February 9, 2010--The Ninth Circle

I agree with Paul Krugman about half the time, and his op-ed column in yesterday's New York Times was one with which I am in total harmony. It is linked below.

It has a nervous-making title, "America Is Not Yet Lost," with that "yet" hanging over it ominously.

He notes that as with every great empire, decline is inevitable. American is/will not be an exception. The only question to him, and to me, is the nature of that decline. And its timing. Will it be something that only our Gibbon will be able to capture--a grand tale of overreaching, classically tragic cultural fracture, and economic disintegration that stretches majestically over, say, a full century? Something Shakespearean, ending with a bang? Not a Eliotic whimper proceeded by a pathetic failure to even struggle in a glorious lost effort to maintain our standing.

There is something noble about such a decline and fall. It generates poetry, important national myths that are sustaining even in reduced circumstances, and practical lessons that are essential to future generations.

Instead we have the specter of mindless, self-serving division. Full of sound and fury ultimately signifying less than nothing.

A couple of metaphoric cases in point. Again, from Krugman. Though to even refer to them as metaphors, as figures of speech puffs them beyond their reality and mundane meaning.

Both are examples of intentional, self-induced Congressional paralysis. Not for courageous ends but rather to seek partisan, no, trivial personal political gain. Again, in literary terms, these deeds are more Danteesque than merely pathetic; and both are clear examples of officials who are right now engaged in betraying the public trust. And we know where Dante ultimately located these kinds of miscreants.

U.S. Senate rules not only require that filibusters can only be ended with 60 of 100 member votes, a super majority, but also, as a measure of self-importance, as an act of “senatorial courtesy,” they allow a single senator to stall the confirmation of any presidential appointee who requires confirmation by the Senate. These “holds” are in effect like filibusters since unless and until they are withdrawn in order to move a blocked confirmation to a vote again 60 votes are required.

In our current gridlocked Senate, Republicans have been filibustering virtually all pieces of legislation and blocking, via the courtesy rule, almost all of Barack Obama’s nominees.

Last week, after Senator Christopher Bond, Republican from Missouri, was able to hold up the confirmation process of Martha Johnson to serve as head of the General Services Administration, an agency if run well that can save taxpayers billions of dollars. He did so for nine months; but when the votes were finally marshaled, she was confirmed by a vote of 94 to 2, suggesting that hers was not a controversial appointment.

What is the reason you ask why the good Senator blocked the vote? Because Bond was attempting to hold the administration and his colleagues up for an expensive earmark—he was seeking our money for a building project in Kansas City.

Perhaps inspired by Bond’s example, Senator Richard Shelby, Republican of Alabama, a senior member of that august body, a favorite of talk show hosts because of his steadfast resistance to the Obama budget, stimulus plan, and pork barrel legislation (earmarks), thus inspired, Shelby has placed holds on all other high-level Obama appointments. 70 of them. Including some essential to making our country secure from terrorism, another of Shelby’s favorite subjects—he is a consistent voice railing against Obama’s alleged weakness in protecting the homeland.

Again you ask why is Shelby doing this. Undoubtedly, you assume, out of some ideological or patriotic principal. Obama’s people must either be socialists or capitulators. You would be wrong. Again like his inspiration Chris Bond, his motivation is much more parochial—though he rants daily against excess government spending this clamor pertains only to projects and programs everyone else favors. In his case he is attempting to hold the Senate and the White House up for, literally, ransom. For venial things for which he wants our money. Unless they agree to spend sacred taxpayer money on two of his pet projects he will not release these 70 nominee-captives. To do so he insists that a contract to build tanker aircraft be awarded to home state and a counterterrorism center built in, of all places, the Yellowhammer State. I suppose because al Qaeda has Calhoun County’s Arab, Alabama targeted. (Arab does exist—look it up.)

In other words, though he voted against Obama’s stimulus plan, saying that the government should not artificially assist the economy, we all misunderstood him. He meant it was wrong to do so in the other 49 states.

I wonder if the Tea Bag folks will go after him (I doubt it) and what Gibbon and Eliot and Dante and Shakespeare would have to say. Nothing good.