Which is not only a fatal tactical error at times, but will also be fatal for non obvious reasons later, due to logistics.

Somewhere I believe I have a longer discussion of what the Congress did and didn’t do under Bush II. Can’t find it now. But the short version is this:

(1) There have always been some RINOs in Congress willing to compromise with the Democrats, and back then there was a higher percentage of them and fewer strong conservatives than there are now. Olympia Snowe would have been a good example, but there were many others. So the balance was different, and more unfavorable to conservative causes.

(2) Bush was not very conservative except in certain ways. He was not fiscally conservative. He was not a leader in that respect. Plus, he was very focused on the War on Terror. Mostly, though, he simply was not interested in many conservative causes and did not promote them, and some of what he promoted was more in line with Democrats (such as Part D of Medicare).

In addition, the Republican majorities in Congress were rather weak back then, especially in the Senate. They never had the requisite 60 Senate votes, even at the Republicans’ peak in 2005-2007 when they had 55 votes but many of those votes were RINOs, and those years Bush was very focused on the Iraq War, which was a big big issue and not going well. The rest of the time the Senate was about 50/50 split under Bush (and that’s including the RINOs). You can see the figures here.

The story of how Medicare Part D passed under a Repubican Congress is here. It’s a complicated one, but the gist of it is that the Republicans, and Bush, were trying to prove they were compassionate, like the Democrats. In doing so, I believe they lost their base, which has been angry at them ever since for that among other things.

I have long said that if we had more or less the same Congress we have now, plus an actual conservative in the White House, Congress would follow that conservative’s lead. We don’t know, of course. But that was not the situation under Bush, who did not lead as a conservative in a lot of ways.

Willpower is very close to magical thinking, but not on the strategic or logistical level. Only on the tactical level, which is what you’re referring to given Hussein O’s Emperor status.

Are you saying it was theater for the Republicans to do as they didn’t do under Bush II?

Because if it is theater now due to Hussein being the President, what about back under Bush II?

That’ s magical thinking, in my book.

Now, as I think I’ve indicated, I understand the point of showing strength and determination to do whatever one can, even if it’s just theater. Theater tells people something about your strength and determination.

In fact, if you read what I’ve written on what McConnell ought to do, I’ve said for quite some time that he SHOULD do more to show that strength and determination, even if it is futile in the sense of overturning the Iran deal or Obamacare.

However, I am aware of the fact that it is McConnell’s judgment that such empty theater is not worth it, because it would give up something and at the same time fail to achieve concrete results. That’s a valid argument. And it’s not a valid argument to say that the deal could be overturned that way, or Obamacare ended. Theater is theater. But it would have an effect on the morale of the right, which could have consequences down the road, ultimately. And failure to show that will has consequences, also.

What does Willpower have to do with whether the situations are close or not? Willpower is about the drive that achieves their goals, no matter the cost. It isn’t limited or even concerned with what the “situations are”. The situation bends to the Will of the leader or Tyrant. It’s not the other way around.

What MikeII says does not follow from any sort of logical consideration. He writes:

Had [McConnell] been a principled leader, he would have stopped the Iran deal by not pushing the Corker bill. Talk is cheap and that is all what McConnell is all about.

Talk is indeed cheap. And that’s what your statement is: talk. What you say is not true. Not pushing the Corker bill would have accomplished NOTHING other than one of two possibilities. I’ve explained both before several times on this blog, but I’ll explain again, because obviously people aren’t listening:

(1) The Democrats refuse to let the Republicans vote on the Iran deal as though it were a treaty by failing to give it the 60 votes for cloture. So it never even comes to a vote.

(2) If the Democrats refuse to let the Senate vote, the Republicans change the cloture/filibuster rule and bring it to a vote as a treaty without the 60 to do so. They vote on the Iran deal as though it were a treaty, and they fail to approve it. Obama says it’s not a treaty and their vote is invalid, and goes ahead with the deal anyway. The case is taken to the courts, which either say that Congress has no standing to sue, or if they find it has standing, they say that the enormous weight of court opinion since the days of FDR is that an arms agreement of that nature is NOT a treaty but is an executive agreement, just like Obama says.

And that would be that. Now, you may think the Republicans should have done it that way anyway, just for the theater. But the idea of Corker-Menendez was to give them one additional tool to stop Obama, one that involved blocking him from unilaterally lifting sanctions without them, which they knew he was about to do. So far it hasn’t been successful, but it was always an extreme longshot involving the need for Democratic cooperation. Their error was thinking they might get more of that when our security was at stake. They were wrong. But without it, they hadn’t a chance of success in trying to stop the deal.

Also, dismantling Obamacare faces a similar problem. The House passed many bills doing just that, but the Senate faced two problems. The first was the 60-vote rule. The second was that, if the Senate jettisoned the rule and voted to undo Obamacare, the bill goes to Obama’s desk and he vetoes it. The veto cannot be overridden and the effort dies.

Again, you might think it’s worth it, for the theater and the showing of some sort of gumption. That’s a valid point. But it’s not the same as saying anything could have actually been accomplished in terms of doing something to stop or end Obamacare. It would have been more theater.

You’re missing one very important difference.

When the Democrats went nuclear, they did it because it would mean the difference between success and failure in terms of real-world results, rather than just making a theatrical statement. When the Democrats went nuclear, in other words: they had a Democratic president in the White House. That means that, if they managed to circumvent the need for 60 votes for cloture, and something got to the president’s desk, he would sign it and not veto it.

The situation the Republicans face is profoundly different. If they jettison the 60-vote rule in order to pass something, then it goes to the desk of President Obama, who vetoes it and it dies.

Now, you may think they should still do it. You may think that sort of theatrical gesture is important in some way, important enough to do away with the rule. But don’t say that the two situations are at all equivalent. They are not even close. If the Republicans were in the position the Democrats were in when they did away with the 60-vote rule, I believe they would do away with it, too. But they are not.

Plus, the Democrats only did away with it on one issue: that of confirmation of judicial appointments. They were careful to preserve it for other things in case they need it in the future. The situation was tailor-made for them. The Republicans’ situation is very very different, and they face a much more difficult and risky decision because they would be getting much less from it.

In fact, I think the only thing they’d gain is a moment of grudging approval from the angry base, which would then go on to criticize them bitterly for something else.

That’s because about 500 billion or so went to bribe Democrats in that bill, along with spending for the military, preventing Bush from vetoing it if he wanted the spending too. Bush even mentioned this about line item vetoes.

And you can easily see by the US deficit chart what happened in 2006, which they also blame on Bush II.