Eminentoes
Harold’s Hack Attack
The great progressive Harold Meyerson was in favor of the filibuster before he opposed it. Guess what changed.
A few years back, when Republicans were threatening to junk the judicial filibuster in the Senate, I thought that was a bad idea. So did Harold Meyerson.
Writing in the American Prospect after the Republicans cleaned up in the 2002 off-year elections, Meyerson predicted that the nation would “suffer” under united Republican rule. He worried about “all the right-wing judicial appointments that will be ratified, for the Supreme Court on down, now that the Republicans control the Senate” and about the “lack of scrutiny” that the Bush administration could expect “now that the Democrats control no committees.”
“Only the filibuster,” he warned, “now stands between the nation and the unchecked rule of the most right-wing xenophobic and belligerent administration in the nation’s history.” (Apparently, he’d never heard of the Wilson administration; or maybe the fact that its xenophobic belligerence was progressive makes it okay.)
Nor was that just a throw-away line. He had earlier celebrated the late Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone for his threat to filibuster a bankruptcy bill. “We need to be standing up for the ordinary citizens, not the banks,” he quoted Wellstone saying. And the only way for that to happen was simple: filibuster.
The filibuster, of course, is a mechanism that those men of the people in the Senate can use to slow down legislation. They can keep debate on a bill going until such time that a supermajority of 60 Senators decides to end it.
The filibuster is valuable because it frustrates political momentum. It allows the minority to put the brakes on controversial legislation and forces us all to step back, take a deep breath, and really think it through.
But now that his party is back in power, Meyerson doesn’t want to hear it. In his column yesterday in the Washington Post, he praised the House of Representatives for passing Pelosicare and damned the Senate as “Dithering Heights” for its refusal to ram the bill through tomorrow.
“A catastrophic change has overtaken the Senate in recent years,” he wrote. Because of the filibuster, “the Senate has become a body that shuns debate, avoids legislative give-and-take, proceeds glacially and produces next to nothing.”
Why just “earlier this month” — that is, November — “Senate Republicans blocked consideration of an extension of unemployment insurance.” And when they “finally let it come to a vote” — all of several days later, by his account — “the measure passed 98 to 0.”
Pardon me for failing to see the problem there.
Meyerson offered a potted history of the New Deal and the Great Society and asked why the Senate has so far failed to pass the sweeping changes that President Barack Obama is calling for. He warned, “With each passing day, the Senate becomes more of a mockery of the principle of majority rule — democracy’s most fundamental precept.”
And he said to those Senate “ditherers” Blanche Lincoln, Mary Landrieu, and Bill Nelson that they should either endorse the notion that “elections shouldn’t have consequences” or “let the debate begin.”
Meyerson has it arse backward on this one, and — what’s worse — he knows it. The “ditherers” are making sure that we have an actual debate about healthcare. They’re not willing to let an arrogant and emboldened majority trample the basic rights and considerations that are due a political minority and they won’t endorse change for the sake of partisan expediency.
In so doing, they are upholding the bedrock assumption that undergirds majority rule: that the majority should behave wisely. Meyerson is now pretending not to know anything about that.
About the Author
Jeremy Lott is editor of RealClearPolicy.com, RealClearBooks.com and RealClearReligion.org and associate editor of RealClearScience.com.
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moron| 11.12.09 @ 6:14AM
Harold's parents should have given him the name Richard. Everyone could then just call him Dick.
Howard| 11.12.09 @ 7:59AM
Meyerson is a self described Socialist. He realizes that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity for his types of policies to be enacted. He presumably realizes that the Merry Go round stops in 2010 when people reduce the Democrats large majority in Congress. So, while he is a hypocrite, I'm sure he would say 'so what'.
Mattled| 11.12.09 @ 8:08AM
Can we at least stop using the term "progressive"?
There is nothing "progressive" about the left.
They want a SS and Welfare (FDR and LBJ) type program with Obama DeathCare. What is progressive about that?
They want Cap and Trade to kneecap business and bring us back to the dark ages of no electricity and no toilet paper and now golf balls.
They want Socialism which is old, stale and doesn't work (see Europe).
I say they are "Regressives".
