue Dog Coalition, enough to easily tip the majority. The Washington Times reports the Blue Dogs expect to pick up nine more new members, giving them 44, or about 19% of the Democratic Caucus. Essentially, without the Blue Dogs, whose group discipline is legendary, the Democrats will be unable to govern.

From the Blue Dog website, one would assume that the prime purpose of this group is economic: virtually all the press releases relate to fiscal responsibility and a balanced budget. However, a Washington Times editorial cites a review of key votes in recent years that revealed a great deal about the voting practices of the 35 Blue Dogs who won re-election to the 110th Congress:

• Twenty-six of the 35 returning Blue Dogs comprised more than 40 percent of the 64 Democrats who joined 219 Republicans in September in passing legislation (283-138) supporting the construction of a 700-mile fence along the nearly 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexican border.
• Twenty-two Blue Dogs comprised more than two-thirds of the 32 Democrats who voted in September with 218 Republicans to pass (250-170) the bill granting President Bush the authority to try suspected terrorists before military tribunals.
• Also in September, 13 returning Blue Dogs (14 including the departing Harold Ford of Tennessee) comprised the vast majority of the 18 Democrats who joined 214 Republicans to pass (232-191) the House version of a bill that would authorize nearly all of President Bush’s “terrorist surveillance program” involving warrantless wiretapping by the National Security Agency.
• When Congress re-authorized the Patriot Act in March, Blue Dogs made up nearly half (29, including the two departing dogs) of the 66 House Democrats who supported the bill, which passed 280-138.
• When the House voted to approve offshore drilling for oil and gas (232-187) in June and oil and gas exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (225-201) in May, returning Blue Dogs played important roles, contributing 19 of the 40 Democratic votes for the offshore bill and a decisive 13 of the 27 Democratic votes for ANWR.

So the bottom line of the upcoming session is that it promises to be more like the previous one than the love fest the press is promoting. The Republicans know exactly what they were doing when they dumped the mess they had created into the Democrat’s laps. That they chose combative Dixiecrat Trent Lott to again lead the Senate as he did during the combative Clinton years, says the war has already begun.

The Republicans know the Democrats’ true majority is slim to none which also limits the possibility that anything meaningful will come from this Congress. The press seems to be living in Oz when it speaks of a new atmosphere of cooperation and collaboration. If the Democrats chase that bit of cheese the snap of the mousetraps will echo through the Capitol.

This is why values become critical. If the Democrats do not definitively define who they are and what they collectively stand for the why of what they do will seem like more of the same-old, same-old laundry list of programs intended to mollify various interest groups. Perhaps the most important task for Democratic Congressional leaders will be to elucidate a clear statement of values so that as the session proceeds voters will understand why the Party is fighting especially hard for particular pieces of legislation. Most important it must be able to draw a contrast between their values and those of the GOP Counterrevolution.

In a previous post I wrote about how the Democratic presidential race could come down to a battle between the Kennedys and the Clintons. Similarly this Congressional session will be about whether Clintonism with its hokey-pokey dance (you put your right foot in, you put your right foot out) between liberalism and conservatism will continue to rule the Party or whether the Party will recover the values of FDR and the New Deal, values that stressed the importance of the level playing field.

This may be the Democrats’ last opportunity to reassert Liberal America’s value of the level playing field. If they do not others will and we will begin to see a major political realignment. Meanwhile behind it all a certain George W. Bush continues to smirk, knowing he has the trump card–the veto.

Crossposts: My Left Wing, LeftWord, The Strange Death of Liberal America

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