Evan Bayh's Whiny Media Tour

I wrote last week of Evan Bayh's exit from the Senate. In the ensuing week, Bayh has commenced a media tour to demonstrate what an ill-informed cry baby he actually is.

I've seen clips from his appearance on the popular women's morning program, The View. Tough crowd there, Evan.

Actually, it was. After decrying partisan bickering and name-calling, one of the hostesses tossed out a barbed comment directed at Sarah Palin, and Bayh, without batting an eye, chimed in and dissed the VP candidate.

True colors, indeed, eh, Evan?

But if you really want to read Bayh at his whiny Democratic best, here are some choice passages from his recent New York Times editorial. I, of course, don't read the People's Daily, but a friend emailed me the piece.

"When I was a boy, members of Congress from both parties, along with their families, would routinely visit our home for dinner or the holidays. This type of social interaction hardly ever happens today and we are the poorer for it. It is much harder to demonize someone when you know his family or have visited his home.

It shouldn't take a constitutional crisis or an attack on the nation to create honest dialogue in the Senate. Let’s start with a simple proposal: why not have a monthly lunch of all 100 senators? Every week, the parties already meet for a caucus lunch. Democrats gather in one room, Republicans in another, and no bipartisan interaction takes place. With a monthly lunch of all senators, we could pick a topic and have each side make a brief presentation followed by questions and answers. Listening to one another, absent the posturing and public talking points, could only promote greater understanding, which is necessary to real progress.

The recent Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, allowing corporations and unions to spend freely on ads explicitly supporting or opposing political candidates, will worsen matters. The threat of unlimited amounts of negative advertising from special interest groups will only make members more beholden to their natural constituencies and more afraid of violating party orthodoxies.

What’s more, the number of votes needed to overcome a filibuster should be reduced to 55 from 60. During my father’s era, filibusters were commonly used to block civil rights legislation and, in 1975, the requisite number of votes was reduced to 60 from 67. The challenges facing the country today are so substantial that further delay imperils the Republic and warrants another reduction in the supermajority requirement.

Of course, the genesis of a good portion of the gridlock in Congress does not reside in Congress itself. Ultimate reform will require each of us, as voters and Americans, to take a long look in the mirror, because in many ways, our representatives in Washington reflect the people who have sent them there.

The most ideologically devoted elements in both parties must accept that not every compromise is a sign of betrayal or an indication of moral lassitude. When too many of our citizens take an all-or-nothing approach, we should not be surprised when nothing is the result.

What is required from members of Congress and the public alike is a new spirit of devotion to the national welfare beyond party or self-interest. In a time of national peril, with our problems compounding, we must remember that more unites us as Americans than divides us.

Meeting America’s profound challenges and reforming Congress will not be easy. Old habits die hard. Special interests are entrenched. Still, my optimism as I serve out the remainder of my final term in the Senate is undiminished. With the right reforms, members of Congress can once again embody our best selves and our highest aspirations."

Bayh is right to observe that you are less likely to demonize those with whose family you have perhaps shared a meal or visited at their home.

Why does that mean you and I should now foot the bill for a posh monthly lunch for 100 Senators?

So typical of a Democrat, is it not, to force socialization and believe it is an effective substitute for individual choice of with whom you affiliate?

If all 100 of these blowhards are in the same room, again, isn't that the same as convening the Senate? Oh, wait, it's supposed to be private. So what Bayh alleges is that the problem is with the people in the Senate. They are incapable of being secure and honest enough to say what they mean in public.

Hhhmm......but Evan seems to blame us, the voters. That's why they have to go into hiding to talk honestly. So we don't hear about it.

Is that Evan Bayh's idea of representative democracy? Transparency?

Then Bayh takes another swipe at free speech and the Supreme Court, telling us how bad it is that institutions won't be able to articulate their views on political candidates and topics.

Wow. Evan doesn't want us to hear what the 100 Senators would say in secret. He doesn't want us to hear what legitimate entities which embody much of our nation's wealth would say about politicians and political topics.

Does Bayh even think we are smart enough to vote in elections?

Then comes Bayh's true Progressive streak. He wants the votes for cloture to be reduced from 60 to 55. By the way, I didn't know that it was reduced from 67 to 60 for civil rights legislation. That tells you something, doesn't it?

Progressives have been chipping away at requiring large majorities of Congress, meaning those representing large swathes of the voting public, for decades. They want to ram through whatever social legislation occurs to them on a whim, without the annoying need to convince most of America.

It never occurs to these Progressives that gridlock occurs because it should. The same day Bayh's piece appeared in the People's Daily, Rivlin and Casey wrote a counterpoint in the Wall Street Journal. They noted that gridlock is a design feature that the Framers put into the Constitution in order to avoid emotional rushes to legislate bad ideas. Ideas not truly embraced by a vast majority of Americans.

To see things from a different perspective, consider the Civil War. As far back as 1820, Congress was writing comprise legislation to admit states so as not to prematurely solve the slavery question. If Bayh and his ilk had their way, maybe the Civil War would have taken place in the 1820s? With perhaps a different result.

Instead, forty years of attempts to craft non-military resolution led some southern states to secede, upon Lincoln's election.

My point is, that issue was alive and in play for at least 40 years.

What's the rush now? Why are Evan Bayh and colleagues in such a rush to further erode the Senate's brake on American society consensus-building? And, isn't it ironic that Democrats want to lessen the votes needed for cloture when they have a large majority in the Senate?

What's with that? Can't they literally get their own house, or chamber, in order?

Evidently not. So let's just change the process. Because we can trust 59 Democratic demagogues, can't we? They may not be able to convince each other, or themselves, that their own party's health care and other society-changing legislation is appropriate.

So let's just change the rules by which such legislation is passed.

Evan Bayh seems, on further analysis, to be little more than a whiny Progressive Senator from the left. Crying because the public doesn't want ill-considered change.

When a member of Congress can no longer distinguish between working for productive change that US society wants, and passing unwanted, hastily- and ill-considered change, it's time for him or her to leave office.

Sounds like a lot of other members need to join Evan Bayh in retirement, doesn't it?