I'm with Max. Julia: Frist doesn't care that seven repubs told him to get stuffed; he'll see to it that their careers die horribly (the only lasting positive I can see here) and crank another nutjob into the judicial breech so as to precipitate a second nucular option when the Dems filibuster. Digby: it's not been put off for long, I'll lay odds. Gilliard: huh? Sure, Dobson's scum, but he's not the only thing that matters. Come to that, I'm not convinced he's appreciably "weakened" by losing the support of seven GOP stooges, and he certainly isn't stopped.

All I see is three whackjobs on the bench in exchange for no nukes this time.

I'd love to be convinced I'm wrong, though.

Note, of course, that the confusion of "breach" with "breech" is a generator of confusion almost as amusingly reliable as "prostrate" versus "prostate."

I will note that I don't think Frist has the power, by himself, to make very many Senators' careers "die horribly." Frist is a vehicle of others' agendas, not really a very effective actor in his own right.

None of which is meant to conclusively gainsay sennoma's overall point, a conclusion I'm alternately drawn to and repelled from.

that the confusion of "breach" with "breech"

Does one not, er, crank (or something) bullets into the breech of at least some types of gun? That was the metaphor I was after, Frist firing nutjob judges at the Dems. There is no breach that I can think of into which to crank said nutjobs.

My bad, nonetheless, since my meaning was obviously not clear.

And you're not making me feel better, Patrick. I want to be wrong about this.

I don't think Frist has the power, by himself, to make very many Senators' careers "die horribly."

Particularly since he's not (at this moment) planning to run for the Senate again when his term expires. At that point he becomes just one candidate in what's probably a wide-open Republican primary season. For the first time in years they don't have an anointed one ready to go.

Well, it's "into the breach" in the St Crispin's Day speech in Henry V. Yeah, what did that Shakespeare guy know? We can run a Google plebescite:

"into the breech" -- 295,000 results

"into the breach" -- 9,270,000 results

The general sense of the phrase is to put something into a gap or hole, like a breach in the enemy's line. Yes?

No, Frist doesn't have that power by himself; but there's an amazing amount of outrage in the conservative blogsphere, and if that's shared by the conservative grassroots activists, a number of these guys are going to be in severe political trouble.

I've even seen people call for *Frist's* ouster as majority leader over this.

"For the first time in years they don't have an anointed one ready to go."

I thought Jeb was being groomed as the next Great White Hope.

The general sense of the phrase is to put something into a gap or hole, like a breach in the enemy's line. Yes?

Yes; like I said, my bad. I wasn't mangling the famous phrase but failing to realise that it would confuse my attempted imagery. If I'd known anything about guns I'd have said "into the magazine" or wherever it is one loads bullets, and then none of this would have happened.

a Google plebescite

I says it as shouldn't, but is that like a Google plebiscite?

Andy, dammit, I'd have paid money for that if you'd only emailed me first.

Has anybody heard what a "extraordinary circumstance" is? Any hypothetical situations that would qualify?

I heard ... the woman Senator from Louisiana... oh, yeah, now I remember: Senator Whatshername. I heard her on the radio today and she implied that the remaining nominees had been "discussed" -- among the 14 -- just, you know, so they could get an idea among themselves of what an "extraordinary circumstance" might be.

I had the definite impression that the fates of the entire 10 nominees have already been sealed among the 14. If true, I suppose we will have our definition of EC sometime in the future.

Though I should note that I don't really think any EC Standard has actually been established. I think EC is used here as a cover for already existing agreements among the 14.

Or, I am wrong about all of it.

It is an iron law of online discourse that any post correcting someone else's spelling, grammar, or usage will itself contain an error of spelling, grammar, or usage.

The Senator whose name Michael is reaching for is Mary Landrieu.

Tenk yew.

Frist is already claiming he doesn't have to follow the deal because he wasn't party to it or something, so he'll call foul if the Democrats even think of filibustering one of Bush's (even more extreme) judicial nominees, though how he'll do that without the votes of the Senators who are party to the deal (and who will presumably stick to it, right?) isn't exactly clear. (Via Julia.) —And I'm getting dizzy trying to figure out if this additional dollop of hubris is a good thing, or a bad sign.

And Graham (R-SC, and one of the 14 in question) was apparently hinting strongly that one of the Odious Three wouldn't pass the up-or-down. Getting dizzier...

Um, actually, Frist just blew the doors off the deal: he's filed for clouture on Myers.

But you probably all read Atrios already, so hey.

(He's indicated he's intending to file. Sorry.)

I'm inclined to agree with Sennoma. The Dems have agreed to a deal that the GOPs can back out of down the line. And next time this comes up, there'll be this precedent; the GOP will threaten the nuclear option again, and striking another deal will be presented as the moderate compromise.

Oh, man, pull up a chair.

Heh. It feels like Rome around here.

When you are in a disadvantaged position, generally you cannot directly reach a position of victory; you have to widen the choice space in which you operate sufficiently to make a position of victory accessible to you from where you are presently standing.

If that's how Senator Reid is thinking of the problem, and if that's how the compromisers are thinking of the problem, then this might be a good thing, in some other world where the problem was fundamentally a matter of political differences.

In the general case, all of the Senate manoeuvring is superfluous; in the absence of fair elections, and in the presence of primarily Dominionist money backing the vote counting machines, there will eventually be a theocratic regime in the United States.

Since defeat is something that happens inside people's heads -- it's distinct from death that way -- and since the Dominionists will not give up for any reason short of direct orders by an incarnate god (and probably not then), this isn't fundamentally a political problem.

The Rule of Law only works when enough people agree that the benefits outweight the costs of losing; it doesn't work well at all when there are a lot of politically active people who consider the benefits -- equality before the law, tolerance, politics played for prestige, rather than lives, no ruling by decree -- to be actively negative things, to be done away with as soon as possible.

The social problem of what constitutes legitimacy, and why it's important to have the Supreme Court judges say that it's legal to require women to bear children inside Christian marriage, no option, even that is really secondary; this is the authoritarian demand for control of the mechanisms of authority, not a calculated drive to co-opt the existing mechanisms of legitimacy in service of a theocratic agenda.

