all soap opera in that report.

and dont get me wrong, allan -- being NOT-BUSH-CHENEY is pretty cool, after 8 years.

but i'd just like to see some, you know, change...

The glory of being a Republican and a noble! You can spout whatever lies and nonsense you care to, and the peasant reporters repeat it like monks repeating a chant.

Don't forget that after they started calling it the "nuclear option", and the press picked up on it, they started blaming the Democrats for the choice of phrase.

It's time for Robert Gibbs to quit pretending the the corporate-controlled media is unbiased and to administer a public smack down.

Gibbs should call for CNN White House correspondent Ed Henry to stand up and then ask him if he can explain the reconciliation process, pressing him to admit that it is within the Senate rules. Then he should ask Henry if he remembers that Frist said that using the reconciliation process was legitimate and if he remembers that Republicans used reconciliation when they were in charge and the media said nothing.

Then Gibbs needs to ask Henry why, given all these facts, if there's a possible reason that CNN's top talking head is calling reconciliation a nuclear option other than that Cooper is in the tank for the Republicans?

Then Gibbs should ask Major Garrett, the Fox White House correspondent to stand. After making Garrett stand there for several uncomfortable seconds, Gibbs should shake his head and say, "Never mind. You guys don't even pretend anymore."

I know . . . but it's a pleasant fantasy.

I think we're all confusing the Nukular option with the Nuclear option...

Steve Benen wrote: "It was an odd choice of words ..."

Equally odd is your use of words like "misguided" and "confused" to describe deliberate dishonesty.

i dont know who those guys are, steveT, but sounds good to me... probably do a lot of good for gibbs to initiate at least a weekly quiz for the white house press corps -- and find out, hey, they're all chaff...

In days of yore-circa Cronkite- NEWSmen stopped at the wireservices teletype on the way to their desks.

Now they pause at the fax machine for the day's buzzword. . .

This is 1984-worthy distortion. THE nuclear option refers to a singular process. This is it; this is the one.

If they had said A nuclear option, well that's wrong. But using THE buries every other meaning. It's as if this was what the nuclear option had always meant. As in "We've always been at war with Eastasia." These whores are complete assholes.

By the way--what Matt Taibbi says--that if the media whores were completely brought and paid for shills for corporate interests, if they were, then this is precisely how they would act.

I understand your point. However, I take 'nuclear' to mean 'extreme'. The notion of the extreme requires context... You, understandably, look to history to provide context whereas the press does not. The press instead is responsive to the expectations set by the current players. The GOP wages political war and takes action when they have power. The Dems do not. For the Dems, any forceful action would be extreme... And in the parlance of the press 'nuclear'. The Dems could change this story by actually wielding the power they have.

In essence, it's little more than a legislative death panel!

Once again, the GOP smear machine gets out in front with a caustic phrase, and the Democrats are left scrambling to recover momentum. It's time to push back, hard, against these tactics.

Quite honestly, I wish Dems WOULD use the nuclear option and get the hell rid of the idiotic filibuster. Otherwise, we're stuck with the GOP dominating the discussion and legislative calendar.

Maybe then we'd also get all that change President Hopey and Dems in Congress promised us.

Sheeminey, if that's what they call "nuclear," what're they gonna call what Henry Waxman just did?

GO, Henry!

The uninformed commentors on this site are totally lacking in knowledge!

All of these comments seem to indicate that you believe that we republicans and our corporately owned media are engaging in a double standard.

It is absolutely false to say that we have a double standard! We (and our corporate media) have a standard for the democrat party. We have no standards for the republican party, other than don't get caught with a young boy in your bed!

Um, 2005 was the 'nukeyular' option. Totally different.

For my own self-education, can anyone provide a list or link to the times when the Republicans successfully used reconciliation during 2001-7? TIA, I'm genuinely curious.

dip thunk:

waxman would maybe make good pick for obama's turdblossom...

Someone is surprised that the Cretins' News Network is echoing Faux Snooze???

