You've Got A Hold On Me

Steve Benen notes this morning that it's not just the filibuster that allows the minority to control the majority in the Senate, it's the art of the hold too.

That would be mind-numbing enough if it were an isolated incident, but inane Senate holds on qualified nominees have become painfully routine. The General Services Administration has been without an administrator because Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.) blocked the president's nominee -- he wanted more funding for a federal office building in downtown Kansas City. The president's nominee for the U.S. ambassador to Spain faced a hold because Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) wanted more information about the dismissal of AmeriCorps' inspector general.

The nominee to head the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission faces a hold. Judicial nominees have been subjected to holds for no apparent reason. Dawn Johnsen was nominated to head the Office of Legal Counsel, but she's spent nine months in procedural limbo. Patricia Smith is prepared to be the Department of Labor's Solicitor, responsible for enforcing workplace protections, but there's a hold on her, too.

There isn't even anyone in charge of the TSA right now, because of another Republican hold. (More on that later.)

Put simply, the failed and discredited Republican minority is effectively breaking the United States Senate.

It bears repeating that this has been the GOP plan in action now for only a year and it has been executed beautifully.  The Republicans are betting that by putting holds on executive branch agency heads and stalling nominations and legislation through the filibuster, they either force the Dems to look like One World Order fascists who are trying to rob the Republicans of their Constitutional rights, or they have to accept the permanent sabotage of the government by the GOP and the Dems get to take the blame for it, after all, they're in charge, right?  

Either way the Democrats and the government itself become the enemy, and the Republicans cash in.  "You know, when Republicans ran things, government worked."  And by "worked", I mean "worked over the average American to the point where the Republicans were thrown out of office en masse."  But the electorate has a short memory...especially if the Village tells them what to have a short memory about.  "You're miserable today, right?  Who's in charge of America today?  There's your problem, obviously.  How is this Bush's fault?"

It's gotten so bad that frustrated progressives are attacking Obama for not fighting hard enough on beating these holds.  What's Obama going to do, exactly?  There really isn't much he can do when there's zero reason for the GOP to play ball and every reason to continue to sabotage the Obama administration.  What, pray tell, should Obama do?  Complain about broken government when he's the President?

And even the phrase "broken government" implies neglect or accident or incompetence.  What we have here in the Senate GOP is sabotaged government.  There's a difference.  It's being done on purpose for political gain and it's being done professionally.  As a matter of fact, Obama's state of the union address needs to do just that:  call the GOP out on the carpet and say "Look you assholes, you're destroying this country for political gain."

If Dems don't call the GOP on this, they will be out in the wilderness for another 14 years while Bachmanniac, Sarah Palin and Jim DeMint finish this country off.  Calling out the GOP entails some risk.  Continuing to allow the GOP to sabotage the government is a 100% failure proposition for Obama and the Dems.  They have no choice.