Judged now by loyalty to a political leader? No disagreement accepted.

[SunSeeker]

209. Yes it was a lie. It was not "a majority to fix it"--that would have required 60 votes.

President Obama only had the filibuster-proof 60-vote majority for 24 working days, not two years as the poster incorrectly states, falsely implying that Obama/the Democrats sat on their hands.

One of the standard Republican talking points is that the Democrats had a filibuster-proof, super majority for two years between 2008 and 2010. This talking point is usually trotted out when liberals complain that the Republicans filibustered virtually every piece of legislation proposed by Obama or the Democrats over that period of time. The implication is that Democrats had ample opportunity to pass legislation and that the reason they didn’t pass more legislation doesn’t have anything to do with the Republicans. The poster makes the same argument.

Not only did the Democrats have a super majority for only 24 days, but on top of that, the period of Super Majority was split into one 11-day period and one 13-day period. Given the glacial pace that business takes place in the Senate, this was way too little time for the Democrats pass any meaningful legislation, let alone get bills through committees and past all the obstructionistic tactics the Republicans were using to block legislation.

Further, these Super Majorities count Joe Lieberman as a Democrat even though he was by this time an Independent. Even though he was Liberal on some legislation, he was very conservative on other issues and opposed many of the key pieces of legislation the Democrats and Obama wanted to pass. For example, he was adamantly opposed to “Single Payer” health care and vowed to support a Republican Filibuster if it ever came to the floor.


The whole timeline and details are nicely laid out here:

http://factleft.com/2012/01/31/the-myth-of-democratic-super-majority/