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<p>Interesting thought, but I’d much rather see Nita Lowey take Hillary’s place. I thought Hillary robbed her of a Senate seat she had earned.</p>
<p>Cheers, wrt Iraq, Bush is still able to call all the shots and will do so. The Democrats will not be backed into a corner where they do something drastic like cut off funding.</p>
<p>If Iraq is not better in 2008, we’ll tie it like an anvil around the Republicans and pitch 'em into the sea, starting with John “Stay the Course” McCain.</p>
<p>And Iraq won’t be better. The government is going to be weak and ineffectual for structural reasons and there’s no “center” to hold in Iraqi society. “Stay the course” is a slogan, not a stragegy. “Win” is a goal, not a strategy. Bush just plows along, like Mr. Micawber hoping that something will turn up (and the GOP ever-faithful are like Mrs. Micawber and will never desert him).</p>
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<p>He was in my class at Harvard and in my House as well. He was (and presumably still is) a very nice guy. And like Obama, another heartwarming American success story.</p>
<p>coureur,</p>
<p>The Speaker wields some informal whip powers as a major party leader. Of course the Majority Leader has more power, but there’s some spillover.</p>
<p>NBC has called Virginia for Webb - Allen is expected to concede tomorrow. We’ve got the Senate… woo,hoo! 
:)</p>
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<p>Yeah. I love that college students are politically engaged.</p>
<p>The New Hour did two live segments last night from the lounge in Willets dorm at Swarthmore – typical backdrop of students watching election returns on a bigscreen TV.</p>
<p>Tonight’s student discussion segment was taped last night. My wife and I were joking that they must have rounded up the entire membership of the Swarthmore Young Republicans club!</p>
<p>There are photos on the main Swat webpage:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.swarthmore.edu/[/url]”>http://www.swarthmore.edu/</a></p>
<p>There is linked audio of the student discussion segment on the News Hour website:</p>
<p>In streaming Real Audio:</p>
<p><a href=“http://media.pbs.org/ramgen/newshour/expansion/2006/11/08/20061108_students28.rm?altplay=20061108_students28.rm[/url]”>http://media.pbs.org/ramgen/newshour/expansion/2006/11/08/20061108_students28.rm?altplay=20061108_students28.rm</a></p>
<p>Or downloadable MP3:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rss/media/2006/11/08/20061108_students28.mp3[/url]”>http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rss/media/2006/11/08/20061108_students28.mp3</a></p>
<p>I have an idea of a “nuclear option” regarding subsequent judicial appointments. It involves exactly much consultation and negotiation as Bush has given Democrats for the past six years.</p>
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<p>Sure, but the point is that the Speaker of the House has no power to control votes by members of the <em>Senate</em>, such as Lieberman and Tester.</p>
<p>coureur,</p>
<p>Not directly. But there are plenty of informal ways for the Speaker to make Senators’ lives more difficult.</p>
<p>Ari, as someone who has worked briefly on both sides of the Hill, I think you overstate the case. The Senate is very jealous of its prerogatives and taking guidance or flack from the Speaker of the House is not on the menu. The Senate, as compared to the House, has a higher number of prima donnas, would-be prima donnas, and people who see a future president when they look into the mirror.</p>
<p>TheDad,</p>
<p>Oh, I’m not saying that Pelosi’s going to rule the Senate with an iron fist of Democratic (big D) justice. But I think that if she’s smart, she tries to keep them in line as best as she can.</p>
<p>Of course, this is difficult, as the Senate of course does have very different interests. But, as the GOP demonstrated the past few years, it’s not impossible to align incentives.</p>
<p>Er, since the Dems now control the Senate… we don’t really need Pelosi over there, do we? (I agree with TheDad in any event that the House does not dictate to the Senate). Even though it is a razor thin edge, it gives the Dems control over all committees, which in turn controls the flow of legislation and just about any other business. </p>
<p>The one area where the House does have influence is that any piece of legislation passed by the House does get passed to the Senate – so to the extent that she can get them passed, Pelosi can jump start a lot of legislation. I think she should start with initiatives that have a lot of popular support, like the minimum wage increase and stem cell research – which will pull in a lot of Republican votes. Save the big battles for later after the new Democratic-controlled House has established some credibility in terms of its ability to be effective.</p>
<p>Pelosi is the least of Bush’s problems.</p>
<p>Carl Levin will be the new Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He argued two years ago that the US needed to give a departure date certain to the Iraqis as the only way of incentivizing them to establish some semblence of functional government (or not, if they prefered).</p>
