Mountain or Molehill

Sometimes Congressional hearings reveal more than is intended.

On March 29, an interesting exchange took place at a Senate judiciary committee hearing working on new legislation relating to wire taps and FISA oversight.

As background to the exchange: a Democrat Senator thanked chairman Arlen Specter [R/PA] for holding this hearing and told Specter he is the only one on the Hill willing to look into the issue of illegal wire taps.
Chairman Specter noted that the Democratic Senator is a long time member of the committee, a former chairman, and understands well how difficult it is to set priorities for the committee and to get everything done.
Dem. Senator: I’m glad you are chairman now.
Specter: [grinning broadly] So am I.

Ouch! Was this an unconscious slip? I am no psychoanalyst, but what immediately popped into my mind is the possibility – could it be? - that Democrats don’t even want to be in the majority! Considering their actions over the past several years, this is not a difficult premise to envision. The Kerry campaign is a prime example of how not to win an election while strenuously going through the motions.

One can consider also how little fight there is in a D.C. Democrat these days and how little resistance to being run over. Late in 2005 Senate Democrats made a strong stand to remove approval for oil drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge from an appropriations bill. Now it’s back in a budget bill passed by the Senate. Where was the fight this time? The issue now goes to the House.

Alas it was also late in 2005 that Senate Democrats fought hard to get all the privacy protection provisions in a revised Patriot Act which had passed the Senate almost unanimously but did not survive the conference report. They insisted that the expiration date of the act could well be extended to buy time to ‘get this right’. When a watered down version came back to the Senate in February, which definitely wasn’t ‘right’, Democrats as a whole did not even support a filibuster, though about half did. Some, like the NY Senators, withheld their vote until it was obvious which way the wind was blowing, then blew with the majority.

Everyone you hear or read – whether on the street, TV commentary, editorial, whatever - everyone knows that no Democrat leader since maybe Howard Dean during his sabotaged run in the primary has articulated a strong clear positive compelling image of where they want to go with domestic or foreign policy. Is this the way to set up for an election you want to win?

Why might Democrats not want to be in control of Congress? Could they be afraid of success? Or was the committee Democrat simply suggesting that chairing this committee at this time is not a lot of fun? I continue to wonder while looking for signs of life and courage.