Umm, the deal gives giant steaming piles of monkey waste a bad name.

I think Avram has it right - it's only a matter of time before the whole story gets replayed and another bad compromise is reached. This sort of weakness bodes poorly for the next election cycle. If the Dems don't show some backbone, the GOP will eventually have 60 seats in the Senate and no further compromises will be necessary.

Graydon, how do you propose the Dominionists will take over and control the cities of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis, Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, Boston and, I'm sure, a few others? Not to mention some whole states, of course.

I will admit to being unclear on what purpose would have been served by the Senate Democrats refusing the compromise. Losing the filibuster would have deprived them of a procedural weapon that they might need even more in the future, without gaining them anything in the process. Wrapping oneself in the mantle of righteousness is all well and good, but not if it contributes to the destruction of the Senate as a functioning deliberative body.

Of course, if one is arguing from the assumption that the Republic is already dead and all that's left is to hold the wake and go home, then what the hell. Strike a noble pose, and burn the whole place down with the barbarians inside.

I'd sum it up as a strategic retreat--painful, but it beats a full-scale rout. The radical right, has not yet been able to turn the USA into a single-party state, which is what abandoing the filibuster would mean, and it's a complete rout for the religious right: their Kingdom is still to come. On the other hand, it's a victory for the radical corporatists; they're getting at least two of their three favorite judges passed on to an up-or-down vote (I'm betting Janice Rogers Brown, the black libertarian woman, will be the one who won't be confirmed). To continue the military analogy, the conflict now turns on logistics--who can hold out longer. It is important, now, to the Democrats to start winning seats in Congress again. Even one Senator in 2006 might make the difference.

Strike a noble pose, and burn the whole place down with the barbarians inside.

This sounds awfully appealing...

I've swung back and forth between monkey crap and it-could-be-worse at least twelve times today. Guess that means I haven't made up my mind yet.

Sharon, I am so there with you.

Debra, I think it's unfair to characterize those questioning the deal as "wrapping themselves in the mantle of righteousness." The questions being raised have to do with utility, pure and simple, not "righteousness."

I mean, I've spent much of my political life trying to convince maximalists of the case for pragmatic politics. But in this case I'm having a hard time seeing what the praxis of the people claiming to be pragmatists actually gains.

Michael, O sensible person, that remark about cities is perhaps the silliest thing I've ever seen you post. Exactly how many Senators do Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis, Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston control? While we're on the subject, how many units of the United States Army? The Air Force?

The American system of governance deliberately cripples the political power of cities--and, not incidentally, appropriates their wealth and redistributes it to rural idiots. This has been true since 1789. It's one of those ground-level facts of American political life.

Okay, but how are the Dominionists going to take and control the cities? I'm just asking, is all. You think they're going to use the Army and the Air Force? They can't even control a country "the size of California". I mean, it's my impression that Dominionists are the ones who want to make America safe for white Christian people, right? It's not credible to me they can do that in the cities without the Army and the Air Force, and it's not credible to me they can do it even with the Army and the Air Force.

Do you think the city of New York would sit still for, as Graydon says, requiring "women to bear children inside Christian marriage, no option"?

If somebody wants to explain to me how they are going to manage that in a country this size with so many people, especially in the cities, unwilling to put up with that, then I'll be glad to stop being silly.

As you know, Debra, I've believed ever since the attack on the Florida ballot handcount that the current regime doesn't expect to ever go out of power. You don't have political careerists personally and publicly breaking that many laws at once if they think there's any chance they'll ever be prosecuted for it.

This of course has disturbing implications in a political system that's still in theory a democracy, since open elections always imply the possibility that the incumbents will be turfed out.

Breaking one of the Senate's longstanding procedural mechanisms is disturbing in much the same way. The Senate is an expert system with complex interdependencies. If you're a senator looking forward to what you hope will be a long senatorial career, you know that a maneuver like the filibuster, which this year is more useful to one party, is inevitably going to be more useful to another party further on down the road. Heaven knows the Republicans have used the filibuster often enough themselves.

The only logical explanation I can see is that the people pushing for this change don't anticipate the long-term continuation of the Senate in its current form.

The same goes for the Republicans shutting Democratic legislators out of committee positions. If we had a functional national press, they'd have been screaming about that one, because it was an unprecedented power grab. Previously, you didn't shut the opposing party out of committee positions because you knew someday they'd come back into power, and when that happened it would be a good idea for them to know what was going on. Also, it meant that when the other guys came back into power (which eventually they always do), you yourself wouldn't be shut out of the action.

Even if I were a hardline Republican, I'd know the people who are doing this aren't on my side. It doesn't matter which policies are in theory being furthered. In a democracy, modifications to the basic system are a matter for clearly identified public debate, not privately-funded astroturf and plots hatched in secret.

Michael --

They're going to do their best to get the Army, and whatever other citizens they can inspire to the task, to beat or shoot whomever will not obey, of course.

I don't think they'll necessarily succeed, but a decade and a half of steadily escalating eliminationist rhetoric isn't the sort of thing which happens by accident. (David Niewart's Orcinus at least used to be in the sidebar links, and he's done a lot of documenting of that rhetoric.)

Also, if the industrial and post-industrial economy has utterly collapsed, they can fall back on the good old traditional 'behave and get fed' version of social control. That one works pretty well.

So do a lot of things that aren't being done in Iraq because the US Army is fundamentally a war fighting organization, a tool for creating shock and psychological dislocation as much as destruction. Note that Rumsfeld seems determined, starting with Pentagon purges of senior leadership and continuing on through brigade organizations which basically make no sense from a power projection standpoint, to change this.

Graydon -

Okay, so what you are talking about is complete collapse and civil war, in which case I will propose to you that there is nothing restraining anybody anymore. In that case -- and I can only speak for New York here, other cities will have to look out for themselves -- Governor Spitzer calls out the New York State National Guard to defend the state, and its greatest city. A call goes out from the good people of New York for aid from Canada and the European Union and, hell, we might as well throw Japan in there. They like New York.