Besides, Progressives started calling themselves Liberals when a certain someone from Austria (where thanks to BHO we now know they speak Austrian) with a funny mustache in the 30's started adopting "progressive" policies. Margaret Sanger and her eugenics crowd had to change the movement.
Progressive? I don't think so.
matt| 11.12.09 @ 11:37AM
Mattled, I love it—"regressives" is the perfect nomenclature for a movement that extols social policies from 80 years ago as its model. I'm going to start using it.
Larry Disney| 11.13.09 @ 3:32PM
Even worse is to call them "Liberals." The founding fathers were liberals. Liberals are supposed to believe in liberty, individual rights and limited government. These guys are fascists. They believe in total government control of everything.
Pingback| 11.12.09 @ 8:26AM
Twitter Trackbacks for The American Spectator : Harold's Hack Attack [spectator.org] links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 11.12.09 @ 11:49AM
» Socialist Flack Goes On Attack, Revealed To Be Hack; Lott Gives Him A Whack links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Seek| 11.12.09 @ 1:41PM
The American Prospect already was several steps in left field when Harold Meyerson took over. It's now even further out there.
Pingback| 11.12.09 @ 3:40PM
HackWatch: Harold Meyerson - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pingback| 11.12.09 @ 3:43PM
HackWatch: Harold Meyerson | The Agitator links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Bob Smith| 11.12.09 @ 4:09PM
News to Myerson: We are NOT a Democracy. We are a Constitutional Republic. Democracy equals Mob Rule.
molonlabe28| 11.12.09 @ 4:39PM
I agree with Meyerson that "the Senate has become a body that shuns debate."
But the reason is not the seldom-used filibuster, but the awful, invariably deceptively-named "bi-partisan" bills that it produces by swapping pork projects.
When I was young, I remember watching impassioned debate from the well of the Senate on the evening news (usually about the Viet Nam war), but in 2007 the Senate only debated 6% of the legislation it passed.
The rest was achieved through "bi-partisan" agreements in which the Republicans got out-traded.
I want partisanship, open debate, a clear winner and a clear loser.
I would rather have honest (and even heated)debate and lose than have what was formerly my party sell me down the road and beat their chests about being bi-partisan.
Meyerson is nothing more than a cheerleader and a shill - like E.J. Dionne.
The White House owns both of them.
David Govett | 11.13.09 @ 3:05AM
Marxists base their beliefs on a book rather than the accumulated wisdom of generations. Socialism is the religious dogma of academics and others lacking experience with the heavy price paid by victims of social engineering. Not only do they believe that eggs must be broken to make an omelet, but that we humans are eggs.
Cousin| 11.14.09 @ 1:46AM
progressive is the new politically correct name for a socialist, communist, marxist racist fraud. It will not be long before wikepedia has this definition.
Brian| 11.15.09 @ 2:06AM
If only the repubs would use the filibuster. Maybe the ACLU would not own the Supreme Court.
John Lockwood| 11.15.09 @ 7:55AM
I was a stellar student at school, but I got shafted in college admissions and the job market, because I was the wrong sex--male, and the wrong color---white. No lowered admission standards for me! It also didn't help that I was a white male nobody, with no wealth or connections. Has anyone noticed that quotas don't affect rich white men and their rich white male sons? One advantage of being a rich liberal is that you won't be affected by your own social schemes. That's only for other people, the peasants, whether it's quotas, illegal imigration, crime, porn shops in your neighborhood, denial of school choice or anything else.
Wouldn't it be nice if the rich white males in politics and business and academia gave up their hyper-privileged positions, for minorities and women? That would be like asking a liberal to give up one of his several mansions for a homeless shelter---ain't gonna happen.
I sometimes wonder what I could have done with my life, and my genius-level IQ, if I had not had every door slammed shut in my face. Maybe I would have made it, maybe not, but quotas made it certain I wouldn't.
Richard Baker| 11.15.09 @ 4:18PM
Don't you just love the way these folks turn on a dime? Quite spectacular. Do they then untwist their knickers?
Richard Baker| 11.15.09 @ 9:07PM
I meant those of the liberal persuasion.
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