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apogee
climber
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Feb 18, 2010 - 01:18am PT
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Mitch McConnell: Obama's Congressional Enemy #1
The Iceman Cometh
He's cool, calm, and out to get Obama.
Howard Fineman
Published Feb 12, 2010
Newsweek 2/22/10
The blizzard had paralyzed Washington. So it was an apt day for a chat (by phone) with Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican who is working successfully—yet with surprisingly little personal notoriety—to bury the Barack Obama presidency in an unplowed cul-de-sac called the U.S. Senate. As the GOP leader there, McConnell strands Democrats in snowdrifts of parliamentary procedure and nasty talking points. "We are not just reflexively looking for areas where there will be no progress," he assured me. Having spent many years listening to McConnell, I can translate: he is reflexively looking for areas where there will be no progress.
In a city obsessed with visibility and celebrity, it largely goes overlooked that the plodding, unglamorous McConnell is Obama's most powerful foe—the man he must outmaneuver, or at least neutralize, if he wants to reach the sunny uplands of (bipartisan) legislative accomplishment, not to mention a second term in 2012. It will not be easy.
Charm won't work. McConnell's Southern courtliness is of a wintry variety, and his sense of partisanship is as unforgiving as it is relentless. His chilly demeanor is emblematic of the way Washington now operates. There was a time when personal gestures and ego stroking worked wonders, especially for a president, even of the other party. Not anymore. I asked McConnell what he thought of the president on a personal basis. I could hear the impatience on the other end of the line. "Oh, personally, I think he's fun to be around," McConnell said dryly, as though he was pointing out a weakness. "An A-plus personality."
Impervious to presidential flattery, McConnell also gains strength from a certain modesty of ambition. True, he likes getting his name on buildings back home in Louisville (and expertly manipulates the earmark process to do so), but by Washington standards he doesn't care much about fame—or higher office. "It's better not to be running for president when you are in this job," he said. "It is such a distraction if you're worried about building a national constituency." Thus freed, he ranges unabashedly over the fundraising fields, championing free-speech rights for corporate treasuries.
His overriding strategic aim is to avoid mass defections on any issue in his now 41-seat minority. Crucially, the White House failed to see this as it lobbied for health care. Without a flock of Republicans abandoning the GOP on the issue, it was a fool's errand to try to peel away an Olympia Snowe. McConnell understood that; the president has since rued privately that he and his own aides did not.
Even at his age and station, McConnell hasn't lost the central reason for his success: an unrivaled instinct for the modern, Southern-based politics of cultural resentment. His roots are in a modest, middle-class part of South Louisville. Always the student-body president, he made up in hard work what he lacked in connections. He grew up in a time and a place suffused with Barry Goldwater's libertarianism, George Wallace's populist anger, and Richard Nixon's bare-knuckle tactics. He took aim at Kentucky's old Democratic hegemony and demolished it. Government wasn't the answer; it was the enemy, because the downtown elites ran it.
Circumstances change, but not the basic urge, which these days means decrying what he sees as the cultural blindness and effete concerns of Obama and his minions. McConnell's next mark: Attorney General Eric Holder, and his plan to conduct trials of terror suspects in federal courts. Although the Bush administration did precisely that (and McConnell didn't complain at the time), the senator now wants to ban use of federal funds for such trials. He wants all interrogations handled by the Pentagon and CIA, not the Department of Justice, and all the trials to be conducted by military commissions, preferably sitting in Guantánamo, the closure of which he steadfastly opposed. McConnell is all but daring Obama to defend Holder and the federal trials: in other words, to defend the idea that foreign terror suspects deserve Miranda rights. There may be legitimate security concerns, but it also repeats the "soft on crime" attack that the GOP has used since Nixon's day. "The way to handle the war on terror is not to put the attorney general in charge," McConnell declared.
"This administration is going to learn this lesson the slow and hard way," he warned. "There isn't going to be a community in America that will be willing to have these trials." McConnell is eager for a showdown. If Obama wants money for those federal-court proceedings, let him ask. The senator will take the call, blizzard or no. But the conversation will be frosty.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/233529
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dirtbag
climber
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Feb 18, 2010 - 04:18am PT
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Did someone say..."Mitch McConnell"?
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dirtbag
climber
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Feb 18, 2010 - 04:21am PT
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And btw, apogee's column is exactly why the Senate should KILL FIL. It is ALL ABOUT OBSTRUCTIONISM and NOT about governing.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Feb 18, 2010 - 07:15am PT
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It's funny how the Democrats decry obstructionism when they're in power, but spent their last two years out of power doing nothing but that.
On a slightly different topic, I agree with your implication re tea parties, fattrad. Populism and Republicans make a poor combination.
John
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Boulder, CO
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Feb 18, 2010 - 11:09am PT
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Dingus wrote: Since Ronald Reagan that's all the GOP has had going for it - playing to populist issues, seemingly without focus too. The party runs from one populist platform to the next as it desperately searches for a connection to the commoner.
So sad....
No new Taxes...which they all raised anyway.
Terror...which they couldn't stop the worst attack ever on American soil.
Gay and Abortion rights... they are against personal rights and freedom.
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Boulder, CO
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Feb 18, 2010 - 11:14am PT
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JL wrote: It's funny how the Democrats decry obstructionism when they're in power, but spent their last two years out of power doing nothing but that.
Funny how the republicans are railing against the reconciliation process when they use it to push Bush's tax cuts to his rich buddies.
Funny indeed.
