The 60-Vote Fallacy
Posted on
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
by Gary A. Ballard
In today's information-soaked media environment, a meme can gain such a ironclad hold on the imagination of the public with startlingly ease. The mainstream media is the Ebola monkey of viral memes, spreading such fantastic misconceptions as Iraqi WMD with the speed of a Level 4 outbreak. The latest meme to really gain hold in the American political media is what I've termed the 60-Vote Fallacy. It refers to Senate votes and the Democratic majority's attempts to pass a bill forcing the President to end the war in Iraq and bring our troops home, and it's such a simple mangling of the truth.
Senate bills require a simple majority to pass. However, bills can be filibustered, a procedural shenanigan the minority party uses to kill a bill that might pass by simple majority vote. Filibustering consists of talking, and talking and talking, talking so much that the asses of Senators literally fall off and wither up like the dissected segments of an earthworm. A successful filibuster is the nuclear option for minorities, an option scorned by the Republicans when they were in the ascendancy but one which they are all too willing to threaten now that they are in the minority. And in order to defeat a filibuster, the Senate calls a cloture vote, which means that the bill or amendment under debate goes up for an immediate "yay" or "nay" vote. Cloture requires 60 votes to pass, which means 60 votes is required to defeat a filibuster. This is different from the 67 votes needed to overturn a Presidential veto.
The media, in its rush to soundbite the most important news so that it may continue to focus on the inane trivialities of celebrity baby daddy's, has cut to the chase with their Senate coverage lately. They've simplified things for us complete idiots out there. Rather than try to explain what a cloture vote is and how it's used, instead they say that legislation such as that calling for a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq has been defeated because the Senate couldn't get the required 60 votes. The media fails to mention, perhaps purposefully, that the bill wasn't actually voted on at all, or that the Republicans who claimed for years that Democratic partisanship was destroying America with filibusters chose to use their filibuster power without actually going through with the filibuster. No, the coverage is dominated by the implication that the Senate Democrats are impotent because they don't have a 60-vote majority.
The media gets it wrong all the time, of course. They are factually incorrect, in so much as the facts they spread do not tell the entire picture and the devil is in the details. But what I find most disturbing is an even more subtle implication that may or may not be an actual Democratic strategy. By repeating this meme over and over on bill after bill, it almost seems as if the Democrats are attempting to gain the same sort of one-party majority in the 2008 elections that the Republicans battered the country with since 2002. It's almost a certainty that the White House will be Democratic in 2008, or at least it should be given the abuses the Republicans have inflicted with that power. By not correcting the mainstream media's mistaken framing of the 60-vote rule, are the Democrats insinuating to the voters that without a 60-vote majority in the Senate, they can't get anything accomplished?
I am wary of any political party which has the kind of rubber stamp majority exercised by the Republican Party since 2002. It is an absolute power that is absolutely corrupting in every sense of the word. While many of my political beliefs fall under the Democratic tent, especially since the hijacking of the GOP by the evangelical moonbats, the very problems inflicted upon the country by the Bush administration have been because of the lack of a check from an empowered minority. I find nothing in any political party that makes me believe the Democrats are above the temptation to rob this country blind should the most important checks and balances be removed. I no sooner want to see America as a one-party Democratic state than I did a Republican one.
Democrats do not need 60-votes to end the Iraq War. They need a backbone. Defunding the war does not require a successful vote at all. It just requires being frank with the American people, and it requires standing up to the Bush junta with purse strings pulled tight. It's high time the Democrats said no to tyrants.
Senate bills require a simple majority to pass. However, bills can be filibustered, a procedural shenanigan the minority party uses to kill a bill that might pass by simple majority vote. Filibustering consists of talking, and talking and talking, talking so much that the asses of Senators literally fall off and wither up like the dissected segments of an earthworm. A successful filibuster is the nuclear option for minorities, an option scorned by the Republicans when they were in the ascendancy but one which they are all too willing to threaten now that they are in the minority. And in order to defeat a filibuster, the Senate calls a cloture vote, which means that the bill or amendment under debate goes up for an immediate "yay" or "nay" vote. Cloture requires 60 votes to pass, which means 60 votes is required to defeat a filibuster. This is different from the 67 votes needed to overturn a Presidential veto.
The media, in its rush to soundbite the most important news so that it may continue to focus on the inane trivialities of celebrity baby daddy's, has cut to the chase with their Senate coverage lately. They've simplified things for us complete idiots out there. Rather than try to explain what a cloture vote is and how it's used, instead they say that legislation such as that calling for a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq has been defeated because the Senate couldn't get the required 60 votes. The media fails to mention, perhaps purposefully, that the bill wasn't actually voted on at all, or that the Republicans who claimed for years that Democratic partisanship was destroying America with filibusters chose to use their filibuster power without actually going through with the filibuster. No, the coverage is dominated by the implication that the Senate Democrats are impotent because they don't have a 60-vote majority.
The media gets it wrong all the time, of course. They are factually incorrect, in so much as the facts they spread do not tell the entire picture and the devil is in the details. But what I find most disturbing is an even more subtle implication that may or may not be an actual Democratic strategy. By repeating this meme over and over on bill after bill, it almost seems as if the Democrats are attempting to gain the same sort of one-party majority in the 2008 elections that the Republicans battered the country with since 2002. It's almost a certainty that the White House will be Democratic in 2008, or at least it should be given the abuses the Republicans have inflicted with that power. By not correcting the mainstream media's mistaken framing of the 60-vote rule, are the Democrats insinuating to the voters that without a 60-vote majority in the Senate, they can't get anything accomplished?
I am wary of any political party which has the kind of rubber stamp majority exercised by the Republican Party since 2002. It is an absolute power that is absolutely corrupting in every sense of the word. While many of my political beliefs fall under the Democratic tent, especially since the hijacking of the GOP by the evangelical moonbats, the very problems inflicted upon the country by the Bush administration have been because of the lack of a check from an empowered minority. I find nothing in any political party that makes me believe the Democrats are above the temptation to rob this country blind should the most important checks and balances be removed. I no sooner want to see America as a one-party Democratic state than I did a Republican one.
Democrats do not need 60-votes to end the Iraq War. They need a backbone. Defunding the war does not require a successful vote at all. It just requires being frank with the American people, and it requires standing up to the Bush junta with purse strings pulled tight. It's high time the Democrats said no to tyrants.
Labels: Bush Administration, Dick Cheney, Fascism, Government Corruption, Politics, Presidential Campaign 2008
posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 3:12 PM
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