It is wise for Obama to take the time to listen to Republican concerns, and even to cut certain disputed items from the economic proposal in order to achieve greater consensus. After all, $900 billion is a lot of money, and real debate is needed - if the Republicans did not provide it the Democrats would have to create their own opposition.
However, if the Republicans move forward on their apparent intent to filibuster the bill out of spite - or out of a hope that they can intimidate Democrats into letting them dictate the terms of the bill - then something needs to be done. We did not go through this election and put Democrats in the House and the Senate and the White House, only to have Republicans telling us we still have to make tax cuts for the rich our Number One priority. It's not going to happen, not this time.
The first thing we need to remember is that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid still has the right to demand that the Republicans make an actual filibuster - not just indicate that they are filibustering. If they are going to raise roadblocks to a recovery plan that is broadly supported by the public and most of Congress, let them spend their days standing in lockstep reading Robert's Rules of Order. Someone can film them and make a commercial: this is what the Republicans have to offer on the topic of economic recovery.
Next, remember that the American executive branch has a tremendous amount of power - way too much, actually. If Obama decides to issue an executive order, the only thing Congress can do is to vote to override it, and if the Senate is stuck in a filibuster then that won't happen. It is within Obama's power to issue popular, environmentally friendly orders that make life more difficult for certain industries that are committed Republican sponsors. What will the Republicans do then?
Last, remember that filibusters aren't foolproof. Senators try to slip out unnoticed. Now that the Ashcroft policy of hiring Department of Justice people based mostly on their political beliefs is over, perhaps a Senator might soon depart under a cloud of allegations. And it may even be that one of the 41 loyal Republicans would consider an "accidental" lapse in exchange for some private and unpublicized advantage in future electioneering.
The Republicans want people to think that voting for Democrats is hopeless, that they "never get anything done". They'll do their best to make that happen. Maybe if they stood up for a core principle, like the right to bear arms, they could even make it work. But let them try a filibuster against the public interest, against a popular desire for action, and suffer negative publicity, and then finally to fail? It will be very bad for their cause, their morale, and their monolithic party discipline.
Then we can have a chance for real bipartisanship between free and equal representatives voting their conscience.
Afterword: Local Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter (R) deserves credit for being one of the Republicans to flip, and more credit for making his support contingent on extra recovery funding for biomedical research. Though it is still early, we should hope that somewhere among the wreckage of the Republicans there will be people who are willing to break with the party's lockstep and found some new conservative party that is centered on the honest implementation of logical and defensible ideas, rather than dishonesty and special interests. In Britain there are conservatives like Daniel Hannan who have strongly held and articulate views, who stand by Obama. We could have respectable conservatives also. Nothing would be worse for the Democrats in the long run than for the Republican Party to remain a motley assortment of Watergate plumbers, Contras, and water boarders - because even though they can be defeated, they do nothing to demand better thinking from us.
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