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4 | On a Glide Path with an Odd Couple to Nut-Cutting Time
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100 ★ 4 On a Glide Path with an Odd Couple to Nut-Cutting Time The Legislative Process Let’s start by making clear what this chapter isn’t—an explanation of parliamentary terms such as “quorum call” and “unanimous consent.” That’s better left to other books. We would like to point out, though, that even politicians bemoan how the widespread use of such terms insulates them from their constituents. Missouri Democratic senator Claire McCaskill told us that the question “Can we get cloture?”—the sixtyvote threshold for most legislation to advance in the Senate— best exemplifies to her “the Beltway mentality”: “To most people in America,” she complained, “it sounds like an improper sexual act.” Instead, we sought more informal terms that you’d hear on Capitol Hill, as well as in many statehouses and city council chambers. Some are euphemistic (“Hope springs eternal”), some are in honor of their originators (Gephardt rule, Hastert rule), and some are just things we thought needed more explanation (hideaways, the lunches). We’re omitting as an official definition one of our favorites: “Roach motel,” which describes a circumstance in which senators are all in the chamber voting repeatedly on various bills. As the 1970s commercial for the exterminating insect bait famously boasted, “They can get in, but they can’t get out.” Blink first: The eventual—and very often protracted—outcome of brinkmanship, as in “Who blinked first?” This cliché comes from the childhood staring-contest game to see who can hold a gaze the longest, and is synonymous with caving. ★ 101 The LegisLaTive Process Borking: Refusing to confirm a well-qualified appointee for ideological reasons, often after a well-funded smear campaign. ★ Robert Bork, a federal appeals court judge and conservative legal scholar, was nominated to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court by President Ronald Reagan in 1987. Within hours of Reagan’s announcement, Senator Ted Kennedy took to the Senate floor to denounce “Robert Bork’s America,” a land of “backalley abortions” and other potential atrocities. The Senate voted not to confirm Bork, on a 42–58 tally, and a nominee with firmly held views subsequently was seen as a liability. Now, any time that any Supreme Court nominee is perceived as running into the slightest bit of trouble, the headline practically writes itself: “Will (insert name here) Be Borked?” And it extends beyond the court.When Larry Summers’ bid to head the Federal Reserve ran into roadblocks that led him to take himself out of the running in September 2013, Bloomberg Businessweek ran a headline: “Did Larry Summers Get Borked? Not Really.”1 It explained that he was an unknown figure to most Americans, and thus could not touch off the interest-group rallying that attends a Supreme Court nominee. Upon Bork’s death in December 2012, the Economist’s anonymous language column speculated on why “borking” had taken off in political lingo while other similar terms did not. With “no disrespect to the departed intended,” the columnist wrote, “while he was alive, many people simply noted that Bork is ‘fun to say.’”2 Brinkmanship: Once used in the national security realm during the Cold War, to describe moving to the very edge of war in order to force a conciliatory move. It has become yet another phrase that has moved in recent decades into the standard political-combat context to describe virtually any showdown, especially the continued wars between Democrats and Republicans over the budget. ★ As he began his second term in January 2013, President Barack Obama spoke hopefully of future fiscal-related dealings [3.235.42.157] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 05:11 GMT) 102 ★ Dog Whistles, Walk-Backs & Washington hanDshakes that would include “a little bit less drama, a little bit less brinkmanship , [and] not scare the heck out of folks quite as much.”3 That turned out to be wishful thinking, given the government shutdown that occurred eight months later. In case you were wondering, the word used is both brinkmanship and brinksmanship, with an added s. The version without the s is far more common, but both are considered acceptable. Budgetese: Few languages are more esoteric or confusing than the one dealing with the budget process. We aren’t going to fill another book with terms when there are more detailed sources out there (the Government Accountability Office has a particularly handy guide4). But we wanted to include some common ones. • CBO: Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan agency on Capitol Hill that...