There's been a lot of discussion on internet forums today about the fact that the 4 current senators running for president -- Clinton, Obama, Biden and Dodd -- all failed to show up and vote against Bush AG nominee Michael B. Mukasey, though they had announced publicly that they opposed his confirmation.

Some have floated dubious claims that Majority Leader Reid and Majority Whip Durbin sneakily failed to give the hopefuls enough notice that the vote would take place for them to return to Washington; however, the committee vote to send the measure to the full Senate came the day before, and according to the Washington Post, there were four hours of "impassioned" debate before the vote. Also, EVERY other Democrat in the Senate besides these four managed to be present to cast a vote, including those few who supported Mukasey.

It's also been asserted that the hopefuls didn't bother coming home because the Republicans had the votes to win anyway. However, as Salon.com's Glenn Greenwald points out on his blog, this count of Dem senators opposed to Mukasey's confirmation -- 44 in all -- would be more than enough to prevent cloture if ANY Dem senator had chosen to filibuster. Cloture of a filibuster requires 60 votes in the 100 member body, so, even if the VP could have added his vote to their number, the Republicans couldn't have ended it in face of 44 'nays,' and the nomination would have been withdrawn.

As Greenwald explains at length, the Republicans have REPEATEDLY used this tactic successfully, and the corporate media has followed a deceitful double standard, depending on which party is taking which stance, in reporting how these Senate rules work and what the accepted practices are for employing them.

The big, ugly question remains: WHY did the vast majoirty of Senate Democrats, including the 4 presidential hopefuls, SAY they opposed M as AG when they had the power to block his confirmation, and didn't use it?

Here's the start of Greenwald's piece, and a link:

"What happened to the Senate's "60-vote requirement"?
Nov. 09, 2007 | Every time Congressional Democrats failed this year to stop the Bush administration (i.e., every time they "tried"), the excuse they gave was that they "need 60 votes in the Senate" in order to get anything done. Each time Senate Republicans blocked Democratic legislation, the media helpfully explained not that Republicans were obstructing via filibuster, but rather that, in the Senate, there is a general "60-vote requirement" for everything.

How, then, can this be explained?

The Senate confirmed Michael B. Mukasey as attorney general Thursday night, approving him despite Democratic criticism that he had failed to take an unequivocal stance against the torture of terrorism detainees.
The 53-to-40 vote made Mr. Mukasey, a former federal judge, the third person to head the Justice Department during the tenure of President Bush . . . Thirty-nine Democrats and one independent [Bernie Sanders] opposed him.


Beyond that, four Senate Democrats running for President missed the vote, and all four had announced they oppose Mukasey's confirmation. Thus, at least 44 Senators claimed to oppose Mukasey's confirmation -- more than enough to prevent it via filibuster. So why didn't they filibuster, the way Senate Republicans have on virtually every measure this year which they wanted to defeat?
Numerous Senate Democrats delivered dramatic speeches from the floor as to why Mukasey's confirmation would be so devastating to the country. The Washington Post said the "vote came after more than four hours of impassioned floor debate" (...)http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/11/09/filibuster/

(several links within text at home site)

Another predictable alibi for this outcome is that "Republicans and some Democrats argued that Mukasey was the best nominee lawmakers could hope for in the waning months of the Bush administration, and that it was unlikely the president would send up another nomination if Mukasey were rejected" (Paul Kane's 'Capital Briefing,' Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com ) It's also been suggested that Bush could make a recess appointment of Mukasey or "someone worse" when Congress next adjourns, as he did with John Bolton as U.S. representative to the U.N. in 2005, after Bolton had been denied confirmation via the filibuster tactic, and so, from this viewpoint, "it isn't worth" trying to block Mukasey. But if the president's recess-appointment option makes Senate action irrelevant, WHY EVER oppose a presidential nomination?

The plain truth is, by voting against Mukasey but not keeping him out, as they clearly could have if they'd wished to, the Senate Democrats have put on a bogus performance to 'impress' voters. What should impress us, however, is their duplicity, their lack of respect for the people who elected them to office and whom they're pledged to serve, and their bottom-line lack of principle. The U.S.A.'s standing as a civilized and law-abiding nation -- why, how important is THAT compared to political expediency and Beltway cronyism?

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Yes, I tend to agree with you Pete. The Democrats unfortunately have posed from the very beginning on most issues, except for the minimum wage increase as meager as it appears, but Republicans made the Democrats accept huge tax breaks for big business in order to get that meager minimumn wage increase enacted.  

--Last edited by www.dmocrats.org on 2007-11-09 18:09:55 --

Yes, you're right, and I wonder if we're really not near a breaking point, at which the Democratic Party base, appalled at disgusted at the blatant corruption of Dem office-holders and party insiders, turn away and look for representation elsewhere. Even the most cynical and pessimistic traditional-Democratic voters couldn't have anticipated any worse than what this current Dem-majority Congress has given us.

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I choose to work within the system with the use of telephone campaigns and petitions with boycotts to get at the root of the problem, namely, some of the companies that give conservatives in both parties, money, and force them to go to the congress to get our legislation passed or they lose a lot of people's money.