Looks like the Senators from Idaho are putting Sullivan’s confirmation on hold. Now, if this is enough to make Bush withdraw the nomination, I’ll post an embarrassing picture of myself on here to offer penance for being horribly wrong about the inevitability of his confirmation. My guess though, is that they are doing it to convince him to address a lot of the abuse issues, or at least promise to address them.
This is a really promising development, without a doubt, and a good indication that things could go our way in the end. Fingers crossed.
w00t (word of the year…)
(and as an aside, did you deliberately pick a font that cannot easily distinguish between a numeral 0 and a letter o to cut down on the leetspeak?)
Nope… the theme picked the font.
Interesting – when the comment posts, you CAN see the difference – it’s only in the edit box…
Will the embarrassing picture involve a pink tutu? :-)
We’ll have to see :) But I’m pretty sure this isn’t going to scuttle his confirmation.
We can hope it gets some mainstream “jourxnalist” to craw out of its hole and shed a little light on the confirmation. I wrote Dianne and Babs as my (faithless) reps to stall it. Usually they’re (only) good at stalling stuff.
I dunno that we need to go as far as a tutu – a pic on Sebastian in Jersey should be good enough ;)
But nobody political capital would be wasted on this. Isn’t that what you said?
What if everyone thought you had a clue? It would have been a walkover win for Sullivan.
Now, not only is there scrutiny, but everyone has been made aware their actions are being scrutinized. I believe Ryan has noted a rising number of visits to his website from the Senate. Check it out. Would this have happened if he and others had followed your plan of preemptive surrender?
You may eventually be correct in that his nomination will be confirmed. But the Senate has been put on notice and has had to address the situation. If promises are given and not kept, they cannot say they had no idea. Then they can’t go home and claim they would have done something if they had only known. At that point your long term solution might have a chance to succeed.
But not until the people counting on our votes are informed that there is a downside to ignoring our rights. They have now been so informed. Now they ignore at their own peril.
The manner in which I have written this sounds harsh, but you know what? I feel harshly about it. I and others tried to pry open your mind and could not do it. Therefore you could not imagine this possibility. People who quit before the fight is over never imagine victory. Please quit being one of them.
Whose political capital is being used here, though? As I read it, this seems to be a principled stand by two senators on behalf of a highly visible contituent (Ryan Horsley). You could say Ryan’s capital is being used, I suppose – except that this is what representative are supposed to do for their constituents. (I’ll gloss over the original design of the Constitution making the Senate’s constituencies the State .gov, not the state residents – that changed with direct senatorial elections).
Grassroots efforts don’t use political capital in the usual sense – as long as they’re actually grassroots. Brady hasn’t got many “real” roots, it’s a creature of K street.
In this case, individuals lobbying their reps is much different from the NRA-ILA doing so.
First off, I was never saying this whole fight with the ATF was a waste of time or an unwinnable fight. it is vital an essential.
I was saying I was skeptical of the value of attempting to scuttle the Sullivan nomination because I didn’t think it was doable. I asked people to convince me what we were supposed to get out of this. You know what? I still think he’s getting confirmed.
But what I am certainly guilty of is a failure of imagination that there was a possibility of something less than outright defeating Sullivan’s confirmation that would, nonetheless, move the ball forward toward getting the ATF under control. You know what? No one made that argument. All I heard was that you just had to fight, even if there was no possibility of victory. I’m OK with doing that sometimes, when you just can’t afford to throw away that possibility you might win, but I wasn’t sure I liked what I won even if we defeated Sullivan.
I thought David’s point that there was nothing difficult about a letter. I can’t argue with that. I’ve made my views on the matter known to those which claim to represent me. It wasn’t my intent to discourage people from writing reps. But in terms of what we should do collectively, through our second amendment groups, I was questioning the value of trying to kneecap Sullivan. Crapo and Craig gave me my answer, and yes, I was wrong about the value.
“In this case, individuals lobbying their reps is much different from the NRA-ILA doing so.”- Ian Argent.
And therein lies the problem. The four million members of the NRA cannot be called a lobbying group. They are as close to grassroots as one can get. The NRA-ILA is a lobbying group, but it is a group supposedly lobbying in the interests of it grassroots members. This isn’t rocket science. So why do you think it would be difficult for elected reps to understand the grassroots nature of the membership of the NRA to the point of mooting the effort?
If it is different, then it can only be because the organization’s goals vary from those of its membership.
“But what I am certainly guilty of is a failure of imagination that there was a possibility of something less than outright defeating Sullivan’s confirmation that would, nonetheless, move the ball forward toward getting the ATF under control. You know what? No one made that argument.”-Sebastian.
Not exactly true, several people made some very good arguments for fighting the fight on the chance that there would some beneficial effect, even if ultimately Sullivan was confirmed.
No, nobody predicted Crapo and Craig would put a hold on it, they weren’t clairvoyant, but they allowed for the possibility of beneficial, if not totally successful, results by engaging on this issue and bringing pressure and awareness to bear. *******************************************
“Whose political capital is being used here, …………………..”-Ian Argent.
Certainly not the NRA-ILA’s political capital. But weren’t they supposed to do so? Else why all those “send more money so we can influence the political process and protect your rights” letters?