If I Waited to Respond to Tony…
July 29, 2009
…I could have just rested on Human Event’s laurels. They examined what they consider the 16 most important votes of this session. I would have preferred to see the raw data (it’s useful to see whether a block stance for fiscal responsibility would have mattered), but I’m not going to dig the raw data up for the 14 bills I did not pick out last night. Of those 16 votes, a majority of the “blue dogs” voted against the Democratic position once.
To be fair, outside of the grant program the bill sets up, HR 1913 has nothing to do with fiscal responsibility (which is the heresy the “blue dogs” hold within the Democratic orthodoxy), so I do not hold that vote against the loose confederation.
The rest of them?
Lucy got some spleenin’ to do
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July 29, 2009 at 5:27 PM
If you wrote a post about me, shouldn’t I get a hat tip? Also, yeah, you said it right. We are a loose confederation. Some of us are genuine, others of us just want to get elected…
July 30, 2009 at 7:10 AM
To address the nature of the “hat tip” first, a hat tip is typically used to acknowledge that a fellow blogger inspired one of your posts. Do you have a blog, “Wax Man”? If I looked at your (I assume, imaginary) blog, would I see a post where you describe how you are a golem made of wax, incapable of independent thought? Or that your motility is comparable to amoebas? I think not.
And when did Pelosi allow you to become a “Blue Dog”? Are you not the hyper-liberal the “blue dogs” are trying to negotiate with?
And, if that research Human Events did is any indication, the vast majority of the “blue dogs” are claiming to be fiscally conservative just to get elected…
July 31, 2009 at 4:45 AM
I’d like to add, that while she makes a valid point, she cuts a hole in her argument by bringing up HR 1913. I don’t particularly wish to debate the merits of the bill, I just want to point out that it has nothing to do with fiscal responsibility (at least in the way she presents it), and it is irrelevant to her case. It’s almost like she’s pointing it out to use as a scare tactic, scaring voters into thinking they’re representatives are supporting the “homosexual agenda” (not that that’s not true, it’s just irrelevant to the point she’s trying to make.)
July 31, 2009 at 7:23 AM
She was thinking that “blue dogs” market themselves as conservative Democrats, not as fiscally responsible ones:
Notice she is looking at conservative claims in general and not fiscal conservative claims specifically. Under that (misinformed) notion, bringing up HR 1913 is relatively valid; hate crime legislation in general and treating sodomites as a legitimate group requiring hate crime protection specifically spits in the face of a conservative, since they tend to disagree with the notion that “some animals are more equal than others” (Animal Farm, paraphrased).
It does have a fiscal issue if you actually read the legislation (I have a link to it somewhere on the site, use the search bar to find it). It sets up a federal grant program to help local law enforcement agencies fund hate crime prosecutions. One could argue that doing so is fiscally irresponsible (by subsidizing that process, one is just going to encourage frivolous hate crime accusations).