(This is LONG, I know. But, trust me, it's important.)
Over the past few days, dKos has been abuzz with indignation over the avalanche of judge-bashing. We've gasped with incredulity at loony statements like these from yesterday's
Washington Post:
Phyllis Schlafly, doyenne of American conservatism, said (Supreme Court Justice Anthony} Kennedy's opinion forbidding capital punishment for juveniles "is a good ground of impeachment."
Michael P. Farris, chairman of the Home School Legal Defense Association, said Kennedy "should be the poster boy for impeachment" for citing international norms in his opinions. "If our congressmen and senators do not have the courage to impeach and remove from office Justice Kennedy, they ought to be impeached as well."
Edwin Vieira told the gathering that Kennedy should be impeached because his philosophy, evidenced in his opinion striking down an anti-sodomy statute, "upholds Marxist, Leninist, satanic principles drawn from foreign law."
Ominously, Vieira continued by saying his "bottom line" for dealing with the Supreme Court comes from Joseph Stalin. "He had a slogan, and it worked very well for him, whenever he ran into difficulty: 'no man, no problem,' " Vieira said.
The full Stalin quote, for those who don't recognize it, is "Death solves all problems: no man, no problem."
Yes, we're all giddy here at the thought that, with this latest assault on the judiciary, these evil twits have finally overreached, that they've shown their true colors and the American public will have no choice but to disown them.
"DeLay going down in flames!"
"Cheney tells DeLay to back off!"
"Christopher Shays decries 'Theocracy!'"
"Polls show little support for Schiavo intervention."
To look at dKos in the last day or two, one would think we were on the verge of a major breakthrough! Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but, we just don't fucking get it.
Maybe if we connected a few dots...
On June 5th, 2003, after ten Democratic filibusters against Bush's first-term judicial nominees, Trent Lott convened the Senate Rules Committe to hear Bill Frist's proposal on what is now known as the "Nuclear Option." That's right, nearly two years ago. The reason for the proposal's ominous nickname is that it represents more than a simple change in Senate rules. Because of a compromise struck when the Senate last changed its filibuster rules in the 1970s, it takes a two-thirds majority -- or 67 votes -- to break a filibuster against a proposed rules change. (WaPo) Frist's proposal would make use of rarely employed procedures (like calling a vote outside the chamber with only Repubs present) to force a filibuster-proof rule change with a simple majority vote. Of course, such a backhanded trick would utterly destroy any semblance of bipartisanship and make the Senate a very ugly place for years to come. Thus, the term, "Nuclear Option," hereafter, "NukeOp."
The intervening months brought us a series of events which, when taken singularly, seem to indicate more old-fashioned, power-mad wingnuttery. Taken as a whole, however, an entirely different picture emerges - but more on that in a moment. First, the events we all witnessed:
- In October of 2003, Governor Jeb Bush signs a hastily-passed bill giving him power to intervene in the case of Terri Schiavo. He orders her feeding tube reinserted, but his order is struck down by the Florida Supreme Court in September of 2004. Between 2000 and March of 2005, the removal of Schiavo's feeding tube is either ordered or upheld eleven times, twice by the U.S. Supreme Court.
- During the 2004 Presidential campaign, knowing full well that his Constitutional Amendment against gay marriage will die a quick death, Bush stealthily inserts the term "Activist Judges" into the American vernacular.
- Despite the inability of the Republican Senate Caucus to break another series of filibusters without cooperation from at least five Democrats, Bush announces the renomination of 20 judges just before Christmas of last year.
- Bush's confrontational move reinvigorates discussion of the NukeOp, as, despite Republican gains in the Senate, it is the only method by which future filibusters could be thwarted.
- On February 25th, 2005, Florida Circuit Court Judge, George Greer, orders Terri Schiavo's feeding tube removed for his third and final time. In the ensuing media frenzy, Terri Schiavo becomes a household name.
- On March 18th, ABC News obtains a GOP talking points memo indicating that "Terri Schiavo is a great political issue" and would help bury Democratic Florida Senator, Bill Nelson. The memo goes unclaimed until April 7th, when it is revealed to have been written by Brian Darling, lobbyist with the Alexander Strategy Group, founded by Tom DeLay's former Chief of Staff.
- On March 20-21 of 2005, Congress passes and Bush signs a bill, called the "Palm Sunday Compromise" allowing Federal Courts to review Schiavo's case. The U.S. District Court, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court refuse to overrule Judge Greer.
- After Terri Schiavo's death on March 31st, Republicans ratchet up the rhetoric. In addition to the quotes at the top of this diary, Tom DeLay declares, "The time will come for the men responsible for (Schiavo's death) to answer for their behavior." and, "(We) will look at an arrogant and out of control judiciary that thumbs its nose at Congress and the President."
