As both a public service and an educational experience, we present the All-New Kabuki Govt Show starring your favorite members of both corporate political parties.
In this corner President Obama and the conservaDem Senate:
Here's how it works.
Pres Obama takes a hiding from people for promoting Bushian policies and giving away the store to the M/IC (military/industrial complex), Goldman Sachs/Wall Street, or - in this case - private health insurance corpo's. He then makes a stirring speech announcing plans to restrict predatory practices/cost over-runs/CEO salaries, whatever may be the outrage-of-the-moment according to the Village.
President Obama will propose on Monday giving the federal government new power to block excessive rate increases by health insurance companies, as he rolls out comprehensive legislation to revamp the nation's health care system, White House officials said Sunday.
The president's legislation aims to bridge differences between the bills adopted by the House and Senate late last year, and to frame his debate with Republicans over health policy at a televised meeting on Thursday.
By focusing on the effort to tighten regulation of insurance costs, a new element not included in either the House or Senate bills, Mr. Obama is seizing on outrage over recent premium increases of up to 39 percent announced by Anthem Blue Cross of California and moving to portray the Democrats' health overhaul as a way to protect Americans from profiteering insurers.
Tightening the regs is an idea that has already been dumped by Senate conservaDems, which Obama well knows. And it will be again, which he also knows he can count on. So he gets all the perks of "seizing on outrage" with none of the danger of actually, maybe, having to deliver on his promise, which he knows the reliable conservaDems in the Senate will safely scotch before Rahm's and Harry's and Max's and Blanche's biggest contributors are forced to decide to threaten that they will have to financially support the other party, however reluctantly, because they simply won't give up stealing because if they can't steal, their profits will plummet and investors won't like them any more.
Of course, the chances that these corpo's would actually voluntarily tie themselves to a party that is manifestly full of idiots on a collision course with a massive brick wall and a very short future is extremely unlikely, but never mind. The threat will be enough. After all, $$$ talks and BS walks, and the conservaDems are nothing if not consistently full of BS. So for corpo-friendly Obama, it is a win-win strategy. By the time everybody figures out that no restrictions ever actually happened, his partisans will already have spread the glad tidings that they're on the way. That they were promptly derailed and never actually arrived will be ignored, forgiven and forgotten.
And in this corner, the GOP version:
Here's how it works.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the GOP leadership, stinging from the perception that they are obstructionist assholes, the Party of No and all that, make believe that there may be some Democrat bill they will vote for so that, for a moment, they don't sound like the obstructionist assholes they are.
The Senate is scheduled to vote Monday on whether to cut off debate on a slimmed-down version of a jobs bill, devised by the majority leader, Senator Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada.
The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said Republicans "may well" vote for the bill, though they want to have an opportunity to debate and amend it.
Mr McConnell is currently making the rounds of the major conservative media insisting that the GOP is NOT obstructionist, which, along with numbers, pretty much proves that it is. (Via Norwegianity )
Today on Fox News Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) tried to insist that his party has not been obstructionist. To prove his point, he quoted recent remarks by President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV):
McCONNELL: Look, in terms of whether or not we're at a gridlock, I would like to quote the President of the United States himself, who said just a couple of months ago, "If we stop today" - this is the President - "If we stop today, this legislative session would have been one of the most productive in a generation."
My counterpart, the Democratic leader, just last month in the first half of the 111th Congress: "We made significant progress. It is a long list of accomplishments." [...]
MCCONNELL: [T]hey're trying to spin the notion that we are stymieing everything they're doing. It is simply not true based on the president's own words.
Except, of course, that it is true.
Any progress Congress has made has been in spite of most Republican lawmakers, not because of them. Republicans in the Senate, led by McConnell, have "threatened to filibuster at least 100 pieces of legislation this session, far more than any other since the procedural tactic was invented," aggressively trying to block more than just major legislation on health care and energy. They have tried to hold up Obama's well-qualified nominees for political reasons, voted against pay-as-you-go rules (despite Republican support for the measure in the past and the GOP's supposed interest in fiscal responsibility), flip-flopped on support for a deficit commission, and whined when Reid scrapped a jobs bill that the GOP said would "not create one job."
So when Mr McConnell says "they want to have an opportunity to debate and amend it" what he means is that they're going to put on their own version of a kabuki by pretending to be amenable to reason and then finding lame excuses to obstruct whatever Obama does, whining "But we tried!" when they vote No in unison once again. (Really, the Republican synchronized voting routine should be featured as an Olympic event; it would be more interesting than gymnastics anyway.)
Thus governing (or, perhaps, non-governing) by kabuki. Everybody hates them so they have to pretend they're not doing what everybody hates them for doing, but they can't actually stop doing what everybody hates them for doing because their bosses wouldn't like it and might stop paying their salaries.
It's entertainment and entertainment is all you're gonna get so you might as well enjoy the spectacle! the romance! the bare-chested, knuckle-dusting hissy fits!
Remember: they're doing it all for you.
UPDATE: (2.23.10) Glenn Greenwald takes this even further, explaining how the Dem leadership uses specific tricks, like the Villain Rotation.
This is what the Democratic Party does; it's who they are. They're willing to feign support for anything their voters want just as long as there's no chance that they can pass it. They won control of Congress in the 2006 midterm elections by pretending they wanted to compel an end to the Iraq War and Bush surveillance and interrogation abuses because they knew they would not actually do so; and indeed, once they were given the majority, the Democratic-controlled Congress continued to fund the war without conditions, to legalize Bush's eavesdropping program, and to do nothing to stop Bush's habeas and interrogation abuses ("Gosh, what can we do? We just don't have 60 votes).
The primary tactic in this game is Villain Rotation. They always have a handful of Democratic Senators announce that they will be the ones to deviate this time from the ostensible party position and impede success, but the designated Villain constantly shifts, so the Party itself can claim it supports these measures while an always-changing handful of their members invariably prevent it. One minute, it's Jay Rockefeller as the Prime Villain leading the way in protecting Bush surveillance programs and demanding telecom immunity; the next minute, it's Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer joining hands and "breaking with their party" to ensure Michael Mukasey's confirmation as Attorney General; then it's Big Bad Joe Lieberman single-handedly blocking Medicare expansion; then it's Blanche Lincoln and Jim Webb joining with Lindsey Graham to support the de-funding of civilian trials for Terrorists; and now that they can't blame Lieberman or Ben Nelson any longer on health care (since they don't need 60 votes), Jay Rockefeller voluntarily returns to the Villain Role, stepping up to put an end to the pretend-movement among Senate Democrats to enact the public option via reconciliation.
Forewarned is forearmed, or so they say.
UPDATE 2: (12.15pm) 90% want change and why they still aren't going to get it. (Via Norwegianity)
It is a testament to the duopoly that the two parties can use their own failure to their advantage. The theory is that, if you object to the current status, you (and your party) cannot be part of the problem. Evan Bayh even blames it on "testosterone poisoning" while appearing with other politicians who have helped maintain the system, here. You will notice that none of these Republicans or Democrats are speaking of changing the structure of the political system - only the characters and "environment."
Can you think of one issue that almost 90 percent of Americans agree on in terms of reform? Yet, it is likely that no real change will occur due to the monopoly of power by the two parties.
Not "likely". At this point, certain. Time for a third party. (But you've heard that before.)
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