I'm a pretty low-key, polite guy, but I've had more than enough of this. We've suffered through our media stenographers parroting the idea that "of course it takes 60 votes to pass anything." Through some of them adopting the ludicrous idea that passing a bill with a majority vote is the "nuclear option," and more. But listening to Max Baucus' substance-free attempt to justify his vote against the public option because it "can't get to 60 votes" was the last straw, and I'm through being polite. It's time to use the F-word.
I mean, of course, "filibuster."
This isn't about "votes," except in a purely technical sense. Sixty isn't the number needed to pass a bill, it's the number needed to overcome a Republican filibuster. The question isn't, as it's universally posed in the media and too often posed here, whether a given senator "supports" the public option. It's whether they are so adamantly opposed to it that they will use an extraordinary measure to aid the opposition party that has suffered dramatic losses in the past two elections in blocking the signature domestic policy initiative of a very popular Democratic president.
Kent Conrad, I don't care how wrong your ideas about other countries' healthcare systems are, will you support a Republican filibuster against the primary domestic policy of a popular Democratic president?
Blanche Lincoln, I don't care that you couldn't even be bothered to show up for the vote, will you support a Republican filibuster against the primary domestic policy of a popular Democratic president?
Olympia Snowe, I don't give a damn if you think that our system should be allowed to get worse before a public option is "triggered," are you so opposed to it that you will support a Republican filibuster against primary domestic policy of a popular Democratic president?
Max Baucus, I don't give a damn whether you like the public option, or whether the health care industry lobbyists who bought you cheap like it. There's only one thing I care about -- will you support a Republican filibuster against the primary domestic policy of a popular Democratic president? And if you don't intend to, you obviously think you know some Democrats who will. If you don't start naming names, you're supporting the filibuster just as surely as if you vote that way.
And the rest of you who've been able to hide until this comes up for a floor vote, the unnamed "not 60," will you support a Republican filibuster against the primary domestic policy of a popular Democratic president?
There is no "everything takes 60 votes." There is no "can we get some Republican support." There is only do you stand with the tiny minority that the GOP represents, do you stand with the lobbyists for an industry that is draining the lifeblood from our economy, or do you stand with those doing what's best for the American people?
That's all there is. I'm waiting.
(Cross-posted to The Seminal.)