"The last time Senate Democrats found themselves taking the blame for a government shutdown, they quickly caved..."

"... and raced to reopen federal agencies in 2018, as their more moderate members demanded a fast resolution after only three days. This shutdown could be different. The Democrats from red states who decried the shutdown strategy as a foolish miscalculation and pressed for an immediate reversal in the showdown with President Trump seven years ago are long gone. The ideological makeup of the party has shifted to the left, and Democrats are now bracing for an extended confrontation with the White House and congressional Republicans, despite the clear political risks. The same dynamic is at play in the G.O.P., which has lurched to the right under Mr. Trump and no longer sees room for compromise."

Writes Carl Hulse, in "Democrats See No Need to Capitulate, Nor Republicans to Cut a Deal/The last time Senate Democrats found themselves taking the blame for a government shutdown, they quickly caved. That’s less likely to happen now" (NYT).

How does spending some time in shutdown achieve anything? Doesn't everyone know everything they need to know before the shutdown even begins? Are they just waiting to annoy and otherwise torment us so they can then poll us to see who we blame? I think they already know that everyone blames the party they started out disliking more. Nevertheless, we must endure the bad political theater.

"President Trump was probably never going to be impeached by the House of Representatives before the 2020 elections."

"The testimony by Robert S. Mueller III, the former special counsel, makes that a near certainty," concludes Carl Hulse of the NYT:

The absence of an electrifying Washington moment in Wednesday’s two-stage testimony by Mr. Mueller not only deprived Democrats of the crystallizing episode they needed to drive public opinion on impeachment, but it also meant Republicans had no reason to budge from their anti-impeachment stance....

... Speaker Nancy Pelosi... has consistently said that she would allow the House to take it up only if there was bipartisan sentiment to open an inquiry. “Bipartisan” in that sense doesn’t mean most Republicans would have to be on board, but at least a few public backers would be required to give a bipartisan veneer to the highly charged proceedings.

Absolutely none surfaced after the hearings....

[T]he majority of House Democrats remain on the fence about impeachment — last week they split 137 to 95 against a symbolic impeachment vote. After the Mueller testimony, just one Democrat, Representative Lori Trahan of Massachusetts, immediately joined the call for at least beginning an impeachment inquiry, hardly the flood pro-impeachment lawmakers had hoped would be spurred by Mr. Mueller.

After a private party meeting, Ms. Pelosi pushed back against the argument by some of her colleagues that the stage had been set for beginning an impeachment inquiry. “I don’t know why they thought that,” said the speaker.... Privately, top Democrats said they viewed Mr. Mueller’s terse and occasionally halting testimony as a “nothingburger” that did not move the impeachment needle at all....

This might be the most positive presentation of Trump I've ever seen in the New York Times.

This is the lead article at the NYT website right now:

A single author, Carl Hulse, begins:

The trick in Washington has always been to make sure a government shutdown is pinned on the other guy. President Trump is the first to ever pin one on himself.

In a new twist on the old game of shutdown politics dating to the 1990s, Mr. Trump was essentially goaded on Tuesday by Representative Nancy Pelosi of California and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York into embracing ownership of a shutdown yet to come if Democrats do not accede to his request for $5 billion to build a wall on the southern border with Mexico.

Pelosi and Schumer "goaded" him into that position? I read it as: Trump surprised Pelosi and Schumer with a move that they had no planned response for. Trump took the lead. In Hulse's telling, Trump was pushed.

“I will take the mantle,” Mr. Trump told the two Democratic leaders in the Oval Office, saying he would proudly close parts of the executive branch if he did not get his way. “I’m not going to blame you for it,” he continued. “The last time you shut it down, it didn’t work. I will take the mantle of shutting down, and I’m going to shut it down for border security.”

A smiling Mr. Schumer seemed more than satisfied with Mr. Trump’s retort. “O.K., fair enough,” he said.

So Schumer subtly enjoyed a little victory. In a good negotiation, perhaps, you get the other guy to feel buoyed by a sense of winning. But who's who? They can't all win, can they?

The moment was a little reminiscent of the climactic scene in “A Few Good Men,” when Tom Cruise’s character elicits an incriminating answer from Jack Nicholson’s Marine colonel. In this case, Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Schumer were more than happy to handle the president’s truth. Ms. Pelosi couldn’t say the term “Trump shutdown” enough times.

