Looks like James Taranto didn't like his intellectually dishonest column getting called into question last night.
Excerpt from today's Best of the Web column:
Neil and most of his readers do not seem to know what a conference report is. As a public service on this Constitution Day, we therefore present a lesson for DailyKos readers (and anyone else who could use a refresher) in How a Bill Becomes a Law:
America has what is known as a bicameral (two-chamber) legislature. In order for a bill to become a law, it must command a majority of voting members in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. A bill that has the support of only one chamber is a legal nullity. This much you could have learned by watching "Schoolhouse Rock," which seems to be where the Kos Kidz' education ended. In real life, though, things are a bit more complicated.
Fighting words?
No, not really. In my previous diary, I discussed the passage of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in the Senate, because his column yesterday concerned senators. Specifically, Biden, Reid, and McCain. Yet Taranto lapses into a maudlin discussion of the bill's passage in the house:
The House-only version passed, 343-86, on July 1. Neither of these bills, however, became a law. The bill that did become a law--the law about which Sen. Reid and others are complaining now--was the conference report...
And its signing into law by Bill Clinton:
Yet as hard as it may be to believe now, the president, Bill Clinton, was a Democrat. It was Clinton's signature that made the bill a law. Clinton could have refused to sign ("That's called a veto," as "Schoolhouse Rock" teaches).
Which is all well and good, and I did not hide from that yesterday. Matter of fact, I did assign some blame to Bill Clinton for signing the bill:
There is a reason the Obama campaign is not bringing this up. The bill was passed by Bill Clinton in 1999. If Obama plans on using Clinton as a stumper, it wouldn't be wise to bring up a bill that Clinton himself passed, which managed to auger the financial industry into the ground.
Clinton was in support of this bill, as was his economic advisor Robert Rubin, and Alan Greenspan. Quoth Rubin:
"The banking industry is fundamentally different from what it was two decades ago, let alone in 1933." He said the industry has been transformed into a global business of facilitating capital formation through diverse new products, services and markets. "U.S. banks generally engage in a broader range of securities activities abroad than is permitted domestically," said the Treasury secretary. "Even domestically, the separation of investment banking and commercial banking envisioned by Glass-Steagall has eroded significantly."
So we can put away the idea that I was trying to let Democrats off the hook. My point was that Sens. Reid and Biden, mentioned by Taranto in his column, did in fact vote against the bill on principle in May of 1999. Senator McCain did vote for it, and has consistently spoken in favour of the trend of financial industry deregulation that allowed GLBA to happen. In his first article, Taranto attempts to use Sen. McCain's absence from voting as an implication that he might have been against this bill, but was too busy campaigning for the 2000 Republican primaries to offer any insight.
To wit:
In financial institutions, there is no substitute for adequate capital to serve as a buffer against losses. Our financial market approach should include encouraging increased capital in financial institutions by removing regulatory, accounting and tax impediments to raising capital.
Removing regulatory impediments. He said that in March of this year. Let's not confuse ourselves here. McCain has supported deregulation in the financial industry all the way through Monday afternoon.
So here's what we know. Bill Clinton was in approval of this bill. The majority of the Senate was in approval of this bill. The House passed the bill with overwhelming support. Knowing that it was not going to be vetoed, and knowing that any attempts at blocking the bill would be futile, what, for heaven's sake would Biden and Reid have accomplished by voting against it?
Voting against the reconciled post-Conference Committee draft of the bill would not have terminated it. Voting against it would have sent the bill back to the Conference Committee, as well as ensured that Republicans refuse to play ball at any point in the future when they may make up a veto-capable minority. It would have eliminated any future expectations of reciprocity, should the Democrats regain control of either house. This is why CC drafts are rarely stonewalled, if they have passed both chambers with a decisive majority, and are supported by the President.
This is why I have such a hard time discussing politics with loyalist conservatives. And by "loyalist", I am leaving the sensible ones with any sense of nuance and lateral thinking off the table. I'm referring to the blank-slate, forget-about-all-history automatons whose minds have crystalized so as to repel all information that does not conform to their world view.
This bill's passage was a foregone conclusion in November of 1999. James Taranto damn well knows that.
It was supported by the majority of the House and Senate, and by the Executive. The only debate concerning the Conference Committee draft was consumer privacy protection, during and after the process of institution mergers. So, as I said before, the floor vote concerned the language of the bill, and not its merits.
Look, I realize that this is a thorny and complex discussion. But I've always been taught that not telling the whole truth is the same as a lie. Taranto knows, as well as any of you do, that passing a bill in Congress involves far more than just rote procedure. What he's relying on is the idea that his readers are either not sophisticated enough to understand the chicanery involved in passing laws, or simply don't care. So rather than talk about the circumstances of how the bill ended up being passed, and why McCain did not vote for the CC draft while Biden and Reid - two previous opponents - did, we're treated to an insipid lecture on the mechanisms of Congress.
Now do some of you understand why being an intellectually honest person in the financial industry, with people like James Taranto manning our presses, is so damned difficult?
P.S.
I cannot believe that the McCain campaign has left that web page intact, what with his call for further deregulation. Someone really should get the word out.