They’re Always In A Hurry

They had to rush through the impeachment vote before they broke for the Holidays in 1998. We didn’t have time to count the uncounted votes in Florida because an arbitrary date was set in stone. We couldn’t wait for the inspectors to finish the job in Iraq or to persuade the UN to back us in March 2003 — we had to go in immediately.

When they are in a hurry, you know they have a bad case and they are just trying to ram it through before anyone can stop them. The Washington Post says today in its editorial called Government By Juggernaut:

Rank-and-file lawmakers of both parties are often unable to see legislation until the vote is upon them — not just because details are still being hammered out, but because exposing the document to public scrutiny would hurt the cause of those who seek to have it passed by any means. Both houses have rules designed to prevent this sort of governing by ambush. But these are routinely swept aside in the interest of swift passage, however uninformed. Contempt for the minority extends to the White House, which sought recently to require that Democrats obtain the approval of Republican committee chairs before submitting questions to the administration.

Norm Ornstein talking about the blatant abuse of power with the medicare vote says:

Democracy is a fragile web of laws, rules and norms. The norms are just as important to the legitimacy of the system as the rules. Blatant violations of them on a regular basis corrode the system. The ugliness of this one will linger.

This ugliness is part of Republican rule and has been for a while. It will not just linger, it may have completely changed the system already. The GOP now stands for nothing but winning by any means necessary. And unfortunately, many in this country seem to believe that winning automatically validates whatever you do.