As I said earlier, each of us responded to the events above as if they were simple examples of wingnut antics. Even John Aravosis of Americablog, with his "policy experience in the US Senate and the World Bank," has swallowed the "wingnuts-really- hate- judges" paradigm hook, line and sinker: "
The right wing nut jobs have gone over the deep end when it comes to their hatred for judges." With statements like these, we certainly evince our passion. What becomes even clearer, however, is our total naivete.
Because the truth is, Republican strategists don't give a flying fuck about judges. Judges just happen to be the issue over which they thought they could raise the biggest stink - partly because it's a multi-function hot button for their base (gay marriage, Lawrence v. Texas, death penalty, Ten Commandments, etc..), but also because judges were at the heart of the Democrats' sole beachhead during Bush's first term. It became obvious that, when the stakes got high, the Dems weren't afraid to use the filibuster. And, far from caring about the ten judges they rejected, Republican strategists mostly needed a way to prevent future stands by the minority - on any issue.
Republicans control all the levers of government because of the diabolical genius of their tactics. There is no single issue to them. There is only the larger, overarching matter, the one that gets them out of bed in the morning: total dominance of American politics, forever. And no single crusade ultimately exists as anything more than a means to that end.
Look at the timeline above and remind yourself that item one in the timeline is the birth of the NukeOp. This is, for lack of a better term, the Mission Objective. Only afteward do we see the seizure of the clearly unwinnable SCHIAVO issue by Jeb Bush, followed by the campaign to demonize ACTIVIST JUDGES and Bush's RENOMINATION of judges he knows his own Senate caucus can't confirm. Later, more ACTIVIST JUDGES spur the CONGRESS, using GOP TALKING POINTS, to act on SCHIAVO'S behalf, creating a MEDIA FRENZY that they are already attempting to parlay into support for their move to THWART the FILIBUSTER that Democrats retain as their only option.
Coincidence? Did the Republican rhetoric about "activist judges" just happen to ratchet up a dozen notches at the same time they're struggling for 50 votes on the NukeOp? Or have the events since June of 2003 been part of a coordinated effort planned quietly in back-room meetings all over this country?
Whatever you think, please understand that even destroying the filibuster is a means to an end for them. Should it happen, Republicans will judge their victory not by the number of judges they will place in courtrooms around the country, but by the fact that they have implemented Phase One of their endgame. And, believe me, the real movers in the Republican Party, the guys Rove sucks up to, definitely see themselves as warming up the endgame. After twenty years of watching our nation slip into selfishness, arrogance, greed and political patronage, you'd think we'd have caught on, too.
Yet we liberals continue to address each new move serially, as if each event somehow occurred in a vacuum. Of course, this is part of their plan. They have demonstrated time and again the ability to conceive of an objective and then to plan backward from that objective four, five, a dozen moves. This is what we're seeing with this apparent assault on the judiciary. They visualized the objective: emasculate the opposition. Then they thought backward several moves and said: "It's gonna be the judge thing. There's all kinds of cases all around the country that'll get the base heated up. We play this right, nurture it, keep it greased, keep the heat on, those Democrats'll wish they never used that filibuster." Working one move at a time allows them to watch and laugh as we fixate on one move, exhausting ourselves in the process, oblivious to the overall push. They know, in the end, where they want to be, and we're not around when they get there.
We voice our outrage publicly on websites. They make quiet phone calls. We meticulously source our arguments with links to established news outlets. They make news. There is a world of difference between our two sides and, for quite some time, their side has been kicking our asses.
We really need to start seeing the big picture. We need to plan several moves backward from our objectives, giving Rethugs a series of issues on which to exhaust themselves, while we quietly implement the next phase of the plan. Knowing what our objectives are wouldn't hurt, either. But the main thing is to understand whom we're dealing with, and not to descend into singing "Ding-dong, the Wicked Witch is dead" every time Tom DeLay fucks up. These people are patient. They've gotten to where they are over two and a half decades. They have more money than God. And they'd rather destroy the Democrats than Al Qaeda.
So, the next time you want to post a diary or a comment talking tough about "Let 'em TRY to impeach Kennedy," remember that if something sounds too crazy to be a part of any political platform, it's probably just the Republicans getting us worked up over door number one, while they drive a bulldozer through door number two.
We need seven Republican Senators to stop the Nuclear Option. Just seven. Even if we win, it's a tiny victory against a supremely powerful adversary and the battles will go on. I just hope we learn how to fight the war.