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New York Times rips Schumer, Democrats. Bravo.
I heard Senator Schumer speak at the NYSDC Fall Meeting; the speech, to summarize, was one long glowing exposition of how wonderfully the Congressional Democrats were doing, and how, if we're just patient, give them a bigger majority and wait until 2009, everything will come up roses, and pretty pink ponies will fly through the sky.
The audience, of course, clapped enthusiastically, as we bloggers simply stood there and shook our heads in amazement.
Today, The New York Times editorial page took issue with Schumer and his capitulation caucus.
Abdicate and Capitulate
It is extraordinary how President Bush has streamlined the Senate confirmation process. As we have seen most recently with the vote to confirm Michael Mukasey as attorney general, about all that is left of “advice and consent†is the “consent†part...
On Thursday, the Senate voted by 53 to 40 to confirm Mr. Mukasey even though he would not answer a simple question: does he think waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning used to extract information from a prisoner, is torture and therefore illegal?
Democrats offer excuses for their sorry record, starting with their razor-thin majority. But it is often said that any vote in the Senate requires more than 60 votes — enough to overcome a filibuster. So why did Mr. Mukasey get by with only 53 votes? Given the success the Republicans have had in blocking action when the Democrats cannot muster 60 votes, the main culprit appears to be the Democratic leadership, which seems uninterested in or incapable of standing up to Mr. Bush.
Senator Charles Schumer, the New York Democrat who turned the tide for this nomination, said that if the Senate did not approve Mr. Mukasey, the president would get by with an interim appointment who would be under the sway of “the extreme ideology of Vice President Dick Cheney.†He argued that Mr. Mukasey could be counted on to reverse the politicization of the Justice Department that occurred under Alberto Gonzales, and that Mr. Mukasey’s reticence about calling waterboarding illegal might well become moot, because the Senate was considering a law making clear that it is illegal.
That is precisely the sort of cozy rationalization that Mr. Schumer and his colleagues have used so many times to back down from a confrontation with Mr. Bush. The truth is, Mr. Mukasey is already in the grip of that “extreme ideology.†If he were not, he could have answered the question about waterboarding...
All of this leaves us wondering whether Mr. Schumer and other Democratic leaders were more focused on the 2008 elections than on doing their constitutional duty. Certainly, being made to look weak on terrorism might make it harder for them to expand their majority.
We are not suggesting the Democrats reject every presidential appointee, or that the president’s preferences not be taken into account. But Democrats have done precious little to avoid the kind of spectacle the world saw last week: the Senate giving the job of attorney general, chief law enforcement officer in the world’s oldest democracy, to a man who does not even have the integrity to take a stand against torture.
What the Democrats forget, time after time after time, is that we are living in the here and now. They were given a majority by an electorate sick and tired of an arrogant, unaccountable and failing administration. If they do not use this mandate to push back, they will lose it, and they will deserve to lose it. It really is very simple: mandates are earned. You're demonstrating to voters that you don't deserve another one, because time and again, the mandate you were given means nothing to you.
