Bloodless Coup

Democrats Surrender Prematurely

I just plain don't get the brain trust that runs the Democrats in Congress (if there is one). I mean, they have an overwhelming majority in the House, and have either 59 or 60 votes in the Senate (depending on when Franken gets seated), yet they seem to act like the minority party most of the time. Whenever the Republicans squawk about something, their first inclination is to retreat and give the Republicans more-or-less what they asked for. This does not seem consistent with a party that has many more votes than the minority.

This latest maneuver might be the silliest. Obama wants to close Guantanamo; Republicans oppose this. I have no idea why they oppose closing the prison there. There isn't any logical reason to keep open the prison, given that it has such an awful reputation in the world. It can only help our public (and private) diplomacy if we can say that it is behind us. As best I can tell, the Republicans basically oppose anything Obama asks for. Doesn't matter what it is. They are just reflexively opposed to anything the President offers. But, they recognize, they can't run with that idea publicly: people won't take them seriously if they stand in front of the cameras and say "Well, Jim, we just think everything the President says is wrong; we oppose his economic policy, his supreme court nominee, the food he ate for breakfast, his choice of where to vacation, and we oppose the clothes he is wearing now. Did you see the color of that tie?" They need something that sorta sounds like reasons; they need something that sorta/kinda/maybe sounds plausible to repeat to the idiotbox and general public.

So the Republicans bash their heads against the wall for a while, and come up with: "You can't close Guantanamo because then all those evil terrorist killers would come to the United States and get released and be living next door to YOU!!!!" This is the dumbest argument in the history of dumb arguments. No person with half a brain believes that we're planning on taking Guantanamo detainees and just letting them walk around Kansas, NYC or LA. It's so stupid that it defies description: no one, right or left, is going to let actual terrorist just walk out of prisons and into American neighborhoods. Its such a duplicitous argument, so false on its face, that it is hard to believe that anyone took it seriously, much less that the Republican talking heads could get it out without breaking out in gales of laughter.

(Note to freaky wingnuts who find this: closing Guantanamo does not automatically mean bringing the people to the US. There are other options. Guam. Releasing them back to their country of citizenship (who mostly don't want them). Afghanistan. Something. Maybe we could put them in prison in the US. That's one of the ideas (and a decent one, in my opinion, as no one escapes from Federal "SuperMax" prisons), but not the only choice. So, the fact that Obama wants to close Guantanamo does not automatically mean they will end up in prison in the US.)

Of course, the wingnuts ate it up and went nuts. All of which was predictable and silly.

I sorta figured this dumb argument would make silly headlines at Malkin's site, drudge would put sirens and flashers on it for a day or two, the American public wouldn't like it, but it would fade into the background in a day or two as the insane silliness of the idea became apparent (and we found something else to argue about, like a Supreme Court nominee). All the Democrats had to do was say calming things to the cameras and wait it out. We'd find something to do with the detainees, Guatanamo would be closed in just over half a year, and things would improve for America. But no.

Today, we read that the Senate Democrats have caved, and are removing the funding that would allow Obama to close Guantanamo. I have no idea why they caved. One line by Reid stands out: "We will never allow terrorists to be released into the United States." Well, no shit Sherlock. Can we have a statement about whether the US will release murders, rapists and child molesters into the US? Of course we aren't going to release terrorists into the US (of course, we have no way of knowing if they are terrorists, but that's an entirely separate argument).

Reid's statements seems to indicate that the Democrats are taking seriously this argument about releasing the terrorists into the US. And, as noted, the argument is complete crap. I have images of gibbering howler monkeys deep down inside the Republican Party HQ making up arguments left and right and throwing them around like, well, monkey poo. Whatever sticks the highest are the dumb-ass arguments they march out to the cameras and fling out to the American public. And those monkeys are just having a great day today. They've achieved the highest pinnacle a monkey can aspire to: they got the Senate Majority leader to take one of their poo-encrusted ridiculous arguments seriously. Man, the free bananas must be flying around down in the basement today.

Dear Democrats In Congress: when someone flings poo at you, don't look at it carefully, pause meaningfully, and start a dialog with it. It's poo. If you engage with it, the best you can hope for is that you get it on your shoe (still not an optimal outcome). The worst is if you have to eat it (which is what Harry Reid did today). What you really need to do is ignore it. If the Republicans want to fling poo, then ignore them. If they want to think for half a second and come up with something that has an ounce or even a gram of sense, then you can engage it meaningfully. But when they fling poo, just ignore it.

I think I'm most distressed because the Democrats didn't even seem to want to debate the ridiculous idea, or even just wait it out. It's as if Reid can't tell that someone just flung poo at him; he doesn't even know the moronic arguments from the ones he actually has to take seriously. His default position seems to be: if the Republican's squawk, give them something (in this case, give them everything). And all this does is give a Pavlovian positive reinforcement to the Republicans. Imagine what they are thinking: "If Reid will cave for this ridiculous bullshit, I'll bet we can completely derail the Supreme Court nominee by claiming nine judges are too many, and we should save money by having only eight!" I'll bet the Republicans order another couple of cages of howler monkeys and stock up on bananas. All kinds of shit will start to fly out of there now. The complete lack of reason and sense (even simple political calculation) shown by the Democrats here is disheartening.

Update: I got further down the NYT story and found another howler by Reid:

Mr. Reid in his comments, however, was unequivocal in insisting that the terrorism suspects never reach American shores. "You can’t put them in prison unless you release them," he said. "We will never allow terrorists to be released in the United States."

Is this guy brain damaged? What the fuck does "You can't put them in prison unless you release them" mean? That's just shear idiocy. It doesn't even make sense as a sentence in the English language. I think what he means is that "Everyone who goes to prison eventually gets out, so we can't put the terrorists in prison" which is equally as stupid. We put all kinds of people in prison, and they never get out. Charles Manson? Dahlmer?

What kind of idiot morans are running this party I just joined?

Posted by baltar at May 20, 2009 08:50 AM | TrackBack | Posted to Crunchy Nutbars | General Stupidity | Homeland Insecurity | Politics