I imagine that you/we COULD find some kind of thing similar to the GOP's automatic “tax cuts solve everything” mantra. I'd say health care reform but everyone wants that, just not reformed in the same ways. Maybe…something related to a safety net? Or social security or something? I don't know.

But again – my bigger point in the post was about this double-edged sword of transparency – how it cuts both ways for both sides. And I think the lack of it during the Bush admin only makes the stated goal to have it all the more stark – I think I wrote that already. Which means I really should stop! lol

About Dodd – one thing: I'm really upset on a personal level over that – I'd always felt he was one of the more consistently acts w/integrity types. I will wait to hear more from him and others about what in the world has gone on and is going on, but I'm very unhappy with what I'm hearing. Will have to wait for the smoke to clear. I did hear that Rob Simon or Roger Simon the GOP possibiligy to run against him has polled something like 43-42 beating Dodd. Having grown up in CT and lived there through my mid-20s, that is really threatening for Dodd.

On the conference committee meeting- my own Congressman, Tom Price (6th district GA) put this video out the day that it happened:
http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2009/2…

I already said that I think the GOP who signed off on the compromise bill were wrong to do so. I have no idea what their rationale was but the fact is that the bill was already inked before they even got to the meeting (at least if we believe what Pelosi and Reid told the press just after noon that day.)

I had presumed that he wouldn't have told a bald faced lie when he'd said that he didn't insert the exemption into his amendment- though I'm not sure why I gave him that presumption of innocence.

I'm getting whiplash from going back and forth on my opinion of his culpability here. Yesterday I was all over him, today I felt bad because I thought that he'd been set up- and now it seems that he deserved the scorn and then some for lying.

I disagree with you equating tax cuts to troop withdrawal. Tax cuts are a traditional tool in the GOP toolbox. Withdrawal from a war that's draining billions of dollars and getting no where, that was started under false pretenses is not comparable.

On whether or not 'tax cuts' is a serious alternative proposal, I feel the same way about the things you mention that the Dems put forward as alternative proposals on Iraq. Their proposals were of the form “this is not going to get better, we're not going to win, so we want to wind it down” just as the GOP proposals on tax cuts represent the idea that we're not going to fix a debt problem by borrowing more money. And you didn't acknowledge that I just gave you an example of a serious counterproposal which did include other things besides tax cuts.

Here's something from HuffPo on the who stole the cookie re: Wyden-Snowe amendment – I really wasn't following it closely when I heard about it so I'm just providing the link for reference:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/18/congre…

Call it what you want re: tax cut pushes: I don't equate repeating a party plank of “tax cuts are the only thing that can work” as doing anything other than saying no – it's none too subtle a tactic, but the result and the intent is precisely the same – you want to finesse me here and saying I'm moving goalposts, whatever. I believe you know what I'm saying.

As for Dem opposition AND provisions of alternatives to Gitmo, rendition and wiretapping – I believe the latter two don't really require an alternative – people object to them because one is outright torture and the other is outright wrong. They don't need to be replaced with anything – they need to stop, period.

I am not familiar enough with whether Dems failed to provide alternative ideas for Gitmo – it's easy for me to say that I find that hard to believe, but the truth is I just don't know what they did whenever they said “close Gitmo.”

Uh, no. I'm not sure what you're referring to about Dodd, but my whole gripe with this whole issue is that the changes were made during the reconciliation process between the Senate and House bills, which was a closed door meeting with no Republicans present. I don't know who is responsible for adding the clause which specifically exempted the preexisting contracts, or who was responsible for stripping out the Snowe-Wyden amendment which also would have put some restrictions- but I do know it wasn't a Republican (that's not to say that I think they're blameless either or would put it past them- but they simply weren't in the room so we can defniitely say it was a Democrat in the library with the lead pipe.)

As for tax cuts not being a solution, first, you're now moving the goal posts. Your original argument was that they can't get past saying no, and now your saying you just don't take their proposal seriously. And second, there were additional measures proposed besides tax cuts (Martinez, for example, had a package that was a combination of tax cuts, mortgage relief, and increased unemployment comp.)

And I'll concede your point about timeline proposals and such on Iraq- I suppose a better example would be on policies like Gitmo, extraordinary rendition, and wiretapping- where even now that the Dems have the reins the policies aren't really changing in substance that much because there simply aren't any good solutions.

When I think of lawmakers not moving past no, I'm talking about lawmakers who perseverate on pushing the only kinds of solutions or alternatives they ever push: tax cuts. Doesn't matter what has been placed in front of them – the alternative is tax cuts, and if the tax cuts aren't what they want, then they say no. That is what happened with the ARRA, despite the removal and shifting of numerous provisions from the bill, at the House, Senate and conference committee level.

[As for AIG, I heard this afternoon that Dodd supposedly was the one who, after the bonus provision in the stimulus was pulled out, put it back in - I have not confirmed that yet - but there were GOP members of Congress on that conference committee and they signed off on whatever was then sent to Obama.]

Did I feel the same when Dems were in the minority and were criticizing the war and other policies without offering alternative?

I think that question is inaccurate from the get-go – they did offer alternatives – they wanted a timeline, Bush said no. They wanted troop withdrawals – don't you remember how Bush said no no no and then eventually did say yes?

Plus, just a reminder – I live one congressional district over from Dennis Kucinich and his constant disagreement w/and offering up of alternatives to the war practically makeup for all of Ohio's other Dems to whatever extent you might be able to say they didn't do anything but say no. /some sarcasm there – we love our Dennis, though probably not for the reasons he'd like us too.

The truer answer would be this: I started blogging in July 2005, and for purposes related only to my freelance writing work. I started to follow local politics in the blogs that winter and then more nationally only in terms of Ohio's senate race between Sherrod Brown and Mike DeWine. I always read up etc. but I never followed politics the way I have been before 2007. So – it would be dishonest for me to say, by God, Yes! I picked on the Dems too for eight years – the truth is, I only was paying attention to whatever I heard about on the radio or read in the newspapers or magazines. I was not a wonk the way I am now.

But – I also have to add that the whole pick on the left/pick on the right thing – it's exhausting and usually with little achieved. Which is why this post is primarily about how transparency is a double-edged sword and Obama set it up that way, for better or worse, and the GOP is seizing on that – as anyone might expect opponents to do.

And lost in all that is getting things done and getting them done in a way that has the best chance to improve our economy, our society and our lives.

And just for the record, did you feel the same when the Democrats were in the minority and the GOP controlled both the WH and Congress? Those of us on the right constantly complained that the left was criticizing the war and other policies without offering alternative (a charge that I believe was more true then than it is now.)