July 31, 2009

7/31: It's Max Against The World

It's another day in the liberal blogosphere, which means another round of attacks on Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) and his gang of six. The netroots are currently buzzing about Sen. Mike Enzi's (R-WY) declaration that he will only support Baucus's compromise health care bill if he receives "commitments" from Dem leaders that this bill will be the one that Pres. Obama ultimately signs. Lefty bloggers are describing Enzi's demand as "arrogant and laughably absurd." David Dayen writes: "Mike Enzi's conception of government is this: Mike Enzi agrees to a compromise with 6% of the total Senate representing 2.8% of the population, and it becomes law." The netroots see Enzi's statement as further evidence that Baucus is making a mistake by giving so much leverage to conservative GOPers such as Enzi.

Meanwhile, liberal bloggers continue to urge Senate Dems to follow through on Sen. Tom Harkin's (D-IA) implied threat to take away Baucus's chairmanship of the Finance Committee. One blogger declares: "Baucus has been bought and paid for by industries that want to block real reform, and his fellow Senate Democrats are the only people who can strip him of the power to block real reform." However, Baucus doesn't seem to care what his Dem colleagues think, especially now that he's told reporters that he's undecided about whether or not he'll vote to confirm SCOTUS nominee Sonia Sotomayor.

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Liberal bloggers (Sudbay, Attaturk, McCarter) are buzzing about reports that Blue Dog Dems have received substantial donations from the health care and insurance sectors this year. Lefty bloggers (Sudbay, Hamsher, McCarter) are pleased that Progressive Dems are pushing back against the Blue Dogs, although Ezra Klein thinks the stand-off between the two groups is "a bit unsettling" since "it's not exactly clear where this leaves the bill."
• While most conservative bloggers believe that Obama was born in the U.S., some (McCarthy, Steyn, Hillyer) believe that the controversy over his birth certificate is still a relevant issue. Other righty bloggers (Williamson, Klein) disagree. Meanwhile, liberal bloggers (Kleefeld, Goldstein, Moulitsas, Benen) are buzzing about a new Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll which finds that only 42% of GOPers believe that Obama was born in the U.S.
• Conservative bloggers (Malkin, Allahpundit, McCain, Jessup) are mocking the Obama admin. now that its "cash-for-clunkers" program is reportedly running out of money.
• Conservative bloggers (hogan, Erickson) are blasting Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) for announcing that he'll vote to confirm Sotomayor.

ENZI: Talk About Chutzpah!

Liberal bloggers are blasting Enzi for declaring that he will only support Baucus's compromise bill if the Dem leadership promises that his priorities will be included in the bill that Obama ultimately signs:

"With liberal Democrats on and off the Finance Committee already angling to pull the measure to the left when it is combined with a rival passed by the Health Committee, Enzi indicated his support is contingent on Democratic leaders leaving any Finance Committee agreement intact.

'I also need commitments from Sen. [Harry] Reid and Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi, as well as the administration, that the bipartisan agreements reached in the Finance Committee will survive in a final bill that goes to the president,' Enzi said."

Lefty bloggers believe that Enzi's demand is absurd:

• dday: "Mike Enzi's conception of government is this: Mike Enzi agrees to a compromise with 6% of the total Senate representing 2.8% of the population, and it becomes law."
• Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher: "Enzi will only agree to a deal if the Senate Majority Leader and the Speaker of the House agree to override the entire Congressional legislative process, kiss his ring and send the bill he endorses straight to the President. Well, that's certainly reasonable. . . if you're a dictator in some banana republic."
• The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "I'll gladly give Enzi credit for having chutzpah. But as a serious proposition, this is almost comical. [...] Enzi's little club features just six senators -- no liberals, no senators representing urban areas -- who represent less than 3% of the U.S. population. The gang has already abandoned key policy priorities of the president, the majority party, and the public, and is putting the finishing work on an inadequate piece of legislation. And Enzi expects -- indeed, he demands -- that no one touch his group's work once it's complete? Please."
• Open Left's Mike Lux: "With this arrogant and laughably absurd statement (we will only consider exactly what I agree to and no more), Mike Enzi has finally made clear what a lot of us have been saying to Max Baucus all along: the Republicans are never going to deal in good faith, and this idea of a bipartisan bill is not going to happen. Democrats should move quickly now to pass a bill out of committee, and then go to the floor with a Democratic bill, and bone-crunching party discipline should be applied to get us past a filibuster attempt. It is time to move forward with a bill, end of story."

Meanwhile, FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver argues that it's counter-productive for Baucus to negotiate with conservative GOPers like Enzi and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA): "[Grassley] has almost no reason to compromise on any points of substance. At best, he's probably somewhat indifferent between a weak health care bill passing and the whole enterprise failing apart; that's a very dangerous person to be negotiating with. The same thing certainly goes for Mike Enzi, who is more conservative than Grassley and hails from a much redder state. [...] Instead of Grassley and Enzi, Baucus should be sitting in a room with [NE Sen.] Ben Nelson and [LA Sen.] Mary Landireu -- and maybe [ME Sen.] Olympia Snowe. Those are the swing votes -- the pressure points -- the people with whom there's actually something to be neogtiated. If Grassley wants to come in and snack on beef jerky and spitball a few ideas, then sure -- door's always open. But I don't know what good he's doing the Democrats by being given so leverage over the process."