Neither of the things discussed is the "nuclear option".

The nuclear option is the threat to filibuster every single thing the senate does and not let anything go through.

This is what Senate Democrats threatened during the Bush administration as a RESPONSE to what Republicans were proposing: forcing through a change in the rules of the Senate so that all judicial nominees got an up or down vote.

The media redefined the nuclear option then and they are getting it even more wrong now.

Going thermo

They call it the thermonuclear option if they want.
All that matters is the Dems show some guts and press the button...

Your morning aphorism

Don't let Chicken Little cow you with his chickenshit...

Dems need a Senator to advocate loudly for elimination of the filibuster so Reid can go on TV and say "I don't agree with my friend Senator Crazyee on the 'nuclear option' solution, but he points to a real problem with GOP intransigence -- a more reasoned approach would be to use two bills and reconciliation."

That would fix both ends and would establish Reid in the middle, causing David Broder to fall in love with him.

God I hate the Media. God I hate political "reporters". God I hate our political discourse. God I hate Republican hypocrites and liars.

Did I miss anything?

Please email this to all the dunderhead reporters you mentioned.

how much you want to bet there was an RNC press release calling this the nuke option? Lazy reporters!

The nuclear option is the threat to filibuster every single thing the senate does and not let anything go through.

No, that's not right. It refers to having the presiding officer of the Senate (the VP or President Pro Tem)declare the filibuster unconstitutional, which, by the arcane rules of the Senate, could be approved by a simple majority of the Senate (rule changes usually require 2/3). See here.

Fragging the Insurance CEOs

Yes ckelly you did...
You forgot to click on Lotus's link and say:

But I do love Henry Waxamn!

I've been wondering and writing about this for a week:

Given the current hostility towards CEO pay and bonuses, why haven't we gone after the salary and bonuses and perks of the Insurance Company Bigs?

It's about frigging time....

vondo

Perhaps you were still a little too young and/or uninformed, but the term "nuclear option" was coined by Trent Lott to describe their threatened (and seriously contemplated) plan to make a motion abolishing the Senate rules allowing a filibuster in this case, and having the President Pro Tem, Dick Cheney, rule in favor of rescinding the filibuster.

So, how could the Democrats threaten then to filibuster every piece of legislation (what you claim is the "real" meaning of the "nuclear option") if the rules were changed to prevent filibuster?

Huh?

I have wondered for years what the point is of having Senate rules that require 67 votes to change, if the presiding officer can change them with the concurrence of 51 members. It must be part of the Senate's arcane procedures that we are all so much in awe of, like the one that allows a single and often anonymous member to hold up action on a popular measure because he's wetting his pants on an entirely separate matter.

This kind of stuff wouldn't be allowed on a kindergarten playground.

Each Senate makes its own rules. So there is not really a rule that 67 Senators are required to make rule changes. The Senate could at any point decided that only 51 senators are required to make a rule change.

The reason for this is that previous Senates don't get to tie the hands of future Senates. Otherwise, a party that is about to lose its majority could make pernicious rule changes and pass a rule that 99 senators are required to undo the new rules.

I think we're all confusing the Nukular option with the Nuclear option...

Posted by: TonyB

LOL Good one, Tony. I was just about to post that idea too.

The CongDems and Obama should do whatever they CAN do unilateraly and let the battle be about that. The Reps are going to fight nasty anyway so give them something to fight about.

Every time the "Nuclear option" is defined by the person using the phrase as "51 votes", God kills nine kittens and tries to make you gay.

Really.

Thank you, Rob Mac. That makes sense.

But the question remains why any particular Senate makes a rule requiring a supermajority for rule changes that can be overridden by a simple majority.

I thought it had been Bill Frist renamed it "the constitutional option".

You want to see what the nuclear option is? Just fail to stop predation by health-insurance parasites. If the parties again betray terminally-ill bankrupts and their destitute widows and orphans, only roaches will survive the response.

Both the filibuster and "the hold" are unconstitutional. It's majority rule, not fiat.