A TOUCH OF CLASS
There is still some taste in the Senate

By Avery Walker | RAW STORY COLUMNIST

There is an instinct for dignity that we all have to one degree or another. Some call it class. Schlesinger called it taste when he wrote about Nixon and Kennedy, suggesting that Nixon debased politics by personalizing the process and his rhetoric, rather than focusing on his proposed contributions while in public service. Who can forget the phrase, "Pat and I"?

Remember the good ol’ days, when the slimiest politicians in the United States were those who worshipped the political process? They were horrible men, often, but managed to be re-elected time and again because they didn’t come off as horrible men. They had dignity. They reveled in manipulating the system to suit their sinister plots, through lies, loopholes and even good, old-fashioned gerrymandering. Today, we still have slime balls running the show. The difference is that they lack the good taste to hide it. They lack class. And not just the ones who parade around in flight suits or combat helmets.

Republicans have shamelessly utilized the traditional forms of power abuse in the recent past. There was the Texas lockout, the time they figured out that they didn’t need a majority to get the governor’s mansion in California, and, yes, the two times that Bush election chiefs got to decide who won the Presidential election. But, through all of these shameless attempts to contort the system through acts of unmitigated villainy, there was at least a feigned respect for democracy. Suddenly, it seems that only a few still the need to exhibit such respect. Luckily for all Americans, those few are there.

Even the worst consulting firm in the world (the one MoveOn.org used for their TV spots,) will tell you that voters like class, real or imagined. Bush Sr. got to have a mistress for decades, because there was a quiet, dignified air about the situation. It was an affair, and she was a mistress. Bill Clinton’s cigar, on the other hand, had hand in costing Gore the election. That was a filthy sex with an intern. Bush Junior got to skip out on VietNam, but John Kerry got smeared for having the audacity to be honored for his service. Since when are draft-dodging daddy’s boys in and war heroes out? Since Bush discovered that others could do his dirty work, while he graced his own ads with a dignified smile and refused to condemn the lies.

Imagine Schlesinger’s take on the touchy-feely faithfest that has become our collective decision making process. (Of course, Schlesinger himself was a friend of Kennedy, and therefore personalized the process himself, furthering the same degradation of U.S. policy-making that he condemned. But that irony is simply an aside.)

Since Eisenhower, Republicans have defined class and taste their own way—quite successfully one might add. Class is no longer ignoring a politician’s personal life; it is now projecting that you maintain the most pleasant one imaginable. Class isn’t saying you wouldn’t bow to the Pope, as Kennedy so famously spoke of; it is now promoting what are logically the least appealing qualities a candidate could have, like “faith”. Who wants a candidate who considers the facts, when we can have one who ignores the ones that so garishly conflict with his views? America has become the first anti-information democracy. Unpleasant truths are, well, unpleasant.

However ridiculous our standards of dignity have become, I for one believe that they still demand at least the administration of lip service to the United States Constitution. The anti-filibuster, checks-and-balances be damned power grab by the far right sifted out the dignified, republican Republicans from the lunatic theocracy. And when pretense was dropped, things actually looked good for the future of America, or at least the future of tasteful politics.

History has shown the filibuster to be an accepted precedence in the Senate. Americans by and large disapproved of the “nuclear option,” but found it confusing and uninteresting to follow a Senate dogfight wherein even the most brain-dead player (Tom Coburn,) was difficult to sympathize with. Coburn's website boasts diplomatically of throwing the middle class to the wolves on bankruptcy, and glows that he, "has delivered nearly 4,000 babies including more than 400 while serving in office." He also claimed, while campaigning, that gays and lesbians were currently the biggest threat to American national security. Frankly, the people of Oklahoma would have done better with Terri Schiavo in their seat. At least she had a quiet sort of dignity.

Rick Santorum tells us that Democrats’ attempts to maintain this are akin to Hitler’s conquest of Paris. Then again, Rick Santorum also seems to think it’s dignified to stop school children on tours of public buildings to inform them of the evils of sodomy. Santorum apparently left his class in the closet when he pulled his summer wardrobe—and bizarre sexual fixations—out for the wearing.

Democrats are already fighting for Santorum’s spot in Pennsylvania. Although left-leaning Chuck Pennacchio could easily unseat Santorum, Democrats (in a state that easily went to Kerry last year,) are rather foolishly supporting another front-runner in another spineless attempt to appeal to Republicans who will never switch over. But that is another column entirely.

Outside of the Senate, the livid right has caused a minor breakdown in the Republican message machine—good news for a Democratic party that is only now beginning to build one of its own.

