I spend the majority of my on-line time between Scalzi's Blog and Steve Barne's blog, when I'm not blogging that is. It's odd that both are Sci-Fi writers and both have politics far to the Left of mine. Go figure.
Back when the 2006 election results came in, Scalzi professed his love for divided government. When I asked if that meant he would be voting for a Republican President in 2008 since Democrats owned Congress, I didn't get an answer.
I admit, though, that I was skeptical of the whole divided government thing: namely today's Democratic Party in charge of Congress. Turns out I'm pretty happy with the results.
This much is clear: Democrats in Congress buckled under pressure from the White House to hold spending near the administration’s specified limit, and they’re poised to give the president more war money with no strings attached.
But the buckling didn’t stop there.
Democratic policy priorities that liberals hoped would be included in the omnibus spending legislation were also left on the cutting-room floor.
Under a veto threat, Democrats removed the reversal of a long-standing anti-abortion provision, abandoned long-sought provisions that would have loosened travel and trade restrictions on Cuba and deleted a line item demanded by unions that would have required federal contractors to pay union wages in disaster areas like New Orleans.
What remains is a smattering of modest policy advances and spending increases on health care, education and transportation that Democrats are touting as the appropriations bill makes its way to the president.
It seems that Republicans were better able to discern what the 2006 election results meant better than the Democrats. Democrats thought it was a mandate to end the Battle for Iraq, but clearly it was not. They could not even get all in their own party to vote for withdrawal, often passing related House measures by the slimmest of margins. And as things improved in Iraq, that margin got even slimmer.
Republicans, on the other hand, interpreted the election results as dissatisfaction with the way they let spending get out of control. Democrats, in the run up to the election played on this theme by promising "pork" reform, something they promptly forgot about after the election. This gave the Republicans a chance to take back the issue. And take it back they did.
The Veto threat was only credible if the Republican block stood firm. And it did.
It stood firm on the War. It stood firm on FISA, and it stood firm on the budget.
And on the budget issue, I have to say, the spending restraint would not have been possible had the Republicans kept control of Congress.
So yeah, I'm pretty happy with the results. Scalzi, not so much. In fact the only thing he got right was the divided government being a good thing part
It seems that in the 12 years they were out of power, Democrats forgot how to pass legislation. They forgot that they can not simply do whatever the hell they want; that they have to work with the other side and craft legislation that is acceptable to both parties. SCHIP is a great example of what has gone wrong in Congress since the Democrats took over.
Perhaps, next year, they'll get the hang of it.
Still, while I am happy with the budget results, the most egregious errors of the Democrats are most disturbing in a long-term strategic sense, yet are under the RADAR of most voters. Their outright snubbing of Columbian President Alvaro Uribe will, if not corrected, have unpleasant consequences for us in an area of the world that is rapidly heading Anti-American Left. And our relations with the newly minted non-terrorist state Libya are also being damaged
Tripoli underwent a dramatic transformation in Washington's eyes after the disclosure and abandonment of its nuclear program in 2003. In 2004, after about 25 years with no diplomatic presence in Libya, the US opened a temporary mission in Tripoli, the capital. In August 2007, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced that she would visit Tripoli, the first visit of an American cabinet secretary since 1953.
Full restoration of diplomatic and economic relations appeared to be just around the corner.
But this fall, US-Libyan relations hit a snag: Congress denied the administration's 2008 budget request to construct a new embassy. Congress also let it be known that it would not hold confirmation hearings for Gene Kretz, the administration's ambassador-designate to Tripoli. And now it appears Secretary Rice's travel plans have been shelved....
Imperfect as it is, Libya's rehabilitation remains the best working model available. Washington's decades-long commitment to sanctions and the administration's policy of aggressive WMD interdiction succeeded in bringing Tripoli to the table. But the structure of the deal – front-loaded with rewards and absent human rights and terrorism guarantees – left the US with little leverage to counter ongoing problematic Libyan behavior.
Expanding on these thoughts on the Counterterrorism Blog, David Schenker writes
Yesterday, though, the House acceded to the Administration's request to fund the US Embassy. However, Congress did say that it will not allow the Administration to provide any financial aid to or run any programs in Libya....
Essentially, Congress will prohibit State Department from administering $1.15 million in programs in Libya next year. Congressional staffers suggest that Congress will for the time being also continue to oppose confirmation of an ambassador.
On January 3rd by the Libyan foreign minister will visit Washington.
The best thing that can happen now is for Republicans to convince the voting population that they have learned their lesson and get back in control of Congress.
The divided government thing has served its purpose. It's time for the return of the adults.