BAUCUS: Take Away His Gavel!

Liberal bloggers are furious with the way that Baucus has conducted himself during the health care debate, and they're pushing for Senate Dems to follow through on Harkin's implied threat and take away Baucus's chairmanship of the Finance Committee:

• Benen: "When it comes to health care, there are some strong Democratic voices on the Finance Committee, including John Kerry [D-MA], Debbie Stabenow [D-MI], Chuck Schumer [D-NY], Maria Cantwell [D-WA], and John Rockefeller [D-WV], but they're not invited to the negotiating table. It's Baucus who's in the lead, and it's Baucus who won't advance reform until he can win over some conservative senators. [...] The chairman doesn't seem especially concerned about pushback from Montana voters, but if it's his Democratic colleagues who have his chairmanship in their hands, perhaps he'd be more amenable to his party's agenda?"
• MyDD's desmoinesdem: "Baucus has been bought and paid for by industries that want to block real reform, and his fellow Senate Democrats are the only people who can strip him of the power to block real reform. If they reject his bill and take away his gavel, there's a chance of passing a strong bill next year through the reconciliation process. This approach carries some political risks and will force Obama to be more engaged in the Congressional negotiations than he has so far. But that is better than letting Baucus ruin our best chance for health care reform in a generation."
• Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas: "Republicans have instituted term limits for their chairman, meaning they can't monopolize top committees for decades and giving other members of their caucus a chance to hold leadership positions. Democrats, on the other hand, work on a seniority system that rewards the longest-serving members and converts them into corrupt, arrogant and unaccountable autocrats. There's no better example of this dynamic in action than Sen. Max Baucus and his Senate Finance Committee, where he and three of his best buddies are working to overrule the will of the entire House and virtually the entire Democratic caucus in the Senate while vacuuming up huge dollars from his lobbyist friends. But he doesn't give a shit, because there's nothing anyone else can do about it. Except that some in the Democratic caucus are tiring of this arrangement. [...] Senate Dems should absolutely get this done. Any Democrat who doesn't have a chairmanship should want to vote for this. They outnumber the committee chairs."

Baucus further angered liberal bloggers when he told The Hill that he has "no idea" whether or not he'll vote to confirm Sotomayor:

• Sudbay: "In case we needed more reasons to loathe Max Baucus, he hasn't decided what to do on Sotomayor's confirmation. [...T]his episode gives further proof that Baucus shouldn't be the Chair on an important committee. He can't be trusted."
• MyDD's Charles Lemos: "While I am sure that Senator Baucus will come to his senses, his indecision is nonetheless rather disconcerting."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Why Max Baucus Needed Ted Kennedy

The Washington Post's Ezra Klein:

"When I was researching my own profile of Max Baucus, a Finance Committee source made an interesting point to me. Baucus, she said, has a very similar legislative approach to [MA Sen.] Ted Kennedy. He has long relationships with Republican senators. He has an overwhelming instinct to cut a deal. But they are viewed differently. If Baucus had been President [George W.] Bush's partner on No Child Left Behind, for instance, it would be part of the case against him. But Kennedy was the president's partner on that, and suffered no blow to his liberal credibility. Kennedy is beyond reproach because he's Kennedy.

This, however, gets to this question of work and leadership. Kennedy has, over the years, given people on both sides of the aisle a pretty clear sense of his core values. So too have other liberal dealmakers, like [CA Rep.] Henry Waxman, and conservative dealmakers, like [UT Sen.] Orrin Hatch. So when Kennedy cuts a deal that seems to diverge from his principles, there's an underlying sense of trust that that was the best deal he could get. The problem for Baucus right now is that few trust him, or have a real sense of his core principles. He doesn't have the credibility to cut the deal on behalf of the liberals. If Kennedy walked out of that room with a weak public plan but excellent coverage provisions, a lot of liberals would be willing to accept his explanation. If Baucus announces the same deal, he will enjoy no similar forbearance.

Which gets to one of the problems with Kennedy's absence. I'm not one who believes any particular legislator is indispensable to the process. But it was very common for Hill staffers to tell me that Baucus and Kennedy understood each other's roles in health-care reform. Baucus needed Kennedy to bring the liberals on board and Kennedy needed Baucus to negotiate with the moderates. Without Kennedy, though, you just have Baucus negotiating with the moderates, which has left liberals increasingly angry at the process and mistrustful of the final product."

LEST WE FORGET: Pentagon Loses Hard Drive With All The Movies On It

From The Onion:

"WASHINGTON -- In what they described as one of the U.S. military's 'most serious' security breaches to date, Pentagon officials acknowledged Friday that they could not confirm the whereabouts of a LaCie d2 Quadra external hard drive containing nearly 500 gigabytes of crucial materials, including all their favorite movies and several seasons of Entourage. 'It could take months to recover the critical information we have lost,' announced Adm. Michael Mullen, adding that the hard drive represents nearly 200 man-hours of confidential downloads. 'All we've got left now is Brig. Gen. Nowak's DVD boxed set of The Lord Of The Rings and YouTube.' The department's inspector general has vowed a full investigation, and military police have tightened security around other stores of highly sensitive data, including the file cabinet with all the takeout menus."

Posted by Ian Faerstein at July 31, 2009 12:33 PM