I mean, there's a difference between the country going conservative and the country descending into Civil War. What you are talking about is something different than what's going on in this country at the moment.

And, I just want to make clear... nobody has to tell me things are dangerous right now. I'm the guy who's looking into stashing money overseas, as an act of prudence.

I also want to make clear that I believe that this is a very large country with power distributed among 50 states. It's true the bastards can take over the Imperial Capital. That does not mean they can rule an unwilling country, especially one as large and diverse as this one, with its power spread out between the 50 states.

Sure, if we are talking complete collapse, then anything could happen. But you aren't going to end up with a monolithic United States of Christian America. I don't know what you are going to end up with, but it isn't going to be that.

Michael: hope you're right.

Meanwhile, I refer you to Teresa's observations. These people aren't behaving like they expect to ever lose power. Teresa has been making this point since November 2000 and I have yet to see anyone refute it (as opposed to ignoring it).

Graydon: The excellent Orcinus certainly is linked to from the blog you're reading right now. Don't your mighty open-source browsers have Find?

Governor Spitzer calls out the New York State National Guard to defend the state, and its greatest city.

And they respond, "Sorry, we're busy over here in Iraq."

Patrick -

Well, on the one hand, what Teresa says makes a certain amount of sense. On the other hand, you can account for their indifference to looking toward the future (when they are out of power) as simple arrogance, incompetence, and stupidity.

These people fought for 30 years to get into power, and once they got it they cannot resist the urge to go mad with it. That could be for the reasons Teresa suggests, or it could be they are just idiots. They can believe they will never lose power all they want. A lot of people throughout history have thought that. None of them were ever right. I grant the point that very few of them were actually voted out of power. But I won't grant the point that it is somehow too late to vote these clowns out of power.

And I say that even though I follow closely Avedon's excellent work on the whole voting machines issue, and I grant it's very scary.

Governor Spitzer calls out the New York State National Guard to defend the state, and its greatest city.

And they respond, "Sorry, we're busy over here in Iraq."

Along with the rest of the Army that is supposed to invade and hold NYC.

Michael --

As a general historical thumb rule, it takes a committed 10% of the population to hold the rest down, provided there isn't active starvation or other sources of convulsive unrest. (Starvation isn't actually a reliable source of convulsive unrest, and religion has worked historically a few times, but neither is anything to count on.)

The Dominionists have -- by that value of committed -- about 20% of the American population. That's plenty much enough.

And, you know, you're right, we do like New York. But probably not enough to enter into a nuclear war with the Dominionists.

Which is what it would take to support any part of the US seceding; a lot of these folks are Neo-Confederates with serious 'admit we're good people and our slave-holding ancestors, too' issues.

The core issue is what confers the legitimacy to govern; the founding principle of the United States says 'consent of the governed'. The political movement which has taken over the Republican party is pushing 'anointed by God' as the basis for political legitimacy; this is in some sense a cynical ploy from the viewpoint of the very top leadership, but it is entirely sincerely held as a belief at the party operative level. That kind of thing is awfully hard to keep a lid on once it becomes a widespread internalized belief.

Patrick --

Sure I've got find. (Three and a half flavours of same.) What I didn't have was an open tab with Making Light's front page, and it's ever so much easier to go 'copy link address' on the appropriate book mark to get the href value, and waffle a bit about one's memory of the sidebar links, than to open a new tab and load something in it.

And, you know, you're right, we do like New York. But probably not enough to enter into a nuclear war with the Dominionists.

Okay, fine. That's the last of your Canola oil I buy.

As for your 10% or 20% controlling everybody else, okay, I'll take your word on it as a general historical principle. I just don't see it working in this country, is all. I mean, Kansas and whatever piece of that 10% or 20% it constitutes can pretty much eat me, here on 14th Street.

Your analysis of the effort to morph "consent of the governed" into "anointed by God" is correct, I think, but it ultimately won't work here. Or, if it does, then we're back to this not being the U.S. anymore, in which case we are just talking nightmare visions of the future. And, oh, I got plenty of those. They just don't happen to be yours.

Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost

I haven't seen any good political news (except on the local level) in months.

I took the opportunity to ask Charles Rangel (D-NY) if he sees a way back from where we are. He thought there was, but he, who fought for Civil Rights in the darkest days, didn't seem sure. I, for whom this is the worst I've ever seen, don't see a way back. They don't think they'll ever be out of power ever again, and I'm not sure anymore they're wrong; I always thought Teresa was right about what they believed, but I was always sure that they were wrong, that one day the wheel would turn and they'd get their comeuppance.

Now, I suspect they may be right, either because of manueverings or because the world has shifted, and the Enlightenment (big E) has ended.

How can Dominionists take control of major cities? By forcing states to fund the safety net, and stripping out funding for disapproved causes. Cities are always scramblng to cover a multitude of needs. If you've got car-swallowing potholes, and classrooms where the ceilings are falling in, neighborhood clinics are going to get short shrift.

If the feds put the financial thumbscrews on hospitals that don't follow Dominionist guidelines, a whole lot of treatment options not only won't be available; they won't even be mentioned. I don't know about the corporate ownership of firms that manufacture over-the-counter contraceptive supplies, but I know there aren't many companies in that business. I wouldn't bet they're immune to political pressure.

Thank goodness Planned Parenthood is privately funded.

These guys are going after mechanisms of social control. For instance, if they genuinely wanted to reduce the incidence of abortion and unwanted teen pregnancy, they'd support birth control education, which they don't. If on the other hand you want to make women less uppity, fear of unplanned pregnancy is a great way to do it.

I firmly believe there's a correlation between the advent of reliable and widely available contraception, and even more of one with access to abortion, and the loss of turf suffered by those light-in-the-upper-window gothic romances best characterized as "boy gets girl, girl gets really big house." Right around the time Roe vs. Wade was decided, those novels began to be supplanted on the paperback racks by bodice-rippers starring sexually active heroines who got out there and seized control of their own destinies.