If I had just written "Mr. Schumer seemed more than satisfied," I would not proceed to say "Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Schumer were more than happy." ("More than happy" is especially bad. It's a cliché, and for some of us, it's a cue to go looking for that old George Carlin clip.)

Anyway, casting Nancy and Chuck as Tom Cruise is a funny image. Remember, though, "A Few Good Men" is a movie, with a script that determined the ending. In the Nancy/Chuck versus Donald showdown, the American people will get whatever ideas they want — massaged by the media they select.

What I notice is that Trump played the media yesterday. He kept a negotiation going on in front of the cameras, even as Pelosi requested that the press go away. The media might like to take direction from Pelosi, but they're not going to turn away from the fantastic theater that Trump was putting on for them. Now, the video is out there, and the only thing the media can do is interpret and frame. The NYT idea is that Pelosi and Schumer were running the show. If they were, why were they the ones who wanted the cameras turned off?

In the 7th paragraph, Hulse says the things that suit the Trump-positive headline ("Playing by His Own Rules, Trump Flips the Shutdown Script"):

Mr. Trump has consistently played by his own rules in Washington, and perhaps this is just one more example of how he can upend the conventions of the capital and win a shutdown showdown on his own terms. Many of his most enthusiastic supporters are both anti-Washington and pro-border wall, so his decision to potentially close down a section of the federal government to secure funding for the wall could play well with them. It could also generate some welcome backing from his base at a time when he seems under siege on the legal end and is struggling to staff his administration as the two-year mark nears. In addition, the 2020 campaign is already on the president’s mind, and his efforts to limit immigration have worked for him in the past....

Politicians with more experience in government shutdowns aren’t so sure that is a good idea....

I know! We've been hearing from Politicians With More Experience ever since Trump brought his unique instincts into their domain. As Trump likes to say, we'll see what happens.

"Senate consideration of a nominee under these circumstances is not fair to the president, to the nominee, or to the Senate itself."

"Where the nation should be treated to a consideration of constitutional philosophy, all it will get in such circumstances is partisan bickering and political posturing from both parties and from both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue."

Said Joe Biden in June of the election year 1992, when he was chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the President was the Republican George H.S. Bush.

I didn't need that quote to know that it's a partisan power struggle — wrapped up in legal mystification — and if the parties were reversed the Democratic Senators would be saying what the GOP Senators are saying and the Republican President would be saying what the Democratic President is saying.

But I think it can help some people focus on reality... even as I believe that current political interest is a far stronger force than the search for the truth.

ADDED: The NYT front page highlights the Biden remarks as a "potential disaster":



Notice how the Times assumes the reader is on Obama's side on this, as it fails to add "for Obama" or "for Democrats" to "potential disaster." The link goes to a forum titled "Battle for the Supreme Court: Our Insiders’ Guide," and with comments by various NYT reporters. Michael D. Shear says:

For President Obama, it is a potential disaster. He and his Democratic allies had been carefully executing a pressure campaign aimed at shaming Republicans for vowing to block consideration of a nominee to replace Justice Scalia, but the emergence of a 24-year-old video on Monday throws into doubt the effectiveness of that strategy.

Carl Hulse says "Democrats may have taken one on the chin over the old video of Mr. Biden," but once Obama comes out with an actual nominee, the subject will change. That seems like a concession that Democrats have lost on the abstract point that the Senate has a duty not to obstruct.

"Democrats are bailing out on the word 'stimulus.'"

Writes Carl Hulse.

In a notable shift, Congressional leaders and officials of the incoming Obama administration are actively trying to retire that term and use the more marketable “economic recovery program” as the descriptor for the multibillion-dollar economic initiative to be considered early next year.

Is this just label-changing? "Recovery" -- is the result you want, the end as opposed to the means. No, no, no, it's a recovery program. The means is a program.

The change in emphasis reflects a realization that words matter. Architects of the $700 billion Treasury Department program concluded too late that something unabashedly promoted as a Wall Street “bailout” conjured images of well-heeled suspects sprung from jail or water feverishly tossed from a rapidly filling boat.

And it made everyone want one.

And “stimulus” — a buzzword from earlier this year — combines bureaucratic wonkiness with the concept of shock therapy, Democrats worried....

Combining bureaucratic wonkiness with the concept of shock therapy... hmmm....

How Bush won the confrontation over Iraq....

