If
I read the results right, last year’s presidential election was a close one.
That means the country’s divided — or unclear — about what it wants. But
the Bush administration acts as if the American people have embraced right-wing
governance. And that’s exactly what we’re getting.

            Republicans are trying to grab total
control over the levers of power. And their current maneuver —- trying to
eliminate the filibuster in the Senate — is only the latest example.

            According to the polls, a
significant majority of Americans oppose the president’s policies. They oppose
his handling of Social Security, his handling of the economy, the war in Iraq and even the
changing of the filibuster rule. Averaging three current presidential polls
indicates that Bush’s approval rating has dropped to 44 percent, versus 55
percent disapproving. It is unprecedented, according to the Gallup poll, for a
re-elected president to have approval ratings this low so soon after the
election.

            To Senate Republicans, none of this
seems to matter. They’re operating as if they have a mandate, and they appear
ready to eliminate the filibuster on judicial nominees.

            The United States Senate has been
referred to as the world’s greatest deliberative body, and one of its strengths
has been the utilization of unlimited debate — the filibuster. The founding
fathers often expressed their fear of the havoc a temporary majority could
wreak. As the Senate evolved, it was deemed necessary to allow unlimited debate
to protect minority rights. Since 1841, these rights have been incorporated
into Senate rules, and they’ve been modified to require a supermajority to cut
off debate.

            Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist
now seeks to overturn 200 years of Senate tradition and rules to take advantage
of the current Republican majority.

            Why do the Republicans want to do
this? They aren’t content controlling the legislative and executive branches of
government. Democrats have approved 96 percent of the Republicans’ judicial
nominees, blocking the other 4 percent with the threat of a filibuster.
Republicans want it all, so to get it all, they want to kill the filibuster.

            That missing 4 percent, of course,
is just an excuse. Republicans are positioning themselves to go after the big
prize: the next Supreme Court nominee. With the filibuster ruled out for
judicial nominees, the minority Democrats would be powerless.

            What kind of Supreme Court nominees
can we expect? Take a look at an article in the April 17 issue of the New York Times Magazine,“The Unregulated Offensive,” which describes
the radical jurists the Republicans have in mind. These folks want nothing less
than to turn the country back to the days of social Darwinism. Environmental
protection, workers’ rights, minimum-wage laws, health and safety laws will
mean nothing to them. If several of these nominees are confirmed, the direction
of the country could be radically altered, rightward.

            The Republicans have the usual
disingenuous argument for the filibuster: that the Democrats are obstructing
democracy; that they should permit a vote on the nominees. The Republicans
ignore their own, far more obstructionist, positions on Clinton-administration
judicial nominees.

            Is this what Americans voted for
last November (assuming that the vote was accurate)? The next few weeks should
be a critical period in the evolution of American democracy.

Responsibilities

With
great fanfare, the president has signed the new bankruptcy law. The new law
will make it much harder for families and individuals to get out from under
debt when calamity strikes. Statistics show that 90 percent of bankruptcies
occur after serious illness, loss of a job, or family breakup. Relatively few
are due to deliberate profligate spending and irresponsible money management.

            “America,” says the
president, “is a nation of personal responsibility, where people are expected
to meet their obligations. If someone does not pay his or her debts, the rest
of society ends up paying for them.”

            Does our president ever stop to
think about what he says and connect it to his own policies and behaviors?
After deliberately running up the biggest deficits in American history and
calling government bonds worthless IOU’s, how can he keep a straight face while
making these statements? Oh, well, apparently that advice applies only to the
little people.

This article appears in Apr 27 – May 3, 2005.