The Rotunda Turns

This morning Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are the two most vilified people in the Democratic Party. Why? They had the temerity to stand up to the rush to eliminate the legislative filibuster in the Senate. However, my guess is that by next year or almost certainly by 2025 the Democrats will be erecting statues in their honor. Simply put, they saved the Democrats from themselves.

As the the old wag goes, "the rotunda turns."  In all liklihood the Republicans will seize control of the Senate either next year or by 2025 and then of a sudden the Democrats will be speaking endearingly of the 60 vote majority needed to break a filibuster. This would especially be true if the Republicans control the White House. Thus it would not be hard to imagine in a few years that both Manchin and Sinema will be receiving Profile in Courage awards.

When Will the Democrats Ever Learn*

 

From Virginia to New Jersey to Long Island to Minneapolis to Seattle the Democrats got shellacked in Tuesday’s voting. They forgot that America is primarily a centrist country and that they only have bare majorities in the House and Senate. Simply put, even as I write this, they are over-reaching in their attempts to pass the Build Back Better reconciliation bill in the House. They do not understand that you cannot rewrite America’s social contract with bare majorities; they need the majorities that FDR and LBJ put together in 1933 and 1964, respectively. Further Biden was elected to stop the craziness of Trump, not to usher in an overarching expansion of the welfare state. (See my Open Letter to President Biden Shulmaven: An Open Letter to President Joe Biden)

 

On a more local level the Democrats have forgotten the role of engaged parents in the education of their children. Although technically Critical Race Theory was not taught in Virginia’s schools, many of the aspects of the theory are being taught. It is obvious if you accuse all white people of being inherently racist, perhaps more than a few would be turned away and that is precisely what happened in Virginia. And it is understood that “defund the police” is an absolute loser.

 

If the Democrats are going to have a chance to hold their slender majorities in Congress next year, they are going to have to abandon the crazy town ideas of the “woke” left. The Squad and their acolytes live in very insular worlds. If they ever ventured out into the real world, they would realize how off-putting their ideas are. As long as Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer cozy up to them, the Democrats will be in a world of hurt in 2022. Better they should heed the words of Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.

*With apologies to Pete Seeger

 

An Open Letter to President Joe Biden

 

Mr. President:

 

I voted for you in the Democratic Primary. I did not vote for Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren, but it seems you are trying to implement most of their policies to a T, a wholesale expansion of the welfare state. I guess you visualize yourself as the second coming of either FDR or LBJ. I hate to break it to you, but you do not have their raw political talent, and more importantly you don’t have their huge majorities in Congress to implement your program.  When I voted for you in the general election I had more modest aims, to restore respect for our government and achieve at least a modicum of competency. Given your predecessor that would be a huge accomplishment and you were terrific out of the starting gate.

 

However, with respect to competency, you botched up our withdrawal from Afghanistan, you are presiding over an immigration crisis on the Mexican border, and it appears, at times, that the CDC doesn’t know which end is up. Your climate agenda is a theme park of policy incoherence. You ask OPEC to pump more oil, while at the same time working to shut down domestic production. And you rejected out of hand a carbon tax which your Secretary of the Treasury fully advocated before she entered government. Further it is beyond me why you didn’t push for an immediate vote on the infrastructure bill when you had the chance. Its passage would have been a great confidence building measure all around. Instead, you listened to the shrill voices on the Left.

 

With each passing day I am losing respect for our government with a host of small unforced errors based on the faculty lounge world of political correctness.  Why did your Administration put out documents calling mothers “birthing people?” Your administration uses the term “Latinx,” a term by and large rejected by the Hispanic community. Come on Mr. President, these are not the words of a kid from Scranton.

 

In my view Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are saving your presidency. The two of them are pushing you into the middle so you can be the candidate I and I believe most of the country voted for. Listen to them and the path will be open to a very successful presidency.

My Amazon Review of Bob Woodward's and Robert Costa's "Peril"

 

Dangerous Transition

 

Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa have written a widely quoted book on the last year of Donald Trump’s presidency and the first six months of Biden’s.  When reading about Trump’s last days in office I was expecting the worst and it was far worse than what I imagined. The man is evil. Fortunately, there were a few people in the Trump Administration who put the Constitution over their boss.

 

Now when reading an unsourced book that is Woodward’s style you have to guess who his sources were and what were their motivations. It is obvious that Joint Chiefs Chair Mark Milley was a source and he just today admitted he spoke to the authors and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper was obviously a source. They both come off well. A.G. William Barr was certainly a source and after enabling Trump early on, he refuses to go along with Trump’s “stop the steal.” My guess in talking to the authors he was trying to salvage his reputation. We also have Senator Lindsey Graham singing arias to the authors. He wants to have it both ways by saying Trump lost while remaining his golf buddy.

 

We saw a torn Vice President Mike Pence who finally goes along with Dan Quayle’s advice that he had no discretion in counting the electoral college ballots. How after the January 6^th insurrection, could Pence remain loyal to Trump is beyond me? Indeed, Milley characterized January 6^th as a dress rehearsal for what was to come, alluding to the 1905 uprising in Russia. Further Utah Senator Mike Lee played an important role in keeping Pence on the straight and narrow. Further with all of the subpoenas flying from the January 6^th Committee we will soon find out what exactly happened in the Trump White House on that day. What Woodward and Costa disclose has been widely reported, but I am sure there is much more.

 

The authors also discuss the Biden campaign and the early months of his administration. They portray Biden as very hands on with COVID-19 asking penetrating questions and the same goes double for his questions on Afghanistan. My guess the authors got their information from Mike Donilon and now Chief of Staff Ron Klain. I wish it were true, but my guess is that they were exaggerating.

 

With respect to Afghanistan, we all know that Biden supported withdrawal in the early days of the Obama Administration. Biden believed that the military rolled Obama and that was not going to happen to him. Simply put he was dead set on withdrawal. According to Woodward and Costa Biden asked many questions pertaining to Afghanistan, but not very many about the geo-strategic consequences. Several years ago, I had the good fortune to discuss this issue with former Joint Chiefs Chair Mike Mullen and former Secretary of Defense/CIA Director Bob Gates. My question to them was whether or not the U.S.’s retreat from the broader Middle-East (Morocco to Pakistan) was strategic or tactical? Both answered tactical with the hope it wasn’t strategic. Well, Biden answered that question with disastrous consequences. It is strategic. Further the way too academic Secretary of State Tony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan turned out to be completely clueless about what would happen after the U.S. announced its withdrawal.

 

With respect to domestic policy the authors go into a great deal of detail in examining how the $1.9 Trillion rescue plan passed. Then as now Senator Joe Manchin was a key player. The bottom line is that Manchin did not want Biden to fail on his first major effort and that is why it passed. Biden may not be so lucky with his reconciliation bill now before the Congress.

 

Woodward and Costa have written a very important first draft of history. It is well worth the read. And with Trump still holding sway over the GOP, we are still in peril.

For the full Amazon URL see: Dangerous Transition (amazon.com)