“With this pathetic cave-in,” the officially tactless Michelle Malkin announces in boldface, “the Republicans have sealed their fate as a Majority in Name Only.” By Malkin’s standard, then, nobody has ever held a majority in the United States Senate. But she and her comrades—and I use that term for a reason—continue to shamelessly promote their one-party vision of the American political landscape. This should serve defiant, dignified Democrats well in the next two election cycles. It's all very un-American, yes, but voters don't seem to care about that. What they do care about is that it comes off as, well, rather evil.

Still, the small potatoes always offer the purest reactions, as one poster on FreeRepublic.com, the foaming mouthpiece of the right’s psycho wing, illustrated: “Here's my compromise: Instead of all 45 Demagogic Party senators having to kiss Frist's backside on the steps of the Capitol, we'll allow Harry Reid alone to do it on their behalf.” Did this person actually believe that nobody would call them on the irony of saying that 45% of the Senate should be locked out of the confirmation process while simultaneously likening that same minority to Demagogues? Either they did, they're incapable of identifying the fallacy, or they need the attention. In any case, they see no reason to even feign respect the process.

Now their leadership is split. Which do they lose, the mainstream voters, or the base that has supported them so blindly? Freepers are already threatening to cut off their funds. Bad news for Focus on the Family, perhaps, but unlikely to wound the corporate-fueled GOP. The real blows here are to morale, strategy, and mainstream image. All could have been avoided, had Republicans gone with a more tasteful strategy.

Which voice do Republican officials listen to? Common sense tells us that if 40 Senators find a nominee so unacceptable that they’re willing to pull all-nighters reading from the phone book to block it, something is wrong. Confirmthem.com tells us that, “This compromise [sic] treats a couple of nominees, Saad and Myers, as pawns. It makes them not people, but expendable objects. And that is unconscionable.” In other words, the basketcase that posted that insightful bit of commentary for the world to read believes that preserving checks and balances in a republican system of government is nothing compared to the prospect of two people getting their feelings hurt. There haven’t been enough LifeTime TV movies produced to turn a thinking person, no matter how touchy-feely they were to begin with, that dumb.

Even their retort to guaranteed feedback is shockingly… girly. And only George W. Bush can make girly seem dignified. “All this talk about ‘preserving the Senate’ is bunkum. Senators would have adjusted.” How terribly Dr. Phil. Anybody who thinks that Democrats are more concerned about giving Lamar Alexander a nasty case of bedwetting than maintaining the rights of the minority spent way too much time in pre-school. I know that we’ve fallen a long way in the dignity department, but at least we know that most Americans, and even most Senators, don’t think this way.

Morst welcome is the revelation that a cool-headed, tall and proud McCain faction has officially formed within the GOP. Prior to this point, McCain and his so-called moderate colleagues have sat by, along with many Democrats, and allowed horrible things to happen to this country. Finally, a little bit of dignity has been restored to the Senate. When things went nuclear, these men and women stood up and acted with… Dare I say? Class. This is a big step from a former P.O.W. who did nothing about the fact that our servicemen were torturing prisoners.

We know that most Republicans on the street respect the Constitution; that some of their leadership is willing to put this philosophy into practice is good news indeed. Any movement within the party to respect the real principals of the United States government—not the ones they made up with help from the Cliff’s Notes version of the Old Testament—is welcomed by me.

For better or worse, enough members of the Senate behaved so childishly and thuggishly as to (if properly and tastefully exploited,) muddy the Republican Party name for some time to come. Now is the time for Democrats to announce that they are the party of the United States Constitution, the real party of liberty.

Allow the Dobson-fueled lunatic fringes of the party to fume. It will only help to provide constant reminders that most of the Republicans in Congress are out of control, and allow Democrats to cast themselves as defenders of American liberty. It may take two years for it to set in, but if they continue to be the solid opposition that they are finally becoming, it would be impossible for it not to pay off in 2006—no matter how many nay-saying defeat-addicts in their own ranks call for a centrist image.

Giving in is undignified. Standing up for what’s right? That’s class. Perhaps with this win, Democrats will finally figure this out.

Democrats have a clear victory here, not so much in substance, but in style. Their minority, and a handful of decent Republicans, have stopped an insanely un-republican power grab. Now let’s see if they can continue to keep their chins up.

Avery Walker is a weekly contributor and Deputy Managing Editor for Raw Story. His blog may be found at avery.bluelemur.com, and he can be reached by e-mail at avery.walker@gmail.com [Raw Story e-mail is experiencing difficulty, but should be back again shortly].