In the older gothic romances, even a heroine with a nominally successful career will generally toss it aside in favor of wuv, twoo wuv, in the form of marriage to a wealthy man. It made sense at the time. A career is a much less attractive gamble if at any point over a twenty-year period you can get shot down by an unplanned pregnancy. Access to abortion changes that. Doesn't mean you like the idea. But you conduct your life more boldly if you know it's an option, because you're not risking catastrophe if you don't have your fallback position already in place.

Why did the sedate Fifties explode into the freewheeling Sixties? An overall rise in income had a lot to do with it. Turns out that as soon as people have resources to spare, they start getting up to all kinds of weird stuff.

I'm convinced that social control is a lot of the motivation behind the attack on Social Security. It's a lot easier to be brave and independent and entrepreneurial if there isn't a little voice in your head telling you that if you screw up, you'll die in a poorhouse. That goes double if you're female, or a person of color, or a member of some other deprecated category. Reinstating the fear of an impoverished old age would do wonders to clear the field for well-funded white guys with good connections, and thin out those pesky innovators who do so much to make life less predictable for large corporations.

My only cavil with Teresa's logic is the assumption that the current regime has rationally considered the possibility of being thrown out and prosecuted for what they're doing. I think their mental processes may be closer to those of an unbalanced bank executive who starts (and continues) a career of embezzlement. They case the joint, first, as an abstract exercise. Maybe they're annoyed at the way the bank is run; and they fantasize that it wouldn't hurt to teach it a lesson. Anger, discontent, lust for money/power, or delusions of grandeur convince them that they can really neutralize system security. So they go for it.

When they think about consequences of their actions they may tell themselves that: 1) the target ("bank") won't really be harmed. They're heros protecting their class interests, 2) they can brazen their way out of anything, 3) if/when they actually lose power, they can buy their way out of prosecution. It won't happen to them. They're too big/special/on a mission from God.

sennoma, believe me, I'm wildly uncomfortable with the place I came down to on this. Basically, we're having to trust that those seven are honorable, and that gives me the screaming horrors after five years of watching everyone who trusted that there were limits to what the Republican party was willing to do proved wrong.

Here's the thing, though. I don't think the Republican Senators have much use for Frist, and I'm increasingly thinking they don't have much use for the White House. They've been bombarded with demands to ignore their states and their voters, with nothing offered in return but the possibility that they won't be hung out to dry by the White House and the leadership, unless of course the White House and the leadership decide that there's some short-term advantage to hanging them out to dry.

What do these people have to offer moderates? If they play ball like perfect little minions they're still going to have primary challengers representing the far right trying to throw them out of office, and they're losing their crossover voters in droves.

If the leftward-most Republican Senators stay in line, they're screwed. If they move to something approaching the center, they've insulated themselves from the really astonishing unpopularity their party is gathering these days.

Besides, they're Senators. They like being Senators. Being a Senator means something. Being a Senator won't mean much when the Senate is an indefinitely-defined arm of the Executive Branch.

McCain is, I think, the most interesting case. He's clearly a yellow-dog Republican, and he's swallowed an awful lot of shit in the service of his party lately, but it's seemed to me more and more that he's starting to believe that the interests of the Republican party and the interests of the current leadership of the Republican party are different interests.

Also he's a man for the main chance, and the main chance for anyone who's not George Pataki or Jeb Bush is for the current leadership not to be in a position to impose a leader on the party when Bush leaves (crossesfingersprays)

Of course, if there's one thing I've learned in the last five years, it's that every time I think there's a downside limit to my disgust with these people something happens to move it lower. I wouldn't put it past them to be pulling a fast one.

It does seem to me, though, that in this case their own instincts for self-protection and their great and abiding love of their own importance make this an entirely reasonable thing for them to do, on their terms.

It's a pretty compelling argument, I think, but then the folks who supported the war thought they had one too. I'm not at all happy looking at the list of people whose opinions I really respect who disagree with me on this.

Still, those Senators are marked now. They're not going to get any mercy on the right.

I don't really see any of them as the self-sacrificing kind.

BSD: go out and pick up Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism, by Susan Jacoby. The Enlightenment (big E) has been ending in this country for 200 years.

Except it's still here. That's because for 200 years people like us have been fighting to keep it around. It helps to be reminded you have philosophical ancestors in this fight. They do their best in this country to scrub our history of our philosophical ancestors, but if you read that book you will be surprised how many of the names you recognize.

And by how many you don't.

They want you to think you don't have any ancestors in this fight. You most definitely do. The fight has a long and glorious history, and you are being called to it right now, just like the rest of us.

Well, except it's past my bedtime so I'm retiring to behind the lines for now.

Oh, and Liberals of Religion will love that book too. In case anybody was wondering.

Okay, a really good point from Digby:

The fact is that on the substance, this deal is a compromise that cuts both ways. That's what compromises usually do. But for Democrats, who have virtually no power anyway, it is as important to be seen as strong and resolute as it is to actually win. The game we are really playing is for 2006. Because let's face it, this is a Republican majority government and they can, if they really want to, do any damned thing they please whether we like it or not.

The far right and religious fanatic base is not going to convert to the Democratic party. We need to prove to the moderates, independents and western libertarians that we are tough enough. If James Dobson and Rush Limbaugh want to portray us as dragon slayers, more power to them. They have a big microphone. Let them use it to shout to the world about the big meanie Dems and the sniveling cowardly Republicans who buckled under to them. Works for me.

I don't think it would be precisely accurate to characterize the deal as a giant steaming pile of monkey crap. It's more like a mixed bag.

Lenny --

the voting machines with the unverifiable results are malice, and not stupidity.

Yes, it'd be more comfortable if we were seeing a combination of arrogance and stupidity, rather than ruthlessness and brutality not co-operating ideally in groups, but it isn't stupidity.

I do hope that Patrick was using the phrase "rural idiots" as a term of art, rather than as a simple descriptive, because otherwise I would be forced to conclude that he was referring to the people I've chosen to live among, here in the upper reaches of New Hampshire where there aren't quite more moose than people but it sometimes seems that way.

It was a joking reference to [whisper it] Karl Marx.

There you go--my future in the glue factory is assured.

