As if we needed to have more reason to doubt the White House today:
When it comes to progressive priorities in the Senate, there's one standard: 60 votes are needed. But for Ben Bernanke, there's a second standard: 50 will be just fine, thank you.
Democratic leaders in the Senate are asking colleagues who are reluctant to support Bernanke's nomination for a second term as Federal Reserve chairman to nevertheless vote with them to end a filibuster and allow a vote on the actual nomination. The reluctant members would then be free to vote no to express their displeasure. Several Democrats have committed to just that and others are considering it.
The public health insurance option was stripped from health care reform because it didn't have 60 votes. An expansion of Medicare took its place but it, too, was dropped for having fewer than 60. Both proposals had at least 50 votes. Dawn Johnsen, a nominee to head the Office of Legal Counsel, has the backing of progressive organizations, but a 60-vote threshold has held her up for a year.
link
The excerpt says it all. With health care, it was so very important for conservadems like Bayh, Nelson, and Lieberman to stick with their principles and not make a different cloture vote then their final vote. So they couldn't get past the 60 vote cloture threshhold and vote their conscience on the final vote. 60 was this magical barrier that dictated everything we could do on health care reform in the Senate. But when it means keeping their buddies on Wall Street happy, all of a sudden it's not as important anymore.
It's just another stunning example of where my party's priorities are at today.
I really don't have a lot to add to the rage of other folks here, who have laid out how badly our party is screwed in much more eloquent terms than I could. If our party were looking at these dismal poll numbers while actually delivering on real progressive reforms, or hell, at least making a half-hearted effort to enact them, I would fight for them as fiercely as I did in 2006 and 2008.
They'd have my money. They'd have my time. They'd have my passion.
But now? I really don't know if I can be bothered to show up on voting day.
Things may change between now and November, and I'll be watching to see if they do. But today, this is a low point in my relationship with the Democratic party. They need to do something, not screw around with these B.S. spending freeze gimmicks, do everything they can to keep the status quo on Wall Street that brought on this epic fail economy, whine about only having 59 votes to pass health care reform, and generally piss on all the things I voted for.