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January of 2008 saw the Democrats come roaring back to power. The White House, House and the Senate. Big time majorities. Still basking in the glow of elections that repudiated so clearly and forcefully the bush years.
This was our time.
We had the Executive Branch.
We had a convincing majority in the House and we had a strong Speaker who had a strong agenda.
We had a big majority in the Senate.
And therein lies the rub. The stopgap fallback of the filibuster. Of course, in this modern age of something for nothing, all one has to do is say "I'm filibustering" and all the others go "Oh, sure. Okay. Rightie-o. We'll be over here." - DOING NOTHING. It takes 60 to stop this nonsense. We had a mere 59. We couldn't get one repub to come over. The net result was that no big liberal ideas got passed. Only stuff that had the approval of Senator 60 got through.
Ya know, if one is a cynical fuck (anyone know any cynics?) one could conclude that it works this way so They (Who is the person named They?) can give us an ongoing illusion of giving a shit. "By gosh, we almost got there." "Damn. Just one vote shy." "Aaaaaalllllllllmost." "Oh Snap! We missed it by thaaaaaat much."
Is it really all just a big scam? Is the system gamed that badly? Is cynicism out of line?
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