Lenny, when that many people are involved, you have to figure there's rational calculation going on.

Debra, Patrick couldn't possibly have had the townsfolk of Colebrook in mind when he said that. Last I looked, the place is full of sturdily self-sufficient people who nevertheless understand themselves to be in a state of necessary cooperation with their neighbors.

I suspect he was thinking of the kind of rural idiots we see a lot of back home, who rant on and on about freeloaders living on government subsidies, while they themselves are the recipients of federal subsidies for everything from the freeways that make their leapfrogging subdivisions possible, to their water priced at a tiny fraction of its actual cost.

politically, I think this agreement at least forces Frist into a position where he must choose to portray himself as an extremist by continuing to threaten the nuclear option and cast himself against moderate republicans, or go along with the deal and lose the religious right. Worst case, nothing has changed with regard to judicial nominees, but Frist can't run for president in 2008 and expect to win.

To me, that's a win.

Had frist pushed the nuclear option button before the deal was made, he would have rammed Brown and Owen into court, cast himself as the knight against the democratic "obstructionist" dragon, and won the votes of the religious right (and their money), and still appeal to moderate republican voters.

That we end up with a vote on Brown and Owen anyway is not any more of a loss than it would have been.

It sucks, but the brutal, hard logic of game theory says this was the best way to see Brown and Owen get a vote. (alien abduction of several key players for anal experiments being ruled out as an unrealistic option, of course)

Michael, it's felt like Rome to me since the mid-90s, and I had hints of this as far back as 1984--someday I'll dig out the first article I wrote that speculated that the Reagan Revolution might have its Stalin. I think it's very clear that the "nuclear option" was intended as one of the steps along the way to a single party state. I also believe that the US radical right is self-destructing; their policies are unpopular and as people come into contact with the concrete results of their policies—pensions cut or entirely shut off, soliders coming home in coffins for no good reason, an increasingly invasive national security apparat--the radical right is losing support. But their self-destruction could take decades and I would like to help the process along.

Teresa, I think you discussion of social control is right on the mark; I would call it an authoritarian streak. In broad outline, I think it is accurate to say that these people intend to establish an aristocratic elite in the USA.

Longtime readers of Electrolite and Making Light, to say nothing of rec.arts.sf.fandom, may well be staggered to hear me say I agree completely with Randolph Fritz.

Graydon: I'm not attempting to excuse their acts of sabotage and brutality. I'm saying that there's a question in my mind as to whether they see themselves as Hitlers and Khans (although there does seem to be some circumstantial evidence that Bush identifies with Julius Caesar).

I think Cheney sees himself as a clerk doing necessary evil to protect the interests of his class. The "bank executive jiggering the books" thing is a metaphor that I'd apply to their attempts to cover their tracks after making stupid, impulsive decisions. I think the component of "we want what we want when we want it -- oops" is larger than "think of a boot stamping on the face of humanity, forever." Either way, they're committing heinous crimes -- so second-guessing their motivation may be irrelevant. But I'm skeptical about making them into Sith Lords to explain what they do.

Bush's rationale for his Social Security plan, for instance, might be explained as a panic reaction to his dawning awareness that he's run up a 6 trillion dollar debt. And he doesn't want to reimburse the Social Security trust fund for all the money he's looted out of it. This seems, to me, to be a more believable explanation for his actions than the notion of a plan with the explicit goal of crippling American small business -- written by three guys wearing hoods. Most of the financial policies of the Bush administration ultimately entail crippling consequences -- but I'm not sure they tell themselves that that's why they're doing it.

I'm not idealizing rural N.H. but one of the things I miss is that there's mostly an assumption that people are well-intentioned, that you should mind your own business, but be ready to help the fellow up the road when his car won't start/plow didn't make it that far/kid's sick, and never mind his religion/race/politics or taste in music.

That and the fact that I could bring some muffins to the new neighbor without being asked if I was with a religious cult.

I think the real power behind the culture wars isn't an aversion to specific novel social behaviors. I think it's a war on the conditions of liberty that enable those behaviors to exist.

As I keep saying, I think the real division in politics is between people who'd rather be relatively prosperous members of a prosperous society, and people who'd rather be one of the few prosperous members of a poorer society. I'm happy if we all grow richer together, even if it means that some people use their prosperity to engage in all kinds of unimaginable hijinks.

What I've gradually come to accept, and it's taken some doing, is that there are people who think otherwise. I'm not sure why they do. I just know they exist.

Patrick Wrote:

I refer you to Teresa's observations. These people aren't behaving like they expect to ever lose power. Teresa has been making this point since November 2000 and I have yet to see anyone refute it (as opposed to ignoring it).

Yeah, I know, and mostly it terrifies me because she's right. But then I remember I teach their kids and I'm seeing a lot of them reading some things that mommy and daddy wouldn't approve, and it gives me a little bit of hope.

On the other hand, I just had a confessed plagiarizer ask me for a Law school recommendation. I said "Yeah, sure. I'll write a letter."

On the other hand, I just had a confessed plagiarizer ask me for a Law school recommendation. I said "Yeah, sure. I'll write a letter."

But was it an original letter? I would be sooo tempted to put something in there that would warn them off.

As for these people not expecting to lose power, I have to think that Dominionism explains most or all of it. If you honestly thought that the world was going to end in the next few years, is there any good reason not to run up the credit card balance?

Dori asks:
But was it an original letter?

I wrote a letter that did exactly what the prompt asked me to do; describe my experience with the student, my opinion of his ability and likelihood of success in law school as his contribution to society as an attorney.

None were what I'd call positive.

Dori: If you honestly thought that the world was going to end in the next few years, is there any good reason not to run up the credit card balance?

Or to help armageddon along, in God's name of course. The recent news about bullying evangelical chaplains at the USAF academy makes me wonder about the men and women who are responsible for our nuclear arsenal. Or at least for the delivery mechanisms. Technically, I think the bombs belong to the Department of Energy.

Teresa--

If there's a difference between your Hayden posts and your Haydent posts, I'm too dense to discern it.

