Nothing Doing In Congress

(CBS)  Weekly commentary by CBS Evening News chief Washington correspondent and Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer.

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Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made a speech the other day in which he bragged that even though Republicans are the minority, they had kept many bad things from happening.

Well, that's just the half of it.

With the help of the Democratic majority, they have managed to keep much of anything from happening, good or bad.

Who says there's nothing that two sides can't accomplish together? Of course there is - doing nothing.

Congress ran to the airport Friday for yet another break - they're taking two weeks this year for Thanksgiving. I wouldn't ask how many days you're taking because that would be a digression.

But my question is this: What do the following have in common?

Legislation to provide health insurance for children, education legislation, energy legislation, the farm bill, funding the Iraq war, and legislation funding all federal agencies except the Pentagon next year.

The answer is: All of them are stalled in Congress, awaiting final action, tangled in the gridlock that the Republicans blame on the Democrats and the Democrats blame on the Republicans.

Breaking the gridlock won't be easy. After all, once Congress gets back from the Thanksgiving break, Christmas vacation will be just weeks away.

I've heard all the excuses so many times, I've stopped listening. All I know is Congress continues to bring new meaning to that old phrase: nothing doing.

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E-mail Face the Nation.
By Bob Schieffer

[rowdytexan2]

GOOD! I hope this Congress doesn''t send a bill for Bush to sign, except that''s absolutely necessary to keep the government running. We don''t want any more bills sent back to be written HIS way. Screw him and render him powerless.

Just keep sending him the war funding bill with a troop withdrawal on it. That''s all that needs to be done right now.

We can just drive the car we''ve got until he gets out of office.

[usbrit-2009]

Hopefully by this time next year the Democrats will hold both houses by 2/3 margins and the presidency. Then we''ll see real decision making. The repugs might as well stay in their limos in the parking lot.

[knyghtwolf]

All three branchs remind me of The He-Man Woman Haters club from the Little Rascals series. None of the weenie three get anything done, just stupid posturing, strutting, preening, sort of like a stinky old chicken coop full of old hens and stoic old roosters. Mel Gibson, make a movie about the government, Call it The Little Rascals go to Washington....all grown up.

[kansas1946]

Hey, Kentucky,...if we have to look and listen to that weak-chinned, mealy-mouthed, POS McConnell after he comes up for reelection, we''''re coming over there and kick your a$$e$,....
Sincerely,
America

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Posted by veteran71 at 08:47 PM : Nov 19, 2007
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vet, I am glad I am not the only one that just about throws up everytime I see this guy. He is the smarmiest little weasle. I just doubt the sanity of those people in Kentucky if they keep electing this guy. I thought Kentuckians were like tough mountain people, real down-to-earth Americans, so how this little bespeckled nerd that would probably get lost in a hedgerow appeals to them, I am at a loss to understand.

[kansas1946]

Who says there''s nothing that two sides can''t accomplish together? Of course there is - doing nothing.
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LOL. I agree. Remember when Newt was speaker and they were having that big battle over the budget and Washington shut down for a few days because they couldn''t come to an agreement? Well, I think that is one of the few times in the last 30 years that I really slept soundly. I knew I didn''t to worry about the Washington idiots pulling some stunt while I slept. I wish they were only in session about three months. That would be much better for America.

[jm12997]

More from Ornstein at the American Enterprise Institute:

For Reid, the past six months have been especially frustrating because... Republicans have adopted a tactic of refusing to negotiate time agreements on a wide range of legislation, something normally done in the Senate via unanimous consent, with the two parties setting a structure for debate and amendments. Of course, many of the breakdowns have been on votes related to the Iraq War,... [on which] the Republican leaders long ago decided to try to block the Democrats at every turn to negate any edge the majority might have to seize the agenda, force the issue and put President Bush on the defensive.

But the obstructionist tactics have gone well beyond Iraq, to include things such as the 9/11 commission recommendations and the increase in the minimum wage, intelligence authorization, prescription drugs and many other issues.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell... and his deputy, Minority Whip Trent Lott ... have instead decided to create a very different standard in the Senate than we have seen before, with 60 votes now the norm for nearly all issues, instead of the exception. In our highly polarized environment, where finding the center is a desirable outcome, that is not necessarily a bad thing. But a closer examination of the way this process has worked so far suggests that more often than not, the goal of the Republican leaders is to kill legislation or delay it interminably, not find a middle and bipartisan ground.

[jm12997]

I mentioned in my last post that Schieffer and his ilk in the corporate media now fail to call a filibuster a filibuster. Now, all of a sudden, the Senate "needs 60 votes" to get anything done - it''s always been that way, right? No. Only if the opposition party filibusters EVERYTHING. There was lots of discussion about Democratic filibusters, and filibuster threats, in the 109th Congress, as well as the Republicans threatening the so-called "nuclear option" and dismantling filibusters entirely. Now there''s only mysterious silence (partially because the feckless Democrats fail to make an issue of it.

As Trent Lott told Roll Call in April, "The strategy of being obstructionist can work or fail,... and so far it''s working for us."

I recommend Norman Ornstein''s July analysis on the American Enterprise Institute website (yes, that''s the highly conservative American Enterprise Institute). Link:

http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.26506/pub_detail.asp

Quote: " This is a very different year, one on a record-shattering pace for cloture votes, one where the threat of filibuster has become routinized in a way we have not seen before. As Congressional Quarterly pointed out last week, we already have had 40 cloture votes in six-plus months; the record for a whole two-year Congress is 61."

More at the link. Definitely worth a read.

[jm12997]

Schieffer claims that this is a do-nothing Congress (true), claims that he''s "heard the excuses from both sides," and concludes that both are guilty. It''s a classic example of talking head laziness. Just as with evolution and global warming, the media claim that if they present "both sides" uncritically, then they are doing their job. (I await a similar "controversy" on the shape of the Earth: is it spheroid or flat? Stay tuned, film at 11.)

What Schieffer fails to report on is the Republican filibuster obstruction tactic, which suddenly, in the 110th Congress, is no longer being called a filibuster by Schieffer and his ilk in the corporate media.

As of 2007-11-16, there have been 56 cloture votes (attempts to end a filibuster) in the 110th Congress. That%u2019s less than halfway through the tenure of the 110th, and it%u2019s just 5 short of the 61 in the ENTIRE 107th Congress, which itself was the largest number since at least 1973 (and maybe ever). That doesn%u2019t count the additional _threatened_ filibusters from Republicans. If trends continue, the Senate will have 136 cloture votes by the end of the 110th Congress, making the Republicans of the 110th the heavyweight filibuster champions.

Schieffer could have reported on the actual facts around this "do-nothing" Congress and Republican obstructionism. But that would have required him to, you know, practice journalism.

[tylenol6]

All the democrats and ALL of the rebulicans should be
booted out of office. THAT GOES FOR SELLOUT PELOSI AND
REID who are 2 of the biggest losers. I have no idea
how these IDIOTS in congress get elected.

[tejasdemo]

I love the gridlock. Bush should get nothing. I am sick and tired of the minority view ruling the direction of my country.