Mr. Smith.
The retiring Jim Bunning of Kentucky, the only member of the Senate ever to have pitched a perfect game (Father's Day, 1964, Phillies vs Mets, 3-0) is on a personal campaign to force changes in a Senate bill that is unpaid for. Any one senator can stop business; that is the theme of "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." Jim Bunning is launched on a one-man filibuster than cannot be stopped by the Democrats alone and that the GOP so far is reluctant to constrain. Why? My panels on Sunday 28 did not reject the possibility that Jim Bunning is a sample of Republican guerrilla tactics in the event that Reid and Pelosi press the reconciliation package. POTUS is reported to be making the announcement of reconciliation on Wednesday 3. POTUS will not use the word "reconciliation," and instead will speak of how the majority must rule.
House Rules.
Spoke Adrian Smith (R-3 NE) on Monday 1, and the congressman, parked outside a high school basketball tournament in the Nebraska Panhandle on Route 8, remarked that he does not believe Mrs. Pelosi has the votes in the House to pass the Senate bill with 218. Smith mentioned the 40 or so conservative Democrats who will not vote for the Senate bill without important restrictions placed on abortion. The measure is that the House is not whipped, and that when it is, Mrs. Pelosi will be many votes short. Bunning is still pitching a perfect game in the Senate, if the House cannot manufacture 218 votes.
There's so much one hears daily on the radio talk shows and on cable TV, it all melds into one dull, interminable groan. There is a theme, though, that seems to be emerging on the Democrat side of the aisle: "the majority must rule", i.e., democracy.
People are understandably confused as to the various terms that are being used to describe governance. In the ever-shifting sands of word definitions, there's no longer any way to tell the difference between "socialism", "communism", "Marxism", "Maoism" and the like - especially since such terms are being used indiscriminately as pejoratives by individuals who are interested only in scoring put-downs.
On the other side too distinctions have become blurred. "Democracy" is touted as the highest to which man can aspire: one man, one vote; every vote counted; etc. Seldom mentioned is that ours is actually a republic: "a state in which the supreme power rests in the body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by representatives chosen directly or indirectly by them."
There's a reason for why we are a republic instead of a democracy: democracies seldom survive. Which brings me to a quote I heard among all the din only yesterday. It's a quote commonly attributed to Ben Franklin that actually stuck and bears repeating: "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch."
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