Obama is done with the GOP and its filibustering ways. I know a lot of folks think he might not have noticed, but he has.
He just finished an interview with Lehrer on PBS:
Full transcript
MR. LEHRER: How do you feel about the way the 60-vote filibuster rule has been employed on the health-care debate?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: I am very frustrated.
I think that right now that's the way things are operating. And we've had to make sure that we fight through those issues. I think Harry Reid has done a very good job grinding it out.
But as somebody who served in the Senate, who values the traditions of the Senate, who thinks that institution has been the world's greatest deliberative body, to see the filibuster rule, which imposes a 60-vote supermajority on legislation - to see that invoked on every single piece of legislation, during the course of this year, is unheard of.
I mean, if you look historically back in the '50s, the '60s, the '70s, the '80s - even when there was sharp political disagreements, when the Democrats were in control for example and Ronald Reagan was president - you didn't see even routine items subject to the 60-vote rule.
So I think that if this pattern continues, you're going to see an inability on the part of America to deal with big problems in a very competitive world, and other countries are going to start running circles around us. We're going to have to return to some sense that governance is more important than politics inside the Senate. We're not there right now.
MR. LEHRER: Is there anything you can do about this as president of the United States? Isn't it a Senate situation?
PRESIDENT OBAMA: It is a - it is a matter of Senate rules. Look, the fact of the matter is, is that if used prudently, then I don't think it's harmful for our democracy. It's not being used prudently right now. And my hope would be that whether a Sen. is in the majority or is in the minority, that they're starting to get a sense, after looking at this year, that this can't be the way that government runs.
And one of the things that I think Democrats and Republicans have to constantly do is try to put themselves in the other person's shoes. If we had a Republican president right now and a Republican-controlled Senate, and Democrats were doing some of these things, they'd be screaming bloody murder. And at some point, you know, I think the American people want to see government solve problems, not just engage in the gamesmanship that has become so customary in Washington.
So what do we want to do about the filibuster? I'd say we want to try to reduce its use in the short term and perhaps eliminate it in the long term.
I've thought about the filibuster for some time, and wonder if it might not be easier politically for the Democrats (or Republicans, when they are in the majority) to simply insist on returning to the old rules of the filibuster, in which you actually have to hold the floor by talking. It makes the obstruction apparent - hours of CSPAN footage to be mined of Republicans reading the dictionary - and thereby discourages filibuster abuse.
It's also what most folks, if they understand even what the filibuster is, think that it involves. Few Americans know that to filibuster today you don't have to hold the floor by talking.
Maybe that's the first, politically tractable step.
About a year ago I wrote about the filibuster and how bringing back the classic filibuster was important. We didn't take any action back then, and now we have a year's worth of obstruction that's evident. We should do something about it now.