The whole filibuster mishegas has got me thinking. On the one hand, maybe Republicans really are Lucy to Harry Reid's Charlie Brown, and Reid just a blockhead who can't figure out that the GOP is always going to pull the ball away.
On the other hand, maybe something else is going on entirely. Maybe the GOP is playing a longer game, and Harry Reid knows something we don't.
I really have no idea.
My worry, however, is that this is the strategy.
Republicans filibuster absolutely everything. That gets everyone clamoring for filibuster reform. Filibuster reform gets passed, making it easier for the majority to get stuff through over the objections of the minority.
Republicans win back the Senate at some point (it'll happen eventually). Republicans use filibuster reform as an excuse to steamroll an extremist agenda through the chamber, leaving Dems powerless to stop it.
Is this what Republicans have been planning all along? Is that why Harry Reid has been so pigheadedly, stubbornly, maddeningly resistant to doing something about Republican obstructionism?
I mean hell, it's not like Republicans won't try to steamroll their agenda through when they win the Senate back anyway. They'll demand up or down votes on everything, lambaste Dems for ever even invoking the 60-vote rule the GOP has turned into a normal requirement in this Senate, and use their media noise machine to drown out anyone trying to point out their hypocrisy. That's their MO. That's always been their MO, and the Dems' MO is to go, "um guys? Stop that, please. No? Ok..." [insert that "OK" face meme here].
Either way, it's checkmate unless the Dems grow some balls and um [chess metaphor that works here]. But waiting for the Democratic Party to grow some balls is like [metaphor for futility here].
But hey, you know what works great? Giving the GOP what they want. Let's do more of that. After we do chained CPI, let's try repealing the estate tax again. Who knows? Maybe if Obama proposes that little chestnut, the GOP will finally cooperate with him.
This turned into more of a rant than was intended.