Carl Hulse writes:

Democrats said they did not relish the prospect of leaving Washington for a Memorial Day break — the second recess since the financing fight began — and leaving themselves vulnerable to White House attacks that they were again on vacation while the troops were wanting. That criticism seemed more politically threatening to them than the anger Democrats knew they would draw from the left by bowing to Mr. Bush.

Some lawmakers favored sending Mr. Bush another bill with a timetable for withdrawal and risking a second veto, the senior Democrats said. But they said they had questioned whether such a measure could pass the Senate a second time, raising the possibility that Congress would be left sitting on the bill and carrying the blame....

In allowing the war money measure to reach the floor with indifferent backing from her own party, Ms. Pelosi is breaking one of the cardinal rules of her predecessor, J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, whose mantra was to legislate with the majority of the majority party.

The discord, among Republicans, over the detainees legislation.

Carl Hulse at the NYT highlights the problem this presents for the fall elections:

Instead of drawing contrasts with Democrats, the president’s call for creating military tribunals to try terror suspects — a key substantive and political component of his fall agenda — has erupted into a remarkably intense clash pitting some of the best-known warriors in the Republican Party against Mr. Bush and the Congressional leadership....

Democrats have so far remained on the sidelines, sidestepping Republican efforts to draw them into a fight over Mr. Bush’s leadership on national security heading toward the midterm election. Democrats are rapt spectators, however, shielded by the stern opposition to the president being expressed by three Republicans with impeccable credentials on military matters: Senators John McCain of Arizona, John W. Warner of Virginia and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. The three were joined on Thursday by Colin L. Powell, formerly the secretary of state and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in challenging the administration’s approach....

Republicans concede that the fight among themselves is a major political distraction, particularly given the credentials of the Republican opposition, led by Mr. McCain, the former prisoner of war in Vietnam who was tortured in captivity....

House Republicans say the Senate plan is misguided and will hobble the American military. Representative Duncan Hunter, Republican of California and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said it would lead to “the lawyer brigade” being attached to combat troops to counsel detainees.

Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York and chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, said: “I just think John McCain is wrong on this. If we capture bin Laden tomorrow and we have to hold his head under water to find out when the next attack is going to happen, we ought to be able to do it.”

I think it is good for congressional Republicans -- however it affects them in the elections -- to think and debate independently of the President. And I wonder how much they really "concede" this is a "distraction" for them. It looked as though they wanted to spend this time distinguishing themselves from the Democrats and driving home the message that Democrats don't care enough about national defense. But if they'd all just gotten into line and done exactly what the President wants, it would firm up the Democrats argument that the congressional Republicans are just following the President, that they don't exercise any significant oversight, and that they've lost track of American values of fairness and decency.

For the Republicans to debate among themselves should make a positive impression on people: it shows that they aren't mere puppets of the President, that they are taking the entire controversy seriously, and that they are not merely suckers for every national security argument that comes along but are capable of weighing the countervailing factors competently.

The Democrats, it seems to me, have to convince us that unless they gain substantial power in Congress, important values will go unserved. You know those Republicans. They'll lunge blindly forward at every mention of the phrase "national security." But if the Republicans themselves demonstrate their ability to weigh all the considerations in a sophisticated and mature fashion, there's much less reason to want to empower Democrats, who -- we may fear -- will only undervalue national security and fall prey to excessive enthusiasm for protecting the enemy.

So I think that despite the discord among the Republicans, a contrast between Republicans and Democrats is being drawn, and it may -- perhaps unintentionally -- make Republicans more palatable to moderate voters in the next election. And then there is '08... and McCain is inspiring respect right now.

ADDED: The linked article is attracting commentary, some bloggers are stating opposition to the President's proposal, and some, like me, address the political dynamics. Rightwing Nuthouse says:

[T[he fact that the debate is taking place almost solely and exclusively among Republicans and conservatives says volumes about the cynicism and lack of courage on the part of Democrats in both houses of Congress.

It's hard to resists standing back and letting your opponents beat each other up, but, as I've said, you risk looking irrelevant or worse. Here's Matthew Yglesias:

[B]y relying on McCain et. al. to do the heavily lifting, Democrats are essentially denying themselves the possiblity of reaping whatever rewards may exist for standing up for basic decency and morality against Bush's depredations....

