Keep ‘em filibustering, keep ‘im vetoing!

So by now everyone already knows that Bush has pushed the fourth veto of his presidential career, this time in response to the expansion of SCHIP. This also marks the fourth veto that puts Bush way outside the public opinion right along with his two on stem-cell research and the one on getting the troops out of Iraq.

You know what I say? Good. Let’s keep it up.

Bush has made four vetoes in his presidency, all since last July and three of them since the Democrats took over Congress. Meanwhile, the Republicans have embarked on a campaign of more than a filibuster a week, with the Young Turks tallying more than 40 of them since the Democratic switchover.

In response, Democrats seem loathe to push for legislation that is guaranteed to be blocked. No radical Iraq bills or proposals for big time medical care and the like, because they know it’ll get shot down. In reality, they should embrace it. Every bill that is guaranteed to be filibustered or vetoed should be put through. Not the ones that’ll go down 90-10 or otherwise just plain tossed out the window, but every single one that has majority support but will be blocked.

Why? Simple.

For nearly the past five years, for as long as the “War on Terror” has been going on, the right has accused the left of being the party of anger, partisanship, and obstruction. Even after Democrats refused to stop the PATRIOT Act, vote for Bush’s endless war and pursue absolutely zero substantial action against the president and his cabal for their myriad of offenses, any time a Democrat or a lefty pundit squeaks out quietly that maybe what’s happening isn’t a good idea, the right pounds them for being partisan and negative.

Yet while the left folds, the right is steamrolling anyone that stands in their way. Every bill they wanted that was even threatened with a block was met with ferocious opposition and accusations of partisan anger from the “party of obstruction”. Now that they’re the minority, their modus operandi is to embody that obstructionist mantra to a level the left had never dreamed of.

Bush and the boys like to say that history will vindicate him. Oh sure, they tell us, things look terrible now but when it’s all recorded in history books and the children are learning about it in school then you’ll all see how great we were!

So fine. Let the records show that the GOP spent almost every day filibustering bills that the American people supported. Don’t just settle for threats, make it actually happen. For some reason the Democrats get blamed for forcing a real filibuster when the reality is if the Republicans care that much, they should be willing to do it. Have Bush vetoing bills every day.

I want the history books to show that the 110th Congress saw more Republican vetoes than any Congress in history. I want Bush to have more vetoes on his record of any president since FDR, and I want him to have the highest total per day of any president in history. I want to see Bush frantically scribbling vetoes while the Senate is simultaneously filibustering other things. I want a graph of Bush vetoes to look like a flat plain that meets up with a cliffside.

Then for each issue, I want to see where the American people stood. The majority want us out of Iraq, they want SCHIP to expand and they want stem cell research. I want the history books to show that time and time again, on issues across the boards, the GOP and their leader fought tooth and nail to block America from seeing the kind of changes its citizens so desperately wanted.

So hooray for the veto, hooray for the filibuster, and I hope to see you both again very, very soon.