By Libby
Updated below
The NYT weighs in on the Democrats' spineless failure to advance any meaningful legislation. Shorter version: For the love of God and country, force the filibusters.
These wimpy cloture votes and the subsequent handwringing over how they can't bring the bills forward because the Republicans are threatening to filibuster is not only pathetically weak-kneed, it's politically suicidal. The GOP's approval rating is going up within its party's rank and file because they're outmanuvering the Democrats without having to do more than make idle threats.
Let the Republicans stand up and tell America why they don't want to offer our troops relief on rotations. Why they don't believe the longest standing tenets of our judicial system are important. Make them explain how selling out our civil rights are making us free.
As the editorial points out, our country needs more debate and less posturing. Playing the game for some nebulous, perceived political positioning is leaving the Democratic Party looking like hapless losers who hold all the aces but are still afraid to call the GOP's bluff.
Americans are sick and tired of the politics of fear. We're not willing to trade them for the politics of cowardice and avoidance tactics disguised as bi-partisanship. What we need right now is for the Democrats to start practicing the politics of courage. Bring the bills onto the floor despite the cloture votes. Let the debate commence and trust the people to judge for themselves who is working for the best interests of the country. If the Democrats won't trust us now, they had better not bank on our trusting them again at the ballot box in 08.
Update: Hart Williams has a scientific theory on how the Democratic party has been knocked out of alignment.
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