[I]f you worry that liberals are timid and easily frightened, well, then this is some fairly timid and frightened-looking behavior....

There's also the fact that it means something different when Republicans stand up to the President and when they back off a step from national security. The Democrats can't do the same thing. They've been opposing Bush for everything they can think of for the longest time, and they have a reputation for undervaluing national security that they would only call more attention to. So they're keeping a low profile, and, as Yglesias says, looking pretty timid and scared.

CORRECTION NOTED: A commenter shames me out of using "forefront" as a verb, a problem I'd never given one second of thought to before. The dictionary doesn't support it, and Googling "forefronting," I get only 10 hits. But it should be a verb, and maybe if I'd left it, I'd get to be the quote in the OED for "forefront" as a verb, if the OED counted bloggers, I mean, which it'd be a fool to do. Anyway, "front" is a verb, and "forego" is a verb. QED.

The congressional downward spiral.

Carl Hulse, in the NYT, writes about Congress's declining public image:

"... both Senate Republicans and Democrats have seen drops in brand images," said a memorandum from the Senate Republican Conference, "but Democrats are losing much more ground than we are."

Democrats and others dispute that notion, saying that Republicans - as members of the party controlling the White House as well as the House and Senate - are suffering the most and will pay the higher political price if the negative view persists into the next election cycle.

Yes, it does seem that each party imagines the other is going to take the brunt of the damage.

I think I'd almost rather look at the pictures of Saddam in his underpants than watch Congress these days.

"I'm really elated, and I think most judges will be, too."

Instead of puzzling through the Supreme Court's knotty opinion in the Sentencing Guidelines case, let's look at how judges are reacting to it:

"I'm really elated, and I think most judges will be, too," Judge Jack B. Weinstein of Federal District Court in Brooklyn said. "It gives us the discretion to deal with individual cases without being unnecessarily harsh. This is now, if Congress leaves it, a marvelous system."

So, the inquiry turns to Congress. What are the pressures and motivations here?

The Supreme Court has taken a constitutional flaw in the Guidelines (which were meant to restrict judges) and fashioned a remedy that keeps the Guidelines in some sense but restores discretion in sentencing to the judges. The judges are "elated," but Congress may want to reassert its control over the judges.

As noted in the linked article (by Carl Hulse and Adam Liptak in the NYT), just last year Congress started requiring the United States Sentencing Commission to feed it information about which federal judges weren't following the Guidelines, an attempt to control those terrible federal judges who have the audacity to imagine that they occupy an independent branch of the federal government supposedly accountable to something they arrogantly call "law" and not to the will of Congress.

So here we go into a new season of judge-bashing (and, from the other side, judge-defending), which should go quite nicely with whatever new judicial nominations may happen to come up.

Delightfully roiling the metaphors, Carl Hulse writes in the NYT:

Momentum, the holy grail of political campaigns, is evidently spreading through the Democratic presidential candidates like the flu.

You'd think the Presidency itself would count as the holy grail. (Maybe drop the "holy" part.)

And if it's something to be desired, how is it like the flu? The point is everyone wants momentum, but what's "spreading ... like the flu" is claiming to have momentum. Once again, writers like to cram a lot of material into a single sentence. Writing two sentences is something they resist like the flu, which is not as bad as the plague.

"We have a ton of momentum," said a spokesman for Representative Gephardt, of Missouri.

Seems like a ton would weigh you down.

More from Hulse:

Candidates crave momentum and hope to ride it like a wave. The problem is that it is difficult to gauge who is actually moving forward and who is engaged in wishful thinking. The laws of physics would seem to preclude everyone from having momentum simultaneously.

I'm no physicist, but it seems to me that if Kerry, Gephardt, Dean, Edwards, and Lieberman tucked into the summersault position at the top of a hill, momentum would simultaneously favor them all. They could all also "ride ... a wave" simultaneously, and I for one would be interested in following their choice of surfwear.

Hulse also treats us to a great old momentum quote--from Old Bush:

It was the first George Bush who shook hands with what he called "Big Mo" after he won the Iowa caucuses in 1980. "I suppose I am out of the pack," he said in a classic bit of political analysis, "but they will be after me, howling and yowling at my heels. What we will have is momentum. We will look forward to Big Mo being on our side, as they say in athletics."

I pause for a moment of Old Bush nostalgia. Who else could talk like that, coming up with "Big Mo," then calling sports "athletics"?