"Gregg is just lying"

Thank you - needs to be said more often and more loudly!

Judd Gregg has always been a buffoon. He was a do-nothing governor who got elected because his father was a well-liked and respected former governor. He spent the majority of his time as governor going to ribbon cuttings. As a senator he could hide his incompetence (many senators do). But the veneer has peeled away.

"Buffoons" are usually funny.
Gregg's not.
He's about as funny as the heart attack none of us can afford to have.
I don't believe in a Heaven, but I sure wish there was a Hell!!!

It's not "just" lying...

Besides being lying, it is the reprehensible conduct of an elected leader deliberately betraying his country for some other allegiance.

The Repugnants do it deliberately because they truly do hate the US government and do really want to destroy it -- "drown it in a bathtub."

It's important to keep in mind that right wing rhetoric and argument is predicated on the belief that the public is largely ignorant of history and so is willing to accept any damned nonsense from people who it believes to be on their side. When they are called on their deceit, they simply play the populist card and accuse liberals of being condescending snobs who refuse to respect dissenting conservative ideas.

But a supermajority vote is plainly not what the founders intended for the Senate or else they would have specified that in the Constitution they actually wrote, as they did when they required more than simply 50 votes to ratify treaties and court nominees, send constitutional amendments to the states for ratification or impeach presidents.

What Gregg may be thinking of is the absolute veto that Southern planter class was demanding as protection against its power eroding away right before the Bourbon plantation elite embroiled the nation in civil war. Nullification is nothing more that filibuster after the fact as states reserve the right to disobey federal law. John C. Calhoun invented an entirely new consitutional theory called the Concurrent Majority that would allow the Southern slave-holding class to maintain its effective dominance of the national government even as it slipped into the minority.

Calhoun's antebellem ideas sound very much like the Republican Party's definition of bi-partisanship today: Nothing gets passed unless the minority party affirmatively agrees to it. Give and take, taking half a loaf, and compromise are not part of this equation. The GOP is saying that the majority can only govern with the minority party's sufference, with its permission. Elections do not matter. They are not "accountability moments," as Bush said. They are aberrations, speed bumps along the inexorable road to an American Right Wing Republic. A few stray polls here and there that show public support for a GOP position then causes Republicans to run for the mikes.

The Civil War was fought, remember, not because Lincoln intended to free the South's slaves, because he didn't. The South seceeded because Lincoln was determined to end the national dominance -- by preventing the spread of slavery into the new territories -- of a semi-feudal agricultural culture that allowed a small cabal of rich landowners to rule over a rigid class system, and by their strategic consentration in key states to dominate the more populous and democratic North.

Unwilling to give up its power, the South seceded to form its own confederacy. In many ways we are seeing very much the same dynamic today as a Southern-based radical conservative party has effectively brought democracy to a halt unless the national majority capitulates to the minority's demands to govern accourding to rigid right wing principles, or not at all.

Embarrassing buffoon , ah yes . The feudal system the right wing aristocrats expect , mordantly patient in their confidence , these clowns were the only audible form of protest . How the mighty have fallen .

I actually understand how this can happen, it's happening to me again after a little over a year of out of power Republicaness. The pressure on Gregg to atone for the sin of nearly joining Obama has driven him mad. He and the Republican Party are no longer teetering on the edge - they all just leapt off the cliff together and are falling, falling, falling... into a really deep hole.

I am being driven mad by the unrelenting lies, abuse and MSM stenography.

Democrats are pretty much focused like a laser on HCR - and though most of them won't say it out loud they know in their hearts that they are history if they drop the ball. Reublicans don't have to worry about or care about policy, facts, integrity or any of that stuff. Makes no difference to Wolf Blitzer that Gregg defended reconciliation a couple of years ago and now wants us to think the framers envisioned ideological deadlocks. (BTW Washington attempted to warn us about this 240 years ago). Does Davod Gregory care that Liz Cheney has no security clearances, legal or intelligence portfolio from which to spew her venom from - just a really evil dad whose legacy depends on the family's ability to sell this version of patriotism.

Apropos headline - now simply insert any number of other elected Republican names for Gregg's and we have the entire transitional parade of late! -Kevo

Similar to how McCain brought us Palin, I wonder what exactly Obama et al. were thinking - besides the useless pursuit of 'bipartisanship' - by even thinking about bringing Gregg into the Cabinet...

The sad thing is that the republicans who are being manipulated (the poor ones) do not follow the happenings in politics or pay any attention to the senate hearings, they take a statement - true or untrue that riles them up and off they go. Sadly they vote against their own interests, they think Obama will destroy Social Security even though it is the republicans wish to do just that.They want to protect medicare, the republicans want to cancel it!

I keep getting confused - Which of the Daryl brothers is he?

Correction: Gregg is now High Chief Bombastic Uber-Buffoon Grand Poobah of Global Buffoondom. It's really a big deal among buffoons; quite similar to winning Monte Python's Twit Olympics.

the RNC and others HAVE GOT to start running NATIONAL ads with fundamental civics lessons as the theme. We cannot let the Repubs redefine america in the minds of americans.

If republican husbands divorce their wives, do they still remain their sister?

As many of us keep saying, Steve: we know this, the intelligent but dishonest controllers of the teabaggers etc. know it. But so many stupid people vote Republican that it doesn't matter. They will *believe" Gregg, and that's what matters to him and his controllers. They have no honor and no shame, so they do whatever works for them electorally given their idiot base. Idiots are literally their prime constituents, so why not "work them" for the plutocratic/theocratic cause?

Kurt, I assume you mean the DNC should run such ads. Yes, and make a big deal out of the "idiocy" (more like planned manipulation of others who are the real idiots. BTW for all the complaining that Democrats ought to make for of this or that - at their website/s etc, the do. It just doesn't get around as much as the noise from the other side.