This is dystopia, remember? This is one of those alternate history scenarios in which all hell breaks loose in novelistically interesting ways because so and so won. Did you really think the Democrats could save us once Bush was re-elected?

Simple analysis: The democrats have lost badly, indeed, they may as well stay home.

On paper, the right to filibuster exist -- but.

The deal, assuming both sides hold, requires this:

If the GOP 7 agree that "Extraordinary Circumstances" exists, they'll not vote for cloture or the nuclear option.

If the GOP 7 do not, the Dem 7 are required to vote for cloture.

Before deal, it took 40 Senators agreeing to stop a nomination.

After deal, it takes all the Democrats, plus the GOP 7 (or lose on and the Independant) to stop a nomination. The only difference between this and outright voting the nominee down is a scant of political cover for the GOP 7.

Now, the 14 are talking a social security deal, lead by Lindsey Graham.

So. What this deal really means: Ried and Company can go home. They've been made redundant. The power in the senate is shared between the Frist GOP and the dealmaking 14.

Rove just got his biggest Christmas Present ever: Democratic Cover for Social Security reform *and* just about carte blanche judical approval.

Frist now gets to use the fact that some judges may not get approved as a bully pulpit during the 2006 elections, and the Freepers/Theocrats will be that much more fired up. The unholy alliance between them holds. Frist also doesn't take the heat for breaking the rules, not that his core would care about such.

The filibuster has as much power as the Queen's Assent: It hold power only as long as it isn't used. If it is used without approval, it will be removed.

I can see the hooded figure of Rove enthroned, starting out the window now, saying to Cheney "It all goes as I have forseen."

Teresa writes:
Lenny, when that many people are involved, you have to figure there's rational calculation going on.

Funny, I would say almost exactly the opposite.

Teresa writes: "If you've got car-swallowing potholes, and classrooms where the ceilings are falling in, neighborhood clinics are going to get short shrift."

Sometimes you scare me. I live in Missouri, which some folks here may know is planning on getting rid of all medicaid, as well as all child abuse intake centers (yep, all of them) and other social services. Our roads are so bad in my city that rickety metal plates cover deep gaping holes on major roads. It took a special bill to fund repairs--there just was no other money. One year, I lost *both* axels to potholes. Our local schools waffle between acredidation and unaccredidation; the feds threaten to take them over from time to time.

Missouri does what it has to do to cover what it can. If the feds said no more birth control, we'd do it. I'm not saying I agree with Missouri's choices of priorities (I'd prefer a tax increase) but boy can I see how we're ripe to fall. I offer this as food for thought for those who think the cities can stand strong against Dominionists.

I suspect the Dems have their eye on the Supreme Court; it's the last protection of the Constitution. If it means letting in evil lower judges, well okay. Seems like no good options to me.

Missouri does what it has to do to cover what it can. If the feds said no more birth control, we'd do it.

Well, you know Missouri better than I do, but my guess is that the good people of Missouri wouldn't put up with a Diktat like that coming down from the federal government. I lived in Iowa for three years and saw a bunch of the state and look, I'm the first to suspect Peoples are Sheeples, but I think we are underestimating the willingness and ability of the American people to tell people interfering with their lives to that degree where they can shove it.

I understand the economic arguments. I understand the axe the federal government can hold over the heads of the states and the cities. I also understand that Americans, when push comes to shove, know how to tell authority figures to eff off. Most of the wealth of the federal government comes from the states and cities themselves. This is far from being a one-way street here. When people decide to stop being victimized by the Imperial Capital, they not only can do something about it, they will do something about it.

Michael is putting a lot of stock in the natural-born fighting contrariness of people in general, and Americans in particular. I'm sympathetic to this view. I hope he's right.

Chad, rational calculation isn't the only thing going on, but some of those people are bound to be doing it.

Elizabeth, that's happening all over. The Bush regime has dumped all kinds of social-service burdens onto the states, and the states can't fund them. It was a beautifully cynical move: the states have been scrambling to cover the shortfall while gradually giving ground, so the magnitude of the disaster has only slowly become apparent. In the meantime, Bush & Co.'s friends have been doing a fast job of looting the country.

Huh. I've suddenly realized that I know the form of this scam: it's a blowout.

Here's the deal: Your basic blowout starts when crooks take control of a legitimate business that has a good credit rating, most often by entering into an agreement to buy it from its original owners, and possibly making a token initial payment.

In the next phase, the crooks start placing large orders for easily liquidated merchandise with the business's regular suppliers, and also with new suppliers who think they've acquired a valuable new customer. And since the orders are coming from an established business with a good credit rating, the suppliers don't ask for payment up front.

Meanwhile, the goods are being resold as fast as they come in, often at a fraction of their value. It's hugely wasteful, but the crooks don't care. Essentially, they're selling off other people's stuff and keeping the money, so anything they make off the deal is pure profit for them.

The suppliers send in their bills in due course, and meet with delays in payment. That's not an uncommon thing; and in the meantime, nobody wants to lose a customer that's obviously doing so much business. It takes some time for suppliers to start balking, and more time for them to start aggressive collection procedures.

At that point the business's new owners vanish, and all the money vanishes with them. Since they've never actually paid the agreed-upon price for the business, it reverts to the original owners. Unfortunately, what they get back is a plundered company that's deeply in debt to its suppliers and has a wrecked credit rating.

Thus with the national situation. The looting has been swift and efficient, but it's taken a while for the full extent of the plundering to become apparent. We're going to be feeling this one for a long time to come.

Michael,
I hope you're right, too. I'm not coming from the perspective that people of Missouri are Sheeples; I think they're poor and desperate. I think they choose the best of the wretched options available; if the feds force an ugly rider onto something important enough, they'll go for what saves as many people as they can, because they're good people.

Most of the wealth *does* come from the cities and states themselves; but it doesn't come from Missouri. If push comes to shove, we would not have enough resources to do it ourselves. I agree that a state like New Jersey surely could tell the feds to stick it. But Missouri telling the feds to f-off would cost us schools, roads, ambulance services, trade, etc.