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Feb 18, 2010 - 11:20am PT
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I would like to hear how you all personally feel about the "value"
of people alive today versus those alive "tomorrow".
I am referring to the premise that government spending to raise the
standard of living of the less well off should not be allowed because
such spending "might" result in a weak US dollar and rising interest
rates in the future.
We know for a fact that we can provide healthcare for everyone,
we also know that we can put more unemployed Americans to work
by government created projects, such as a massive "New Deal"
type spending.
We do NOT know, for sure, what impact raising out national debt
while we do this will have on our ability to sell our bond and bill
to finance this spending in the future. It is safe to assume that
the interest rates we will have to pay to encourage buying this
additional debt will likely go up.
Such a proposal to significantly reduce unemployment, provide healthcare
to all, will reduce human suffering right now in America.
Are the lives of "future" Americans who may have to pay higher interest
rates on home loans, car loans, business borrowing, etc MORE "important"
than the lives of present day Americans?
We know for a fact that the private sector "failed" and sent us
into Recession, and now 20 million of our fellow Americans have lost
their jobs as a result. The private sector is NOT creating new jobs
now and in fact we continue to lose more jobs each month.
Only a massive intervention by the government can mitigate the suffering
and misery of millions of Americans right now.
Which lives are MORE important: Today's or tomorrows?
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Feb 18, 2010 - 11:43am PT
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F, not fair to say the Dems are lame.
Because that groups them, stereotypes them.
SOME Dems were elected from conservative districts and they are going
to vote as moderates, like probably for healthcare, but not a public option.
And many Dems are not lame, in fact the list grows of Senate Dems who
are saying they want a strong PO, and want to say piss on the Repubs
and get stuff done by reconciliation.
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Feb 18, 2010 - 11:45am PT
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Dr F!
GREAT pictures! I AM STILL LAUGHING.
Those need to be posted, over and over.
When you are not around, mind if I do?
Full credit to you!
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Feb 18, 2010 - 11:50am PT
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Speaking of the Public Option
Chris Bowers, who has been counting votes based on public responses and private correspondence, counts at least 45 votes for a public option. Democrats would need to find five more, with Vice President Joe Biden breaking the tie. The new movement for the public option began with a letter sent from progressive House freshmen Jared Polis (D-Colo.) and Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) and picked up speed when freshman Sen. Michael Bennett (D-Colo.) organized his colleaguesaround it. (Read the letter here.) Meanwhile, outside progressive organizations have been flooding Congress with calls from constituents, asking members to sign on to the effort.
[UPDATE: Bowers sends in a more recent item of his putting the number at 51; without Sen. Paul Kirk (D-Mass.), the number would still hit the 50-threshold.]
Including the public option, they argue, would make the Senate legislation much more politically popular in the House and, polls show, with the nation at large.
hp
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Feb 18, 2010 - 11:53am PT
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Yes, Fatty, "do away with Social Security".
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apogee
climber
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Feb 18, 2010 - 12:06pm PT
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"Would you be distressed to know that I hosted a fundraiser for Mitch McConnell in San Francisco? Bwahahahahahahaha, I occasionally send him a contribution."
Distressed? No, and I wouldn't be a bit surprised, either, fattrad. For all of your efforts to present yourself as a 'moderate', you still seem like a clear, unequivocal Repug in most respects (minus the pro-choice, RR elements).
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Feb 18, 2010 - 12:07pm PT
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dirtbag
climber
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Feb 18, 2010 - 12:10pm PT
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apogee
climber
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Feb 18, 2010 - 12:11pm PT
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"It's funny how the Democrats decry obstructionism when they're in power, but spent their last two years out of power doing nothing but that."
Oh, please, John- there's no comparison b/w the obstructionism that the Dems did during the Shrub Reign and today's Repugs. The Dems are never unified in their efforts in anything, and any Repug political strategist knows this well- they are easily sliced and diced. For all of the Dem's obstructionism to Shrub & the neocons, they basically capitulated on most of the major elements of that agenda (like they usually do). Contrast that against the Repugs: Obama has had very little success with any of the major elements of his agenda, thanks to the 'Party of No'.
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apogee
climber
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Feb 18, 2010 - 12:20pm PT
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dirt, that picture makes it really hard for me to keep having my Heather Graham fantasies. How about posting the original, just to keep me grounded?
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Feb 18, 2010 - 12:22pm PT
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The voting public is naive, really no understanding of the issues.
The majority cannot even name their own two State Senators.
Obama's victory over McCain was as much vote FOR him, as it was a vote
AGAINST just continuing with Bush, as they saw McCain.
The public wants "change", their attitude is overwhelmingly to
throw out whomever is the current office holder, just on principle alone.
This means trouble for the Dems in the November mid term elections.
With more Repubs elected there will even MORE gridlock, back to the
days and years of do nothing for the average Americans.
Major change, that positively makes life better, is not in the cards.
The Repubs will take their few victories over the Dems in the mid terms
as a rejection of Democratic values and governing, but they will be
wrong, because it will be a rejection against incumbents by an ever
growing angry electorate.
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Feb 18, 2010 - 12:32pm PT
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You ask why, Jeff?
Primarily because you have an unjustified high opinion of yourself,
you crave attention, you can't stop talking about your favorite
subject, yourself.
You offer zero solutions to any real problems, and you would vote
lock step with your fellow 13th century conservative to continue
the status quo, to pass no legislation that actually improve the
lives of average Americans.
You would be a disaster, but you would be happy because it would
be all about you, all the time.
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