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Politicial theater left and right — 3 Comments

  1. Amusingly enough that incident was one of the first ones where I found what I saw from unedited footage (c-span) to be wholly at odds with what was (and still is) reported.

    I recall one of the last press conferences before the shutdown. The republicans were willing to meet and discuss the issues, Kennedy was the speaker for the Democrats and informed them that Clinton would Veto anything they passed that wasn’t drafted wholly by the democrats and there were not enough votes to override such a veto. In the end it was nearly wholly written by the Democrats – which is *not* the way it is supposed to run.

    And so pretty much ended the “Contract with America” before it really got started and was how much of that era went about. The Republicans then got the blame for both things Clinton forced to pass against their will *and* not for stoping it. There was no way to *not* get the blame. Pass the one you were elected too and it would be vetoed until you passed the democrats plan (and get blamed for not “co-operating”), pass the Democrats and get blamed for the increase in spending after your “Contract with America”, or – as happened – do both! Add in that people like Gingrich definitely have that whole “hubris” thing going and it was terribly easy to get it to stick.

    That is why many of the old timers in Congress refuse to fight the media – they had been raped coming and going for years and find it easier to just play along. Even to this day they get blamed for both ends of it – damned if you pass it, damned if you do not.

    Indeed, if Bush told the current dems that he would veto anything they passed unless it was written by the republicans I think the news (and the support of the populace) would be a wholly different matter. I doubt many of us (including most republicans) would welcome such a thing, I sure can not image you blaming it on the Dems. But then, that is largely why the media is acting the way it is – that’s a *really* large amount of power to have forcibly taken away from you.

    Bush suffers VERY strongly from the same thing (hubris making false charges easy to stick) – but then we have Blogs and Fox News to keep it somewhat fair for those that are not already believers.

  2. I hope this will be the last election in which the “people’s mandate” is evoked by either party. Nowadays, the people’s mandate really means that the people have given you enough rope to hang yourself and they encourage you to get on with it.

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