Who Lied About How They Would Vote On The Satan Sandwich?

Congratulations to Gabby Giffords for making it back to Congress to vote and being the surprise-- except for Wasserman Schultz and Pelosi-- 95th Democratic Party vote for the Republican agenda, tying the 95 actual Democrats who opposed it. As my old pal Susan Klein remarked on Twitter, it was the most dramatic comeback performance since Judy Garland at Carnegie Hall in 1961. Gabby's appearance meant much more to the assembled politicians-- actually, of both parties-- than Judy's did to anyone but the gays. It was a good moment for the nation-- and a great smokescreen for the supposed defenders of working people, like Wasserman Schultz-- who could use it to change the subject when anyone wondered why she had just given John Boehner 98% of what he wanted.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz's vote was never in doubt of course. She's the ultimate political hack and always has been. Rahm didn't pick her for a leadership role at the DCCC and Obama didn't pick her to head the DNC because she's got an independent spirit or a conscience. She's very nice on women's issues, though... more than one can say about many of the Blue Dogs she relentlessly promotes. But at least Debbie never held out hope that she might take the side of working families and reject the Satan Sandwich. How about the duplicitous Democrats who signed the Grijalva-Ellison letter to Pelosi pledging to never vote for any bill that jeopardizes Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which, despite indignant protestations to the contrary by the likes of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, this bill certainly does? The Caucus itself only lost 15 members in the vote yesterday but some of the non-Caucus signers found Wasserman Schultz's and Obama's arguments to back everything Boehner wanted suddenly very persuasive.

The vast majority of the 87 Democrats who signed the letter were true to their word and voted NO-- against the Satan Sandwich. Who broke their word and betrayed their constituents?

Karen Bass (CA)
David Cicciline (RI)
William Lacy Clay (MO)
Jerry Costello (IL)
Mark Critz (PA)
Danny Davis (IL)
Ted Deutch (FL)
Lloyd Doggett (TX)
Chaka Fattah (PA)
John Garamendi (CA)
Luis Gutierrez (IL)
Mazie Hirono (HI)
Sheila Jackson Lee (TX)
Eddie Bernice Johnson (TX)
Hank Johnson (GA)
Dale Kildee (MI)
Jim Langevin (RI)
Stephen Lynch (MA)
Cedric Richmond (LA)
Steve Rothman (NJ)
Frederica Wilson (FL)
David Wu (OR)

A bigger shock came when three Blue Dogs who rarely take the side of working families over Big Business came over to the progressive side in Monday's night's vote-- Leonard Boswell (IA), Dennis Cardoza (CA) and, most shocking of all, Mike McIntyre (NC).


Even before Kissinger's infamous tweet, Matt Taibbi made the same point in Rolling Stone.

The popular take is that Obama is a weak leader of a weak party who was pushed around by canny right-wing extremists. Observers like pollster Sydney Greenberg portray Obama and the Democrats as a group of politically tone-deaf bureaucrats who fail because the public associates them with a corrupt government that benefits the rich and connected.

The Democrats, Greenberg argues, could change their situation by showing the public that they genuinely represent the interests of ordinary working people... But to a bunch of hired stooges put in office to lend an air of democratic legitimacy to what has essentially become a bureaucratic-oligarchic state, what good does such advice do? Would it have made sense to send the Supreme Soviet under Andropov or Brezhnyev a list of policy ideas for enhancing the civil liberties of Soviet citizens?

The Democrats aren't failing to stand up to Republicans and failing to enact sensible reforms that benefit the middle class because they genuinely believe there's political hay to be made moving to the right. They're doing it because they do not represent any actual voters. I know I've said this before, but they are not a progressive political party, not even secretly, deep inside. They just play one on television.

For evidence, all you have to do is look at this latest fiasco.

The Republicans in this debt debate fought like wolves or alley thugs, biting and scratching and using blades and rocks and shards of glass and every weapon they could reach.

The Democrats, despite sitting in the White House, the most awesome repository of political power on the planet, didn't fight at all. They made a show of a tussle for a good long time-- as fixed fights go, you don't see many that last into the 11th and 12th rounds, like this one did-- but at the final hour, they let out a whimper and took a dive.

We probably need to start wondering why this keeps happening. Also, this: if the Democrats suck so bad at political combat, then how come they continue to be rewarded with such massive quantities of campaign contributions? When the final tally comes in for the 2012 presidential race, who among us wouldn't bet that Barack Obama is going to beat his Republican opponent in the fundraising column very handily? At the very least, he won't be out-funded, I can almost guarantee that.

And what does that mean? Who spends hundreds of millions of dollars for what looks, on the outside, like rank incompetence?

It strains the imagination to think that the country's smartest businessmen keep paying top dollar for such lousy performance. Is it possible that by "surrendering" at the 11th hour and signing off on a deal that presages deep cuts in spending for the middle class, but avoids tax increases for the rich, Obama is doing exactly what was expected of him?

So let me go back to the Blue America statement penned for us by Alan Grayson:

We who sign this make the following pledge, to the voters of our districts and to all the American People:

We Are Against Any and Every Cut to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits. Not today, not tomorrow, and not ever. No way, no how. Not on your life, and not on mine, because both your life and my life may depend on it.

N-E-V-E-R.

Every Blue America candidate has either signed this letter or issued their own statement in their own words equally powerful. Blue America won't be endorsing any incumbents who voted for the Satan Sandwich and won't be endorsing any challengers who don't embrace this pledge to the American people. It's the bottom line. I still hope Mazie Hirono beats Ed Case in Hawaii, of course, but as of yesterday, Blue America ceased raising funds for her. Give your donations to Bernie Sanders instead. One of our Blue America-endorsed candidates, Nick Ruiz (D-FL), the first to sign the pledge, went on to explain what's gone wrong the day after the vote:

All of the American people can’t be wrong.

All of their needs can’t be wrong.

What is wrong is the turn down the Republican rabbit hole. Lost, we are. BHO abdicates executive responsibility by refusing to act to the point of inertia. Republican John Boehner (OH-8) and Company acted extremely. All Cuts are therefore “IN.” In accompaniment, HSBC announces they will shed 30,000 jobs in 2011-2012. This is the coming Age of Austerity. What a howler- cut New Deal programs at the very same time that practically every large corporation in America is cutting jobs and hording cash. ‘Satan sandwich’ anyone?

The American people could be celebrating a democratic victory, if there was one to recognize. Instead, we are faced with the nuts and bolts of the reality of being sold-out under the auspices of a short term ceiling hike and a long term hatchet committee with an appetite for New Deal destruction.

How to put it back together again, as they tear it apart? 2012.

The 2012 playbook is very simple: reject any and every candidate that stands in the way of progressive democracy. Reserve your support; however you give it, for those progressive Democratic candidates that would act in your interest.

You’ll have to be savvy-– because the all too corporate party machinery will be out to trick you with the ruse of mechanical candidates and party-line robots. But the power to represent us is yours to take or give. The power is in your vote. It’s in your contributions. It’s in the time you volunteer. It’s in your letters to the editors of newspapers and blogs.

Hope? Change? No, we haven’t. But I promise you-- we will.