Midyear snapshots of our glorious two-party system: (1) The Dems "in power" manage to get a crappy climate bill through the House

Is there more to governing than Rahm Emanuel?
Well, there could hardly be less!

by Ken

If by "power" you mean wheelin' 'n' dealin', crackin' heads, stabbin' backs, squeezin' balls, then I give you the Democratic Party at midyear 2009: Stand up, Master Rahm!

One of the big differences between our end of the political spectrum and theirs, as we've long known, is that they know how to enforce message discipline, whereas we tend to remain stuck on, you know, stuff we believe. Where a puling pile of puke could lead his sheeplike followers on a death march over the edge of the universe, it was only too predictable that there would be no such unanimity in a new Democratic administration, even with theoretically commanding Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress.

This extends to the respective media, of course. It was graceful of Rush Limbaugh to admit that for eight years he had been "carrying the water" for Little George, though naturally this admission didn't come till he was ready to publicly question the wisdom of all that water-carrying he had done. (This is the dark side of that sort of enforced unanimity. When the sheep turn on you, it can be as if you never existed. Try finding a Republican or a card-carrying right-wing extremist who even remembers the name George W. Bush, never mind acknowledges have shrieked his/her undying loyalty and screamed for the violent death of anyone who so much as questioned his sainthood for, oh, about seven years.)

At the same time, though, we knew that the reality-dealing anti-Bush media like The Daily Show and Countdown with Keith Olbermann and The Rachel Maddow Show would never give the new administration a new free ride. That's not how we do things on our side. This seems to have caught the Washington Post by surprise in the case of its best reporting, which for some years had been done -- only on the paper's website -- by Dan Froomkin in his "White House Watch." More than anything, Froomkin's axing seems sttributable to his scrupulously even-handed coverage of the Obamaadministration, which is ironic, because you know damn well that the Post, which hews to the straight Inside the Beltway line, will never hesitate to trash the president. But they'll always do it from the approved Village view. Obama isn't a Villager, and alas for Dan Froomkin, neither is he.

So here we are, nearing six months in, with a president who keeps showing us showing us in those special speeches that he can rise to the occasion, at least rhetorically, as he did again in his remarks at yesterday's East Room LGBT Pride Month reception commemorating the 40th anniversary of Stonewall. But as the president himself made clear, his record will be judged by actions, not words.

How's that working out?


YOUR TWO-PARTY SYSTEM AT WORK:
THE HOUSE PASSES THE 'CLIMATE' BILL

On Saturday, when I expressed my deep misgivings about Waxman-Markey, the American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) bill, which narrowly passed the house Friday night, I went looking for a good summary of the environmentalist objections. I had only to go to a Friday post by my online energy-and-environment go-to guy A Siegel on his Get Energy Smart Now blog, and there was a clip and transcript of the remarkable comments made by Texas Rep. Lloyd Doggett on the House floor early Friday.

The remarks began, you may recall:

In his comments, the President emphasized that this is a “jobs bill”, tying this quite directly to prospects to dig ourselves not just out of the climate hole, but our unemployment hole. The President’s statement is a strong one, a powerful discussion of the value of meaningful, strong climate legislation. And, it will (should) be hard for any Democratic member of the House to ignore his call for a yes vote.

I also noted that by the time of the ACES roll call, Doggett voted yes, saying (according to the Washington Independent) "he was tired of listening to the members of 'the flat earth society' across the aisle making 'inane' arguments."

Today Politico has an inside account of the behind-the-scenes arm-twisting that went on in the House on Friday. Of course the Politico writers basically view the day's activities as a knuckle-busting triumph for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi -- unconcerned, for example, that the screws were put to progressives, who were basically accused of trying to destroy the president, the party, and the country, while the muddled and gutless right-wing Dems, owing to their supposed electoral peril, were largely left to vote, well, not so much their consciences as what it's supposed to be necessary for them to vote to win reelection.

So instead of going to Politico, I think we should turn the reading of their report offered by our Firedoglake pal Jane Hamsher:

What happened? Why did members like Doggett and Tom Perriello, who had committed to vote against the bill, switch their votes? [See CORRECTION below; Perriello was not committed to voting against the bill.]

Now we know:

Pelosi and her top lieutenants would spend the next four hours whipping, cajoling, begging and browbeating undecided Democrats -- and triple-checking their whip lists to decide who was a solid “yes” and who was prevaricating on the cap-and-trade legislation.

