More Practical, Centrist Compromise From Democrats

Whether out of fear of being called bad names by George Bush and the usual pundits, or out of desire just to get everything wrapped up by the Christmas break, our courageous congressional Democrats have again made the practical choice with popular legislation facing threats of vetoes from a hugely unpopular President... and caved. Here is a headline from the past few days that just feels like a big lump of coal in my holiday stocking.

Washington Post: Democrats Bow to Bush's Demands in House Spending Bill

House Democratic leaders yesterday agreed to meet President Bush's bottom-line spending limit on a sprawling, half-trillion-dollar domestic spending bill, dropping their demands for as much as $22 billion in additional spending but vowing to shift funds from the president's priorities to theirs...

...The agreement signaled that congressional Democrats are ready to give in to many of the White House's demands as they try to finish the session before they break for Christmas -- a political victory for the president, who has refused to compromise on the spending measures...

The Democratic defense seems to be that, while they are caving, they are caving on their terms instead of Bush's. They promise that "the final bill will reflect their priorities, if not their preferred funding -- 'the president's number, our priorities,'" Pelosi says. That's a low bar in terms of silver linings.

Oh, and about that energy bill-

The Senate passed a trimmed-back energy bill Thursday that would bring higher-gas mileage cars and SUVs into showrooms in the coming decade and fill their tanks with ethanol.

The measure was approved with strong bipartisan support 86-8 after Democrats abandoned efforts to impose billions of dollars in new taxes on the biggest oil companies, unable by one vote to overcome a Republican filibuster against the new taxes.

The bill now goes to the House where a vote is expected next week. The White House issued a statement saying President Bush will sign the legislation if it reaches his desk, as is expected. Bush had promised a veto if the oil industry taxes were not removed.

To give you an idea of how crazy things are in the Senate these days, the original, non-trimmed version of the bill had 59 votes, an obvious majority. But that's one vote shy of what is needed to pass the cloture vote (filibusters without the actual filibustering) threshold. So what did Sen. Reid do? Postpone the final voting for a day or two while he finagled that one final GOP vote he needed? Nope. He just said 'the hell with it' and stripped down the bill so he can get it passed quickly.

Hey, it's the weekend... people wanna go home! Sorry, environment!

And on another front, the same day as the super-independent new Attorney General worked "to delay congressional inquiries into the CIA's destruction of interrogation videotapes," and as Senate Republicans blocked the new anti-torture bill, Sen. Reid realized he needed to respond. With a choice between two versions of the FISA bill, he has chosen to move forward the one... that gives the White House what they wanted, including retroactive immunity for telecom companies. You can understand, given the cooperation they're getting from Bush and the Justice Department on all this, why he would do them this favor.

These 'compromises' from the Democrats came, as you'll recall, in the same week as the President compromised and signed the S-CHIP expansion vetoed S-CHIP again, and the House found time to pass (372 to 9) a bill "Recognizing the importance of Christmas and the Christian faith." That's what the Democrats got in return for all this.

I have to imagine that the current congressional leaders understand why their branch collectively has a lower approval rating than the much-hated President. It's because no one expects any better from Bush at this point (and he has a solid quarter of the country who will support him come hell or high water... the latter of which was proven in September '05). We did, however, expect better from Congress, who really appeared by the end of 2006 to learn how to fight back. Instead, they have just allowed the Republicans to run over them due to a lack of political savvy and courage.

I am hopeful for more (and mostly, better) Democrats after 2008 to cut through this mess (when we won't have Bush around threatening vetoes to everything). But that's a year away. Until then, Pelosi and Reid-- mostly the latter-- need to learn how to fight for every vote, or step aside for a colleague who will.