By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH – July 26, 2009
So Al Franken is Senator Al Franken. The GOP hates him (politically) because
he is a reasonable liberal and even moreso because he is, as all readers of
TPJmagazine know, Democratic Senator no. 60.
Funnily enough, Al is no progressive, as a number of
left-wing analysts are letting us know loud and clear, but the GOP hates him anyway. The Republican Scream Machine hates him
(viscerally) because he would not have been in the Senate were it not for the
success of his books “Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot” and “Lies
and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right,”
which exposed that very same RSM for what they are. The personal attacks have been vitriolic and likely to get
even moreso (that is if there are different levels of vitriol). They focus on Sen. Franken’s earlier
career as a comedian and comic writer.
Dipping to the level of the Republican Scream Machine, one
really classy GOP Senator (it was either Kyl or Coburn, the latter of whom,
by-the-by, seems to be caught up in the Ensign scandal, both far-Rightists in
any case) called him a “clown” on the floor of the Senate. Not quite at the level of Cheney saying
“f__k you” to Senator Pat Leahy of Vermont on the Senate floor a few years ago,
but close. When screaming about
Franken, not one of these clowns includes any information of the facts that,
for example, he a Harvard College Graduate (with honors) and that before he
decided to run for the Senate he was a thoughtful liberal analyst on the first
(and best) iteration of Air America Radio. But a Senator with a sense of humor, especially about politics
and politicians, so many of whom take themselves so seriously, who can also
actually think? How awful. So they just do riffs, not funny ones
either, on the fact that he was also a professional comedian.
But let’s pause for a moment to look at entertainers in politics. Republicans do come to mind, mind
you. First of course is the hero
of the current generation of Republican “leadership,” Ronald Reagan. Graduating from being a sportscaster
(Rush Limbaugh anyone?) he became a decent B movie actor. He was left-wing enough in his younger
days to have been the President of the Screen Actors Guild. But he was a very happy cooperator
(1947) with the House Un-American Activities Committee when its Hollywood Witch
Hunt was beginning. In the 1950s
he became a cigarette pitchman (a time when the tobacco industry, internal
memos much later showed, already knew that cigarettes were deadly. There is no evidence that they shared
this knowledge with Ronnie. But
there is no evidence that they did not, either.) In the 1950s and 60s he was the principal public spokesman
for General Electric, at a time when its labor relations were handled by one by
Lemuel Boulware. “Boulwarism” was
the name given to the man’s very vicious and very successful union-crushing
strategy and tactics.
And so with this as his background this former actor, former
labor leader, former squealer, former pitchman for personal poisons, became
first governor and then President. Experience in running anything? Well, no. Experience as a
legislator? Well know. Any higher education in history or political
science? Well, no. And then there was George Murphy,
previously best-known as a tap dancer (not in a class with Jimmy Cagney, but a
pretty good one), who became a one-term GOP Senator from California in
1964. And then of course there is
Ahnold, who shows us that you can take steroids and still live a seemingly
normal life. But in government or
its study any experience? Well,
no. But the GOP now complains
about Al Franken, Harvard grad., political analyst and author, and yes,
comedian and comic writer.
But even worse for the GOP than who he is, is the fact that
Sen. Franken is the 60th Democratic member of the Democratic Caucus (which includes
the two independents, from the left, Sen. Sanders and from the right, Sen.
Lieberman). Now according to the
GOP minority leader, Mitch McConnell, this means that the “Democrat” Party will
be able “to ride roughshod” and “get what they want.” Actually that is not at all the case. The majority party in the Senate has
never needed 60 votes to pass legislation or confirm Presidential nominations
for positions in the Administration, something many people seem not to
understand. They simply need 60
votes to make sure that the item in question gets to the floor of the Senate
for a vote. That is, the “cloture
rule” is invoked, cutting off debate after a specific time and allowing the
item to come to a vote. One would
assume that Sen. McConnell does understand, but if he does, he ain’t
tellin’. To do so would not serve
his party politically, and for the GOP that’s often what it’s all about.
What 60 votes means, then, is that democracy might actually
become the rule of the day in the Senate. For when proposed legislation or votes on Presidential nominees are
brought to the Senate floor for a vote, democracy can now rule. Just because a Democratic Senator votes
for cloture does not mean that he/she would necessarily vote for the
legislation or the nomination. But
since the Democrats hold the Vice-Presidency and the Vice-President gets to
vote in case of a tie, they can actually pass legislation with 50 votes, plus
the big One.
Where democracy has not been in effect in the Senate is
first in the “when proposed legislation is brought to the Senate floor for a
vote” part. The power that McConnell
has possibly lost is precisely that he has been able to prevent the democratic
process from taking place in the Senate. “Filibusters” don’t defeat proposed legislation or nominations; they do
prevent proposed legislation or nominations from being voted upon. If the Democratic caucus can stick
together and if its two very sick members, Sens. Byrd and Kennedy, can get to
the floor if needed, democracy will be able to rule in the Senate for the first
time since President Obama was elected.
“Sticking together” could be a big “if,” of course. There is the small posse of right-wing Democratic
senators. Only one of them has to
vote against bringing proposed legislation or a nomination to the floor for a
vote and the item doesn’t get there. But if the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid gets some
cojones, cloture might actually happen. And Senator Reid, not previously known for his militancy as a Democrat,
may actually be growing a pair of the aforementioned appendages. He has issued some fairly strong, actually
anti-Republican statements of late, dontchaknow.
If Sen. Reid does get tough with his caucus, democracy can thus
be brought to the Senate. Democrats
always allowed it when they were in the minority but could have filibustered
endless times had they had collectively what Sen. Reid seems to be possibly
developing individually. But that
of course means nothing to the GOP. It’s not that they “hope Obama fails,” a la Limbaugh. It’s that they are doing everything
within their power to make sure that that happens. Part of that process is preventing proposed legislation from
coming to the floor. Possibly more
important in the still early days of the Obama Administration is that they have
used the filibuster to tie up the confirmation process in knots. For example, the nomination of Dawn
Johnsen, an outspoken opponent of the Cheneyite “Unitary Executive” (read
“dictator”) theory of US government, has yet to be confirmed to be head of the
Dept. of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel. Only when that position is filled can there be a real
investigation of the depths to which the office was taken under Cheney/Bush/Gonzales/Mukasey/Yoo/Bybee. And that is a definite “we don’t want
that” for Republicans.
So this is why the election of Senator Franken is so
significant. Not because “the
Democrats can ride roughshod,” but because so many matters for which the Senate
GOP has prevented democracy from working, can now be subject to ---- the democratic
process. 