When You Don't Have the Votes, You Talk. When You Have the Votes, You Vote.

By DHinMI

That's an old adage probably familiar to most people familiar with the day to day workings of any legislative body.  And based on this press release from Harry Reid (via Daily Kos), it looks as if, for now at least, Bill Frist doesn't have the votes to pass the Nuclear Option, but Harry Reid has the votes to kill it:

I still consider this confrontation entirely unnecessary and irresponsible. The White House manufactured this crisis. Since Bush took office, the Senate confirmed 208 of his judicial nominations and turned back only 10, a 95% confirmation rate.  Instead of accepting that success and avoiding further divisiveness and partisanship in Washington, the President chose to pick fights instead of judges by resubmitting the names of the rejected nominees.  

This fight is not about seven radical nominees; it's about clearing the way for a Supreme Court nominee who only needs 51 votes, instead of 60 votes. They want a Clarence Thomas, not a Sandra Day O'Connor or Anthony Kennedy or David Souter.  George Bush wants to turn the Senate into a second House of Representatives, a rubberstamp for his right wing agenda and radical judges.   That's not how America works.

I believe there are two options for avoiding the nuclear showdown, which so many of us believe is bad for the Senate, and bad for America.

But I want to be clear: we are prepared for a vote on the nuclear option.  Democrats will join responsible Republicans in a vote to uphold the constitutional principle of checks and balances. 
 

I love this.  Reid sets it up as Democrats joining "responsible Republicans," thus putting any supporters of the Nuclear Option in the camp of the irresponsible.  Reid is also adding to the pressure Frist is already under from his right wing, who are getting very impatient with the delay.  And he's probably helping out any Republicans who want to just get the damn thing over with and don't want any more pressure from the wingers.  Reid reiterated the concessionary "offers" he had already made.   Lincoln Chaffee and Olympia Snowe and John McCain or anyone else who may have told or at least hinted to Reid that they won't support Frist would probably welcome an end to the tension, and they probably welcome Reid giving not one but two ostensible concessions that Frist will have to reject in order to push for a vote on the full Nuclear Option. 

I'm not sure I'm willing to go so far as one of our shrewdest commenters who recently said he was prepared to turn his durable power of attorney over to Harry Reid, but I understand the trust.  This guy has become the Republicans' worst nightmare.

Comments

[Mike S]

I know this has nothing to do with the topic but found it interesting. Michael Medved is doing a show right now on an ACLU lawsuit against NC. It seems that a woman was fired from her job in the sheriffs dept because she is living with her boyfriend. That's punnishable by jail time and a $1000 fine.

Did you know that there is also a law in Mi. against living together?

[knobboy]

Here's the part I like:

"Either of these options offers a path away from the precipice of the nuclear option. But if neither of these options is acceptable to you, let's vote."

Time to step out behind the pool hall and see who wins this one, eh?

[demtom]

Since I'm the referred-to commenter, let me say that my confidence in Reid grows with each victory, and that I, like DHinMI, am willing to take this declaration as a sure sign that Reid has the votes. (If it were Daschle, I'd only be HOPING that)

You know the saddest part about the ultimate vote? It'll probably get just few enough votes to fail. But, as with the Senate vote on Clinton's impeachment "conviction", there will be all sorts of Senators voting aye who know it's horseshit but are too afraid of their base to do otherwise.

[TCinLA]

Last fall, when the Senate Democrats voted Harry Reid Minority Leader, any number of the people who read (and write) this blog couldn't understand how a pro-choice Mormon from a Red State could end up with the job when it should go to a "safe" Democrat like Dick Durbin.

At the time, I stated publicly that we had just elected the ghost of General Thomas Gates to head the Democrats in the Senate, which was met by a large silence by the overeducated historic-illiterates of the Democratic left.

Here's what I meant:

In 1778, having failed to defeat Washington's forces in New England and the mid-Atlantic States, the English decided to bank their counterinsurgency stragegy on the conservative southern colonies. It was a battle of slaveowning planter versus up-country small farmer, with the small farmers playing the role of the Moujahedeen, in the way the New England farmers were the VC. Between 1778 and 1783, Gates and his Revolutionary army lost every battle they fought, but after every defeat they were still there.

By 1983, exhausted by his "victories" and with his army seriously overextended, Lord Cornwallis made a strategic retreat to Yorktown, where the expected support of the Royal Navy was defeated in the Battle of Chesapeake Bay. The rest, as they say, "is history."

Everyone gives Yorktown to Washington (as everyone will give the Democratic victor of 2008 the victory), but without Thomas Gates' defeats, there would have been no scene of the British Army marching out of Yorktown to "The World Turned Upside Down."

Now, if Senator Reid can train moronic buffoons like Senator Ben "A legend in his own mind" Nelson - the least Democrat in America - to swallow a steaming cup of STFU, we might win.

Personally, I won't complain if a Republican beats "brilliant Ben" next year. At least then it will be clear who the enemy is.

Right now, Harry Reid has Senator Kitten Killer tied in a knot of his own making, he has the Southern Scum like Heil Horsley faked out enough that they expose their bad caricature of a Southern product of too much hillbilly incest for everyone to see, with their laughs about "if you grew up on a Georgia farm, your first girlfriend as a mule."

How much better does it get? These fifth-generation Southern traitors are ripping off their masks and exposing themselves to the rest of the country for the psychopaths they are.

[Crab Nebula]

I want to congratulate myself on my gut instinct from day 1 that Harry Reid was going to be godd, but he's been better than that.

He is leagues beyond Daschle, right up there (at least) with George Mitchell, and the Republicans will rue the day they took Daschle out. His only serious weakness? He's not telegenic enough to be the national face of the party. But then if that were so, he'd be thinking Presidency. We know Daschle was (what planet was he living on?).

[DHinMI]

Crab: I completely agree. I knew his reputation as a backroom dealer, a master of process, and the respect he had in the caucus. I figured he'd be good. But you're right, he's been better than good.

And he's not telegenic enough to run for President, and I suspect that's not his goal. But I love his low-key everyman approach, and I think it's quite effective, just as Mitchell's low-key affable demeanor belied the sharpness of his elbows and his facility in finding the juglar.