The most effective rebuttal to Gregg's recent insistence that 60 votes is what the Founding Fathers wanted in order to pass a bill is the Constitution itself. Specifically:

"The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided."

This categorically means that the framers specifically envisioned situations in which bills could be passed with a one-vote majority.

To argue otherwise is a definitive sign of either ignorance, or intentionally partisan horseshit.

Re: @Ted Frier -- on the whole a spot-on analysis, Ted. Please be aware, this is a deliberative process the Repukes are engaged in, and it is not over yet.

The American "Civil War" never ended. Anyone who says it did is either hopelessly naive or trying to sell you something. This "Southern Strategy" did not start with Richard Nixon, he simply codified the connection to it and gave it credibility "among the heathen masses". Recent previously hidden document disclosures have amply demonstrated that Repuke national leadership and internal documentation really does look on their "base" as idiots worthy only of exploitation for the benefit of the Overlords.they perceive themselves to be.

Let's face facts: in 10 years [maybe somewhat longer], the United States as we know it will go the way of the former Soviet Union. All empires fall -- a basic lesson of history -- and this one is no different. My own pet theory has the US splintering into 6 [perhaps even more] distinct, regional nations.

Yes, I am well aware that an historian-specialist of the former KGB has suggested this in the past -- the fact of this person's existence and background in no way should be assumed to translate into any test of his theory's veracity. He can be, and I believe he is, quite right in his perception and intellectual thrust.

The United States as we have come to know it is quite certainly a failed, broken, irreparable hulk; and it is an unstoppable free-fall. To those who see this coming or those who realize it before it finally crashes to the earth, the best thing we can do is to try to begin setting the stage for this new impending reality.

We need to begin the process of building and establishing new relationships, alliances, more workable theories of the "social contract", as well as a new relationship between "business" and the rest of us. There is no longer any room for the "plutocracy" that American Business has imposed on the American people, for the benefit only of a select, exclusive, monied, hereditary class.

As a people, we need to focus on what works best for the most of us, not on what enriches a very few and impoverishes the rest of us. Let us FINALLY begin to look to the future. It can and MUST be of our own making, so let's focus on what actually works, not what is immediate and expedient.

"This isn't a subjective question open to interpretation; Gregg is just lying."
—Steve Benen 8:40 AM

Glad to see the coyness of "are they deliberately mis-representing, or confused?" finally seems to be replaced by terminology appropriate to the gravity of the situation.
Good on ya, Mr B.
I won't even be so crass as to say something rude like, "better late than never."
Oh, wait...

I really hope that Democratic officials are keeping track of these statements and aren't afraid to paint pretty much EVERY Republican up for reelection this fall as a FLIP-FLOPPER and a WAFFLER. Just run these clips of these buffoons contradicting themselves back to back and expose them to the public and voters as the hypocrites that they are.

"The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided."

This categorically means that the framers specifically envisioned situations in which bills could be passed with a one-vote majority.

Some situations, yes - but not all situations. I know you weren't making this argument, but it is worth noting that the filibuster is consistent with the underlying structure of the Senate. Some mistakenly assume the Senate is a democratic institution; clearly the Founders did not intend for it to be. The Constitution didn't even allow for the direct election of Senators. Until the passage of the 17th Amendment in the early 1900s, Senators were chosen by state legislatures. Moreover, since the Senate is not based on proportional representation, it's easy to envision scenarios where a supermajority could be assembled that doesn't even represent 40% of the population. It can be clearly inferred from the underlying structure of the Senate that it was intended to make the legislative process more deliberative, rather than operate with speed and efficiency.

bball, you seem to contradict yourself. First you accept the basic implications of the role of VP, then back-peddle into confusion. BTW, the key point is that Gregg is indeed wrong about the original arrangement, which did not include filibustering (and when it later did - they had to actually "filibuster.")

Neil -

No contradiction - accepting that sometimes a majority vote is sufficient to pass legislation is not the same as saying it's required in all circumstances. The poster I was responding to concedes as much.

The point was that the Senate's decision to promulgate its own rule requiring a supermajority to overcome a filibuster in some circumstances is wholly consistent with its structure and history as a non-democratic governing body. That the Founders envisioned situations where legislation would pass by majority vote doesn't mean the founders always intended legislation to pass by majority vote.

I wasn't really addressing the merits of Gregg's argument or Benen's response to it. Benen's charge that Gregg is a hypocrite on the use of reconciliation is a valid one.

Now, his critique of Gregg's argument re the Senate's history is a bit of a straw man. Gregg isn't saying all legislation should require 60 votes to pass, nor is he saying the Founders specifically wanted the Senate to adopt a supermajority requirement. What he's arguing is that the filibuster is consistent with the Founders' intent that the Senate act as a check on the majoritarian House, and that the Senate slow down the legislative process. In fact, it's wholly consistent with Article I, Section 5, which allows each House of Congress to determine the rules of its proceedings.

Nowhere will you find the Founders specifically enorsing the filibuster, however, the Senate is not a majoritarian institution.

Okay Steve, so what does it say about the Obama's decision to nominate Gregg to be Commerce Secretary? Should we even dare consider what would have happened if he'd accepted and been approved?

Gregg can't do math either. As far as I can tell he started the lie about Obama's budgets doubling the deficit in 5 years and tripling it in 10 years, when in reality he wasn't even doubling it in 10 years.

See my blog from about a year ago on this, and it is worse because he quoted March 2009 CBO 10 year estimates in his radio address, so he had data, not just parroting talking points.

http://endtheecho.wordpress.com/2009/03/31/senator-gregg-r-nh-thank-god-he-withdrew-his-nomination/