Unless we were wrong, didn’t Majority Leader Bill Frist and some other key GOPers blast filibusters as an outmoded, reprehensible Congressional device over the past year?
Now Frist and some others have apparently changed their tune — and are putting the word out that they will filibuster a bill proposed by other Republicans on interrogations that deals with the hot-button issue of interrogation if they and the White House don’t get their way:
SenateMajority Leader Bill Frist signaled yesterday that he and other White House allies will filibuster a bill dealing with the interrogation and prosecution of detainees if they cannot persuade a rival group of Republicans to rewrite key provisions opposed by President Bush.
Frist’s chief of staff, Eric M. Ueland, called the dissidents’ bill “dead.”
Frist is 99.99 percent of the time reflecting the White House’s actions on his political maneuvering. In fact, on occasion he has seemingly changed a position on a dime after meeting at the White House. MORE:
With Congress scheduled to adjourn in nine days, delaying tactics such as a filibuster could kill the drive to enact detainee legislation before the Nov. 7 elections, a White House priority. Bush faced still more problems in the House, where GOP moderates Christopher Shays (Conn.), Michael N. Castle (Del.), Jim Leach (Iowa) and James T. Walsh (N.Y.) publicly threw their support behind the bill opposed by the White House. The four Republicans told Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) that any House bill must maintain the dissidents’ principles.
On another front, legislation to authorize Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program may be in more jeopardy. Frist said yesterday that he referred the warrantless surveillance matter to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence for further review and would not bring it up for Senate consideration until next week.
Yesterday’s actions significantly dimmed prospects that Congress can complete its national security agenda before adjournment. Frist (R-Tenn.) acknowledged that a majority of the 100 senators back the rival group on military commissions but that there are not enough to block a filibuster, which requires a super-majority of 60.
Senate and administration negotiators talked throughout the day, but no real progress was apparent. “It could all come together in a matter of hours, or it could drag out for another week or so,” said John Ullyot, spokesman for Armed Services Committee Chairman John W. Warner (R-Va.).
The sharp rhetoric of last week was replaced yesterday by softer language from both the Bush administration and the three Republican senators leading the opposition to its proposals: Warner, John McCain (Ariz.) and Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.).
But Frist struck a more jarring tone, telling reporters that the trio’s bill is unacceptable despite its majority support.
For a bill to pass, Frist said, “it’s got to preserve our intelligence programs,” including the CIA’s aggressive interrogation techniques, and it must “protect classified information from terrorists.” He said that “the president’s bill achieves those two goals” but that “the Warner-McCain-Graham bill falls short.”
This is highly significant:
- It is seeming confirmation of what many traditional conservative Republicans, Democrats and some independents have begun to conclude: the Bush faction is in control of the Republican party but may not necessarily reflect the values of many Republicans. One of the motifs in George Bush’s 2000 speeches was the concept of leadership — that a leader must make a decision, act and set the agenda. He has done and is doing just that for the GOP even if it has veered the party away from some of the ideas and approaches of Dwight Eisenhower, Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan or his own father.
- It’s a reaffirmation of Bush’s stance at his press conference where he basically said it’s his program, or no program. A filibuster would be a holding action.
- If it’s stalled and doesn’t go through, look for the official line to be that it was “partisan politics” and the Democrats that undermined national security and vital information that needed to be
gotten from terrorists. Except in the 2008 primaries: John McCain could face renewed opposition from Bush allies and “new” conservatives. - All of this still does NOT mean that the White House politically loses. Even if the bill is stalled the net result of this controversy is that the party’s conservative base will have been stirred up and motivated to go to the polls. George Bush and Karl Rove have repeatedly won elections by firing up the GOP’s base. Earlier this year the fear was that Republicans wouldn’t vote. You have not heard that fear raised by pundits over the past two weeks as Bush’s and the GOP’s poll numbers have risen in some key polls.
- There still COULD be a compromise. This could be political stagecraft, just in case.
- The atttitude of Frist and other Republicans who are ready to filibuster other Republicans once more shows the low regard this administration has for policy approaches adapted after bringing other Americans into its tent so that every issue is not a divisive, bitter controversy.
So, heading into the 2006 election and into the final two years of his term, George Bush is a battle at home against Democrats, is staving off a rebellion among traditional conservatives and now via his voice in the Senate threatens to use a legislative tactic that was denounced earlier this year.
The structural advantages the GOP have put in place could still mean a win in 2006 and continued control of Congress. But 2008 is shaping up as a battle royal between factions in the GOP itself.
UPDATE:
—The Heretik on compromise.
—The Gun Toting Liberal has some additional thoughts on Bill Frist’s new love affair with the filibuster.
–Tim at Balloon Juice:
Needless to say the Democrats could not write a better result than the president’s legislation going nowhere and the half-awful “compromise� bill falling to a Republican filibuster threat. Given the state of our Republican leadership, nothing could serve America’s interests more than to put these bills off until the Democrats take one or both houses of Congress. Let Congressional hearings shine some light on the behavior of our government for the last six years and then make legislation based on informed understanding rather than our current state of half-light and demagoguery.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.