{"id":283506,"date":"2010-02-05T17:45:24","date_gmt":"2010-02-05T22:45:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/firedoglake.com\/?p=65380"},"modified":"2010-02-05T17:45:24","modified_gmt":"2010-02-05T22:45:24","slug":"richard-shelby-didn%e2%80%99t-learn-from-newt%e2%80%99s-example%e2%80%a6-will-the-democrats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/283506","title":{"rendered":"Richard Shelby Didn\u2019t Learn from Newt\u2019s Example\u2026 Will the Democrats?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"newt-gingrich-baby\"David Dayen already wrote this morning<\/a> about how Sen. Richard Shelby’s attempt to block 70 Obama administration nominees over a couple of earmarks “does amount to what you would call a ‘teachable moment’ about the dysfunctional Senate<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

In his initial reaction overnight, Josh Marshall<\/a> went a bit further, noting that Shelby’s hostage-taking attempt showed “gallons more audacity than Obama ever could have hoped for”:<\/p>\n

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… I wonder if this story might not end up amounting to much more than the sum of its parts<\/strong> because it brings together three or four of the issues roiling American politics today in a bundle of smack-you-in-the-face arrogance that’s too much to ignore.<\/p>\n

For Republicans and the Tea Party set you’ve got pork-barrel spending and earmarks… for Democrats, there’s the outrage at archaic Senate obstructionism.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Perhaps more important, it crystallizes the essential pettiness and hubris of the Republican in such a vivid way that even Democrats should be able to sell the image of GOP selfishness to a generally inattentive public.<\/p>\n

It’s happened before, back in 1995 when Newt Gingrich led the newly Republican-controlled Congress in forcing a shutdown of the federal government, trying to force President Clinton to capitulate on budget issues.\u00a0 Thanks to an inopportune remark by Gingrich about a personal snub he had received from Clinton, the White House successfully embarrassed the GOP into ending the standoff.<\/p>\n

That Shelby would try such a stunt barely a couple of weeks after the Republicans snagged their coveted 41st Senate seat shows that his party hasn’t outgrown Gingrich’s penchant for overreach.\u00a0\u00a0 But, as D-Day also wrote today<\/a>, President Obama and the Democratic leadership can’t let themselves be even less willing to stand up for their own interests than the famed triangulator, Clinton.<\/p>\n

Perhaps Obama should make a high-profile visit to various GOP senators’ home states, asking locals if they’re as fond of Shelby’s earmarks as Massachusetts voters were of Ben Nelson’s “Cornhusker kickback.”\u00a0 Or maybe there’s a better attention-getting maneuver.<\/p>\n

But hell, they need to do something<\/em>.\u00a0 Don’t let this teachable moment pass.<\/p>\n

\"Share <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Dayen already wrote this morning about how Sen. Richard Shelby’s attempt to block 70 Obama administration nominees over a couple of earmarks “does amount to what you would call a ‘teachable moment’ about the dysfunctional Senate.” In his initial reaction overnight, Josh Marshall went a bit further, noting that Shelby’s hostage-taking attempt showed “gallons […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5274,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-283506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5274"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283506\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}