Dear Children:
Chicken crap is nasty stuff. Oh sure, it’s a great fertilizer; chock-a-block with nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. But, peeuw, the stuff fresh out of the bird is toxic to plants, animals and people. It’s the ammonium. Amononium burns, blinds, suffocates and kills. To be useful, chicken crap needs to be composted in such a way as to mitigate amononium's intensity; thinned and diluted.
We can appreciate that in-coming Speaker John Boehner was frusrated. The Democrates just didn't get it. The people had spoken. The people, he asserted in his annoying narcissistic way, wanted Republicans to run things; not Democrats. But here we are in the lame duck session extending the Bush Era tax cuts for those who earned less than $250 thousand and allowing the tax cuts to expire for those who earned more. He called the vote chicken crap.
The measure went to the Senate. In that body, even in the lame duck session, the Republicans had a weapon called filibuster. Just in case you haven't looked it up for yourself recently, the word has an interesting etymology.
The word started out as Dutch (vrijbuiter ) and was filtered through the French used originally to refer to pirates or freebooters. Later, it applied to freelance military adventurers originating in the United States trying to destabilize governments in Central and South America for sport and profit. They were called by their hapless victims Filibusteros. The phrase, “Yanqui go home.” was said to first be hurled at these mangy characters.
Starting about 1851, the term was used to describe those who attempted to hijack debate by holding the floor until the majority came to its senses. The great orator Cato used the tactic twice in ancient Rome by the simple expedient of speaking past dusk. Henry Clay, Wayne Morse, Huey Long and Strom Thurmond showed some good filibustering skillz in the past. The most famous fictional filibuster was portrayed by Jimmy Stewart in the film: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Of course, the practice is now codified into the Senate’s rules (Senate Rule XXII). No exertion is required to hold the floor. Still, it takes 60 votes to break a filibuster. That procedure is called cloture.
By the time the measure got to the Senate it was no longer chicken crap. It was called theater and a waste of time. It was a waste of time because the Majority Leader and Torquemada successor already knew he lacked the 60 votes needed for cloture. For a body that wastes time so prodigiously so often, an epithet crafted out of that cloth is asinine on its face.
Okay, kids. What have we learned? There was a disquisition on chicken crap and one on the word filibuster. What about the debate? Was it principled, elevated and civil? Did the parties engage one another’s arguments? Was the republic served?
Not hardly. We had anger, pandering and cynicism galore. What could be more obvious, quoth the Republicans? It’s wrong to raise taxes during a recession. They offered no evidence, but neither did the democrats make any particular attempt to refute. The democrats argued that the wealthiest of Americans could afford the tax and, besides, the government needed the money. Republicans never laid a glove on it. The parties talked past each other.
Both parties seem to be at sea -- unsure and spineless. There’s plenty of schoolyard bravado alright but neither nub nor root. After all we’ve been through this year, it’s still silly season on the Potomac. Chicken crap.
I’m just sayin’,
Poppy
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