Yet no matter how many calls they made -- or how many times they checked and rechecked their list -- Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) kept coming up between 12 and 20 votes short of the 216 votes needed to win.

[]

Party leaders agreed to bring the bill to the floor during a meeting Monday night, even though some of the members present had reservations about forcing vulnerable Democrats to cast votes on a package that may not go anywhere in the Senate.

That's crap -- vulnerable progressive Democrats like Perriello were forced to vote yes against their conscience to give cover for safe Blue Dogs like Gene Taylor to vote "no."

One of Pelosi’s first targets was Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.), a key fence-sitter who wanted more money generated from the carbon trading to be directed to the research and development of green technology.

Pelosi talked to him again and again, but he wouldn’t budge. Her message to him was the same as it was to others: It wasn’t worth voting against the bill because of what wasn’t in it.

According to witnesses, Pelosi perched herself on the arm of Holt’s chair and went nose to nose with him for a half-hour warning him that his no vote could scuttle the entire climate change effort — and that liberals would have another chance to make their case once the bill came back from the Senate.

Around 2 o’clock, he became a “yes.”

Next up was Austin, Texas, liberal Rep. Lloyd Doggett, who had seemed to be leaning toward the bill during a Thursday night visit with Obama in the Oval Office — but then infuriated the White House midday Friday by declaring the measure too weak on polluters to win his vote.

An exasperated White House staffer told POLITICO it was “stunning that he would ignore the wishes not just of his president but of his constituents and the country.”

This is exactly the argument that was made to progressives during the supplemental -- it turned into a loyalty test to the President.

Then Pelosi began working Doggett as the two stood in the back of the chamber near the railing, making the same perfect-is-enemy-of-the-good argument she had used against Holt. Doggett ended up voting “yes.”During the vote, Washington Rep. Jay Inslee, one of the taller members of the House, guarded the doors on the floor leading out to the Speaker’s Lobby, warning members not to leave the floor in case anyone needed to switch his or her vote. But that didn’t stop some Democrats, like Colorado Rep. John Salazar, from voting no early and sneaking out to avoid getting pressured by party leaders.

Leadership aides say Texas Rep. Ciro Rodriguez promised Pelosi he’d vote yes, but voted no and sprinted from the chamber. California Rep. Xavier Becerra tried unsuccessfully to flag him on his cell phone — and Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) bounded into the ornate Speaker’s Lobby off the floor shouting, “Rodriguez! Rodriguez!” as puzzled reporters looked on.

This is a picture of what will happen on the Public Option. Trial balloons are already being sent up about a sell-out, and the "co-op" plan is now the "liberal option" among the Villagers. Progressives (like Adam Green) who represent the feelings of 76% of the country are "extremists" who want to "kill health care reform."

CORRECTION: TOM PERRIELLO ALWAYS
INTENDED TO VOTE IN FAVOR OF ACES

There doesn't appear to be any doubt about Politico's report that Lloyd Doggett was one of the earnestly environmentalist Dems whose arms were twisted by Speaker Pelosi on Friday to support ACES. Apparently, though, Jane and I are mistaken in saying that Tom Perriello was among that group.

His office confirms that Congressman Perriello always intended to vote for the ACES bill, believing it represents a necessary starting point in taking action against manmade climate change, and despite my grave reservations about the bill, I understand that someone committed to protecting the environment could support it. After all, no less than the League of Conservation Voters has declared it "the most important piece of environmental legislation to ever come before the House of Representatives," adding, " The historic bill has the potential to transform America by creating clean energy jobs, improving our national security, and protecting our planet from global warming pollution," and taking the extraordinary step of promising to refuse endorsement in 2010 to any House member who votes against final passage of this bill." And my energy-and-environment go-to guy A Siegel allowed: "There are quite strong (and even compelling) arguments to vote for the bill despite its flaws. Honestly, in [Comgressmen Doggett and Pete DeFazio's] shoes, I don’t know what statement I would have made today."

Tom Perriello is one of the congressmembers we most admire, and we wouldn't want his position misrepresented. There is, apparently, some apprehension that he can be portrayed as a "tool" of Speaker Pelosi. Indeed, I've heard suggestions that the DCCC was actually pressing him to vote against the bill. It would be interesting to have confirmation of this. Is it really possible that, with both the White House and the House Democratic leadership supposedly all-out committed to the bill, the DCCC was actually lobbying against it?


NEXT UP: THE R's IN THE WILDERNESS

Howie already did some picking around in the ashes earlier today, but there's still more fun to be had.

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