And that's where the GOPtists come in. They preach that what is required by the Fed is actually required by God, and that those who oppose it oppose God. They also set up a lot of federally-funded operations, and say that they can take care of things better than the government could. The appointees of the government will agree, and those bureaucrats who disagree will be replaced by more aggreable people.

These operations don't have to perform as well as the federal government, of course - the necessary data will be generated, and (again, of course) those who insist on rigorous data and analysis are probably Latte-Sipping Blue Stater Eviloooshunists.

This gives the GOPtists lots of money, little accountability, and increased social and political power.

Teresa: The only logical explanation I can see is that the people pushing for this change don't anticipate the long-term continuation of the Senate in its current form.

My feeling exactly. There is a faction in the right wing of American politics, though I'm not sure just how powerful it really is, that wants All The Power Forever -- as Randolph puts it, to install an aristocracy. This fills me with a horror I find difficult to articulate.

Digby's point (via Patrick above) is soothing to me, though, as is talk of the "natural-born fighting contrariness of people in general, and Americans in particular".

Erik's analysis, oddly, seems to offer another gleam of hope, when combined with julia's comments about McCain and the fact that the GOP7 have passed a point of no return with their unforgiving party. There appears to be a widening rift between the hardline, largely Christianist, compromise-allergic right wing of the GOP and more moderate Republicans. Could the GOP7 be positioning themselves for a split? Even if it's not a split into separate parties, real conflict between two GOP factions -- say, Jeb vs. McCain in the primaries -- would be good news for thinking people everywhere.

Eric, re your post here, did McCain honestly believe that it was important to save the filibuster and swung a deal with enough Dems and Repubs to make it happen? Or was he a double-agent for Frist, presenting himself as saviour of the filibuster to dems while telling moderate repubs that his plan will buy the Senate for the religious right?

If the second is true, then nothing matters, and tyranny is inevitable, it's only a question of when it will happen, or if it already did, when we finally become aware of the truth.

If the first is true, then there is hope. 7 republicans broke from the party line to save the filibuster from Frist, denying him a feather in his cap for his 2008 presidential run, and denying a republican monopoly in the Senate. That republicans told Bush to consult the senate before submitting any new nominees seems to indicate a break from towing the republican party line.

As cynical as I usually am, I'm feeling like I'm the most optimistic person on this thread, which is freaking me out a bit.

Teresa: "Huh. I've suddenly realized that I know the form of this scam: it's a blowout."

God, that is frightening. That is exactly what is happening. With the same terrible consequences to the rightful owners. Brace yourselves.

And I'd like to think that the GOP7 would have a chance in hell against the corporate big money/dominionist grassroots alliance, but I really can't see it. On the other hand, it might be tempting to an awful lot of rightish swing voters who are embarassed about the whole Schiavo thing--polls show that there certainly are a lot of them.

It certainly would be nice to have an opposition party that wasn't insane.

I've just received word that the Emperor has dissolved the Imperial Senate permanently--sweeping away the last vestiges of the Old Republic.

This is off-topic, but since Patrick called out Teresa's comments on abortion, I wanted to share something I read recently:

"What sort of woman was most likely to take advantage of Roe v Wade?" the book asks. "Very often she was unmarried or in her teens or poor, and sometimes all three ... In other words, the very factors that drove millions of American women to have an abortion also seemed to predict that their children, had they been born, would have led unhappy and possibly criminal lives ... In the early 1990s, just as the first cohort of children born after Roe v Wade was hitting its late teen years—the years during which young men enter their criminal prime—the rate of crime began to fall."

From the Economist review of Freakanomics by Steven D. Levitt.

this is how democracy ends, with thunderous applause...

you're either with me, or you're.. my enemy...

Sorry Greg. You have to be a really bad actor to do those lines justice.

I can be bad. Oh please let me be bad. I'm so bad, I need a spanking...

wait. I think I just changed genres there...

Never mind.

Patrick: re your analysis of Michael, I fear you're both wrong. We've been too comfortable for too long. By the time we rip our attention away from the Internet, tv, and backyard bbqs it may very well be too late. In this case American exceptionalism is on their side: we're too great and wonderful and special for that to happen here. I see that everywhere I look outside the cities and/or coasts. I said once on my own blog that the American heartland is full of decent people who won't believe the indecency going on because they think everyone else is just like them. But that once they realize they've been lied to their wrath is terrible. Only I don't think they're going to realize in time that they've been lied to. Vide Jerry in that other thread.

MKK

As far as controlling the cities is concerned, I don't have a mechanism in mind--I just know that sufficiently crazed governments will wreck their own countries. I'm thinking about Pol Pot and the Taliban. The cities do not have the capacity to defend themselves militarily. It may be a shame that the US has a firm tradition of the military not getting involved in politics.

Teresa, in re: Thank goodness Planned Parenthood is privately funded. This relates to something that's made me twitch about single payer medical care--even if it's good for a while, the centralization makes it vulnerable. In the past, when I've mentioned this to people who believe in single payer, they just seem to get angry, but I believe it's time to lean on the idea a little harder.

So far as what the current administration has in mind, Dominationism is somewhat plausible and very scary, but there's also a weird impulsiveness at the top. Maybe the two go together--we're not talking about a dream of Lawful Evil, we're talking about people who want to be in charge because they want to do what they bloody well please. It may be a mercy of sorts that they don't seem to have much sense. If they had some discipline and the ability to focus on anything but short-term victory, they'd be even more dangerous.

Alternatively, any possbility that the current administration is fueled by coke or meth or somesuch?

As for a blow-out scam: I've been concerned for some time that eventually someone would go over the books for the Federal Govenment and discover that all the money had been stolen. Since then, I've heard that there are no books for the Iraq War, or at least that the records are so confused that the money can't be tracked.

And now for one itty bitty ray of hope: this is happening because a good many people were talked into believing they should support a more authoritarian society. Any thoughts about how they can be talked out of it?

PNH quoting Digby: If James Dobson and Rush Limbaugh want to portray us as dragon slayers, more power to them.

That's a pleasant surprise, and the second thing in the last few days that's got me thinking that the talking-points fax machine at GOPHQ must be on the fritz. The first was James Watt talking about "the religious left" in the Washington Post over the weekend.