<p>Here is his statement on Rumsfeld’s firing today. It’s loaded:</p>
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<p>I suspect that Gates better not come before the Armed Services Committee confirmation hearings with the usual “stay the course” and “humina, huminas”.</p>
<p>calmom,</p>
<p>It would be nice if things were that simple. However, due to the nature of the US’s government, the House and Senate have very different interests. I’ll use a recent example from trade.</p>
<p>The SAME GOP-dominated House and Senate had a hard time reaching an agreement on protectionism for the steel industry. The House was much more overwhelmingly in favor of tariffs (because they were usually the people who had to worry more about losing their jobs if the steel companies went under), and the Senate was much more in favor of free trade.</p>
<p>The same can happen with the Dem-controlled Congress. However, Pelosi seems to want a strong party-line run Congress, so she has her work cut out for her.</p>
<p>Party unity in the US is very weak compared to most other countries. Whereas a British PM can easily kick out a rebellious MP, it’s harder to do so in the US, due to different structures of government and logic of how we vote in our representation.</p>
<p>“Carl Levin will be the new Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He argued two years ago that the US needed to give a departure date certain to the Iraqis as the only way of incentivizing them to establish some semblence of functional government (or not, if they prefered).”</p>
<p>It’s time to quit blaming the Iraqis for U.S. failures. They didn’t set up the puppet government. They didn’t construct the green zone. They didn’t kill half a million of their own children. They aren’t responsible for Abu Ghraib. They didn’t disband the Baathist Army. They didn’t refuse to negotiate directly with Sistani. They didn’t give the reconstruction contracts to Halliburton. </p>
<p>I have favor carefully phased withdrawal. Begin on Monday. All out by Friday.</p>
<p>Meanwhile - we have to pay for it. So we should take a vote - who pays for the Republican boondoggle? We ourselves? Our children? The rich? None of the above.</p>
<p>we need to get some $$ back from Halliburton, Bechtel, etc…they have been overpaid, but gee, by how much, who knows…its alll secret</p>
<p>Peanuts in the global scheme of things. The conservative boondoggle is well over half a trillion. I want the rich to pay for it - big time! Needless to say, they didn’t supply many of the soldiers. I see no reason why I or my children should be saddled with the bill.</p>
<p>Higher taxes? You bet. MUCH higher taxes. On the rich. Those with large asset bases. </p>
<p>Someone has to pay it, and I don’t want it to be me or my kids.</p>
<p>But it will be, Mini, and you and I both know it.</p>
<p>Mini:</p>
<p>I’m not blaming the Iraqis. Levin’s argument, from early on, has been that the open-ended commitment of American forces to Iraq has, in and of itself, been an impediment to stabilization.</p>
<p>You know that I’ve complained bitterly about the US unwillingness to work with the Sistani-led Shia political majority. In fact, the moment of clarity for me was when Bush published his 100 page public report on Iraq with NO MENTION of “Sistani” or “Shia” in the narratives about the political situation in the country. I finished reading that report and knew conclusively that our government either had no clue or was intentionally lying.</p>
<p>You and I both knew that the inevitable consequence of overthrowing the Baathist regime was a Shia-led government. The “cleaner” way to get there would have been doing business with Sistani from the get go. The “ugly” way to get there is what we have now. The thing that really angers me is that our bungling has given thugs like Sadr political legitimacy.</p>
<p>If we did not want a Shia theocracy to emerge in Iraq, then we should have left Hussein in place, because his brutality was the only thing preventing that.</p>
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<p>In retrospect, the only clever idea I’ve ever heard for the immediate aftermath of the invasion was a suggestion to begin immediate direct cash payments from Iraqi oil sales to every Iraqi citizen: Kurds, Shia, and Sunni. This would have not only helped jumpstart a post-invasion economy, but would have given a real stake for every Iraqi in some semblence of functioning stability. Ideology is all fine and dandy, but cash money is cash money. As NFL players always say when negotiating multi-million dollar contracts, “gotta feed my family”. That’s a universal language.</p>
<p>mini,</p>
<p>Overtaxing the rich would probably lead to more problems in the economy than it would solve. Tightening the belt a little won’t hurt, of course. But a loosey-goosey “eat the rich” sort of plan could have seriously negative effects on the economy.</p>
<p>I say we put a government into power that won’t run a decade long deficit. Oh, how I dream.</p>