How is it possible?

[kentuck]

That we can have a Democratic Party in charge of the House, the Senate, and the White House and they believe they can do nothing. But we can have a Republican Party win the House only and they believe they can do everything??

[eleny]

1. Depressing, isn't it

[Uben]

2. They will believe anything.....

....nothing new here. Just say it two hundred times and it's fact!

Fucking traitors every one.

[EarlG]

3. To be fair

the Dems were actually pretty ambitious when they took control of Congress in 2006. Remember the "Six for '06" pledge?

Nancy Pelosi took an early survey of her first 100 days as speaker of the House of Representatives and called reporters to the Capitol Wednesday to proclaim she had compiled a "remarkable record of which I'm enormously proud."

(snip)

In response to scandals that had dogged the Republican-led 109th Congress, the House quickly adopted rules that limited lobbyists' ability to entertain members or their staffs and reinstated "pay-go" rules for the federal budget requiring that any new spending be offset by spending cuts or increased taxes.

Then Pelosi's fellow Democrats fulfilled her pledge to pass the "Six for '06" agenda of carefully poll-tested legislation within 100 legislative hours. The House voted to raise the federal minimum wage, allow federally funded embryonic stem cell research, implement recommendations of the 9/11 commission, cut oil and gas tax breaks, allow Medicare to negotiate drug price discounts and cut student loan rates.

http://articles.sfgate.com/2007-03-29/news/20871323_1_first-female-speaker-house-democrats-pelosi-and-democratic-senate

[rurallib]

4. I think it is the media perception that is being discussed

Dems again viewed as incompetent, caving in. Repugs viewed as can-do, take no prisoners.
One thing I keep blogging about. perception is reality.
Ms. Pelosi did a fantastic job. media will never give her due.

[freshwest]

6. You nailed the media, but there are real world implications from that manufactured consent.

Wars, the decimation of the commons, etc.

Not that you don't know that already, too.

[kentuck]

5. Perhaps it is only perception?

and the lack of communication skills?

[EarlG]

8. Sure

The Republicans are unfortunately much better at that stuff. I was just pointing out that in terms of actual accomplishments Congressional Democrats did come into power in 2006 with an agenda that they largely acted upon, and have gotten a lot of things done since then (leaving aside the issue of whether we all agree on the merits of what they have accomplished).

Meanwhile, the Republicans are currently boasting about what they're going to do now they're in charge of the House, but we'll have to wait and see what kind of results they can achieve. My guess is that given their recent history of "leadership" when given control of the House, there will be an awful lot of playing politics and very little real action. That might have worked fine during the Bush years when the state of the economy wasn't such a concern, but these days their penchant for Terri Schiavo-style antics might not go down so well. We shall see.

[WingDinger]

7. Mostly, because the framers intended for Gov to grind intentionally slow.

The Republicans have abused that intention, to the point of creating a constitutional crises of some magnitude.

[WiffenPoof]

9. I'm Baffled By Those That...

claim that the President and his administration are powerless...that they are facing heavy obstructionism. Of course they are. That is what happens in politics. How could they have had all the power and lose it it less than two years. Most were saying that the Republican party was on life-support and that it would take years for them to rebound.

-PLA

[Lorien]

10. The Dems hobbled themselves by demanding a 60 vote majority instead of using

the 51 votes that allowed BushCo to ramrod everything it wanted through. It's almost as if the Democrats intentionally ensured their own defeat on the issues that mattered most to us, perhaps because they had promises to keep to those who share more in common with the GOP and the Wall Street elite.

[Igel]

12. But that's not right.

Filibusters were done straight along. Look at the * tax cuts. "Reconciliation" is in both measures. There were screams for up-and-down votes on all sorts of things.

"Party line vote" got fuzzy. It wasn't just all one party and none of the other, with one or two crossing party lines. There were a lot of "party-line votes" that consisted of 90% of the (R) and some very much non-zero % (D). It was in the last few years that it started being nearly 100% (D) and pretty much 0% (R). There were reasons for this. Three principle ones.

The first is the nature of the legislation. The (R) were widely decried for compromising before '06. They often did. The RW of the party hated * passionately. The (R) reached out to Blue Dogs--making the Blue Dogs look more like RINOs then the "average republican" would possibly agree with. The (D) were widely decried for compromising, but most of the compromises were with Blue Dog (D). This made for easier passage of a lot of legislation with no possibility of a filibuster. You don't filibuster if you know you'll lose because all you have to do is put it for a debate and vote--that's all Senate holds are, a notice that approval by unanimous consent will not pass. Silly, that. If you have no (R) supporting your legislation, you have no (R) supporting your legislation. It's hard to keep absolute party unity. When you see it, look for no compromises being offered that are judged reasonable by the other side. Any resulting "compromise" is a strictly (D)-internal affair (or (R)-internal, if the roles are flipped).

The second was the strategy used. If you bring up legislation and it's filibustered, it's a loss unless the goal is to lose and blame the other guy. A compromise is harder to achieve since lines are set. And when the legislation doesn't pass you look week. You don't introduce legislation unless it's going to pass, by reconciliation or by a sufficiently large vote. (There are exceptions to both of these. Doesn't mean this isn't the way things were usually done, they just mean that this wasn't the only way things were done.)

The third was late, after the (R) took "the Party of No" as a positive. Then there were concrete political gains to opposing things. These weren't obvious for the first year or so.

We could also look to the all-states strategy that stripped many centrist (R) out of the Congress, the strategy that gave the (D) their majority in the first place. The resulting lack of liberal (R) made compromise much harder to reach; having the (D) with seniority to occupy the top spots be those that managed to survive the Reagan years when you had to be in really liberal districts to not lose even once also made compromise harder because as pretty much everybody else they think they define the center.

Or at the polemic which was nasty during the election and continued nasty straight on through. You don't poke people in the eye in public and then expect them to give you a hug in private.

[phantom power]

11. I'm beginning to think this might have something to do with it:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=385&topic_id=540105&mesg_id=540105

[mrdmk]

13. K & R and my take on your statement

The media in this nation are corporations that are concerned with three goals. One goal is to make money, the second goal is to keep their audience large, and the third goal is too stay in power! The Republicans will assist the U.S. Media every step of the way to attain these goals. At the same time, the Media will help the Republicans every step of the way, even by giving them pointers on how to frame their statements.

Money, money and more money is being put out into the public arena to bring awareness to a point of view. This is a fact, just look-up the Koch Brothers. You have very powerful rich people buying a mouthpiece to do their bidding all over the airwaves. Not to mention these rich people are in control of huge conglomerates with thousands of employees.

Then what the end of the day come down to is, what do you really believe in? I believe a persons actions and results demonstrate more about that person than their words.

Yes, the Democrats and the Republicans as separate groups have lead this country in their own right. Who has completed more is a stupid question, because in many instances, they have worked together. To answer your question directly, the Democrats have done exactly what they as a group intended to do, so have the Republicans! The only problem for the Democrats was their base was told and expected different...