I recall a lesson from Viable Paradise VIII. The rule of thumb was that if you had a somewhat sympathetic character and you (as author) needed that character to die but you didn't want to lose your readers, then one good way to prep the reader for the loss was to have that character whine. It causes people to lose sympathy with the character, and then when the character dies, it isn't such a problem.

I don't have a very good definition of what exactly is and is not whining, but waxing poetic about the endtimes of the world because of the current state of the (republican) union seems to be in the ballpark.

Whining, it would seem to me, is the antithesis of being a progressive. Where a progressive is moving forward, a whiner is looking back and immovable.

And so I go back to one of my recent posts:
"I'll take 'righteous anger' for $200, Alex."

Mary Kay said: By the time we rip our attention away from the Internet, tv, and backyard bbqs it may very well be too late. In this case American exceptionalism is on their side: we're too great and wonderful and special for that to happen here.

I worry about that too. I'm in Washington state, where the Repubs have challenged the results of the gubernatorial election in court (yes, from wayyyy back in November...) The race between Rossi(R) and Gregoire(D) was very close in all the vote counts. Rossi won twice in the machine-counts, then finally Gregoire in the hand-tally.

There's currently a very real possibility that the final election results in favor of Gregoire will be eventually overturned in court--the choice of venue for the arguments is another matter altogether. At least one set of hearings was held in a tiny town halfway across the state from Olympia.

However it turns out, it's going to end up in the state Supreme Court for sure.

But you hear next to nothing about the whole process on any of the local news. Local public radio mentions it pretty frequently, but that's about it.

They aren't arguing that the results are incorrect--they're splitting hairs about who gets to vote. And since the election came down to a margin of less than 200 votes total--it's a tiny percentage of error to play with.

Understand, they are NOT talking about recounting yet again--essentially, the argument is that illegal voters in the past (ineligible former felons, etc) tend to vote such-and-such a percentage Democrat, and thus-and-such a percentage Republican, therefore, if x number of voters this year were ineligible, then by those percentages, we can throw those votes out, and Rossi wins after all.)

If the election ends up overturned on these grounds, it seems to set a terrifying precedent--at least on the local level.

And I work with people who aren't even aware that the matter is in court.

I can be bad. Oh please let me be bad. I'm so bad, I need a spanking...

wait. I think I just changed genres there...

Never mind.

Wait just a minute there. You're not getting out of this until we get to the oral sex...

...one good way to prep the reader for the loss was to have that character whine.

And the lesson continueth: "... or smirk." But we've seen plenty of smirking from GWB, and although it enrages me, it didn't hurt (enough) in November. But maybe smirk and whine?

Maybe we need some dogs to tell us that Bush is wrong. Because, you know, dogs never lie.

Of course, the administration has been paying plenty of attention to the lessons of VP, too: "If the plot moves fast enough, people won't notice the missing details."

My god. You know what the left's problem is? Too much exposition.

Okay, I'm off to write the Grand Unified Theory of Writing Advice and Modern American Politics. Patrick, that Columbus story will be a little more late. (The cat: "uh oh.")

Given how the Social Security surplus is now being converted into big fat tax breaks for the wealthy, the "blowout" is already a reality. Blue dresses all around...

Mary Kay said: I said once on my own blog that the American heartland is full of decent people who won't believe the indecency going on because they think everyone else is just like them.

There's a song by the Canadian band the Arrogant Worms, called Killer Robots from Venus:

I was watching the news last night
I saw something funny
The killer robots from--somewhere--just invaded Montreal
I wonder, could it be my neighbors, the killer robots from Venus?
Could it be them after all?
No, they're so nice!

No! There's nothing wrong with killer robots from Venus
They applauded for my kid at the Christmas play
(he was the best shepherd)
No! They're nothing wrong with killer robots from Venus
You may disagree, but I think they're A-okay.

And, uh, that's my theory about the administration. They seem so...nice. Particularly since "Christian" still means "nice" in large swathes of the country. So any bad things couldn't possibly be THEIR fault. Right?

Mostly I suspect my snarky whiner side just likes thinking of the current administration as killer robots from Venus.

NYC and New Jersey could be subdued very easily: a "terrorist" attack on a chlorine plant.

My $.02 worth.

The governor of Minnesota, Pawlenty, may have just cut his own throat and didn't realize it. He is so beholden to the "no new tax" pledge and the so-called taxpayer's league that he vetoed a popular transit funding bill. He now has the emnity of the business community, which in Minnesota was the original base for the Republicans. Businesses need roads, and a good bus system so that their workers can get to their jobs. He is angering the churches; good Minnesota Lutherans are very big on helping the needy. And we have optical scanners for voting, and lots of oversite. I think this country will fracture along thse lines. In some states, the Republicans never got a toehold or will get tossed out. There will be major differences between living in Minnesota and living in Missouri, unfortunately. Just as Europe is getting together, we will be falling apart.

A couple of points:

1. On the control of recalcitrant populations, i. e. New York City. When the only food to be had is being handed out down at the Church of the Redeemer, you will go down there and stand in line and sing the stupid hymns, too, because your children's hunger is orders of magnitude stronger than your pride. I recall reading somewhere that the average North American city had only seventy-two hours of food within the city limits--I may well be mistaken.

Also, please don't forget how incremental this process is. I saw an episode of Frontline dealing with the run-up to the first Gulf War, and the truly amazing thing about it was how adult and polite the players were. Rush and Newt will likely be damned by history for their poisoning of the well of politics.

2. Trying to ascribe a single motive to the current holders-of-power is like sorting your books by color. Some few people, most notably Karl Rove, have mangaged to herd the cats of pro-life fundies, corporate welfare queens, neoconservatives, military adventurists, and the worshippers of Reagan in the same direction for long enough to get his post turtle in place. Not real different from a Democratic administration...except that some of the cats seriously believe that this country was a better place during the fifties--the eighteen fifties, that is.

My particular nightmare scenario is that our approaching fiscal train wreck will be taken advantage of by a real theocratic demagogue. It's worked before...