The most powerful Senator today

Sad but true, and sometimes easy to forget:  The United States Senate was designed to protect the interests of the ruling class against the will of the People.  It was meant to be our House of Lords, the difference being that in the interverning 220 years the British had the good sense to take power out of the hands of the aristocrats and we've been busy trusting them to do what's right and do the jobs they were elected to do, forgetting that it is the nature of human beings to take care of the members of their own little tribe first.

Aristocracies are more adept at this, and more stubborn in pursuing and protecting their "right" to do so, than most tribes because that's all an aristocracy is and does, a self-defined, self-maintaining small circle of privilege busy keeping the privileged privileged and the unprivileged etc.

Also sad but true, and easy to forget, but while we see the Capitol building as the place where our business is done, the men and women who work there see as their place, a combination of office and private club, and just as in any office the people employed there are more concerned with getting along and advancing their careers than they are with what whatever the actual work their employer actually does.

Whatever you do for a living, wherever you work, you know this is true, your bosses and co-workers are more concerned with making each other happy, or not pissing each other off, and with pleasing their bosses, than they are about whether or not the work they are doing is done well, done right, or done in the best interests of the customers or the clientele, although at good offices the way to please bosses is to do the work well and right and do it in the best interests of the customers, but how many offices are there like that in America anymore?

Screw-ups stay on the job forever because their co-workers cover for them or their bosses like them.  Talented and hard-working people get nowhere because they've made themselves obnoxious to the wrong people.

If the right person wants something done, no matter how stupid it is, no matter how detrimental it will be to the company's interests in the long run, or even in the short run, that something will get done.

As long as I'm on a car kick when it comes to metaphors for government...if the United States Senate was a car company, if the right Senator wants something done, the Senate will build and market a car that gets lousy gas mileage, handles like a tugboat, requires the owner to keep a mechanic on retainer, and crumples and bursts into flames if it gets tapped by a kid on a scooter.

Jay Rockefeller wanted the Senate to build such a car, and the Senate will build it for him.

I don't know what makes Jay Rockefeller the most powerful Senator in the country at the moment, but clearly he is.  Maybe Harry Reid just likes him best.  Maybe Reid is afraid of him.  Maybe Reid and he have a business deal going on the side.  Maybe Reid owes him big time or maybe Reid wants Rockefeller to owe him big time in the future.

I don't know.

What I know is that what Jay Rockefeller wants matters more than what Chris Dodd and Pat Leheay want.  It matters more than what more than half all the Democratic Senators want.  It matters more than what the Democrats in the House of Representatives want.  It matters more than what the People want.

If Harry Reid is to be believed, it matters more than what he himself wants.

Atrios is on target when he says:

While one can't discount legalized bribery campaign dollars entirely, I do think too often we assume they're the reason lawmakers do the "wrong thing" when the simpler explanation that they believe the wrong thing is in fact the right thing is the answer.

Too many Democrats simply don't have the values we imagine they do, and it lets them off the hook too much to assume they're simply craven people who need to get re-elected instead of bad people who don't share our values.

There's probably more going on, but definitely one of the values they have that we don't share, is the value of putting friendship, class privilege, and career loyalties ahead of the best interests of the People of the United States.

Or to put it another way, down there Jay Rockefeller means more to Harry Reid than you and I do.

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There's a reason members of the House of Representatives have to get themselves re-elected every two years:  So that they have to keep it more in mind than Senators do who they work for.  The House can still stop this.  FDL has a petition to sign, but don't stop with that. Write or call your Congresscritter.  Write a letter to the editor of your paper.  Give money to good Democrats.  Work for the good ones this fall.

More and better Democrats!   And one got a boost yesterday.

Comments

[actor212]

Lance,

I forget if it was Washington or Jefferson who, when asked why the need for a Senate, poured a little of his hot coffee into the saucer, let it sit, and then poured it back into the cup, saying something along the lines of "So that cooler heads might prevail."

He had a point. If the House had its way, in the past sixteen years, could you imagine all the hot-headed, hot-tempered legislation you and I (not to mention every gay man and pregnant woman) would have to abide by?

That's the upside to this very terrible downside. I don't know the answer to your complaint. I wish I did. The only real answer is real campaign reform, but in some ways, that may make things like this worse: if Verizon, say, can't buy a senator, then they'll just run one from their offices.

[scott]

The unfortunate problem with the corruption theory to explain the cave-in on telecom immunity and other civil liberties issues is that, on some level, these folks like the idea of THEM being in power and having these capabilities. Money may not enter into it at all; they just dig the idea of cool powers to spy on people, being in the know, being part of "national security" and feeling all studly. Cretins.