FWIW, What actually happened. (JK and the filibuster).

[MH1]

I know I'm out of step with everyone else tonight - I have no friggin clue what * said or what the Dem response was, because I ran across this post by Chris Bowers at MyDD, and had to respond. It took a while to pull together. Here's my response - complete text below. I'd appreciate your thoughts and corrections. (I'll be heading to bed soon tonight, so I'll probably be reading them tomorrow).

If this doesn't make sense at all please go read Bowers' post. I don't know who started this "2 hours too late" thing but I am tired of hearing it and seeing Chris posting it was the last straw. I've met Chris and he seems like a decent guy, so I hope this post sets him straight.

(And if anyone has posting privileges over there, a little mojo in the cup wouldn't hurt.)

Hi Chris, I just found this by a link from Alternet. I hope you are still reading responses.

I have a somewhat different view of what happened to trigger John Kerry's "announcement" that he was supporting a filibuster. Since in my version of events, I myself play a significant role, perhaps a check of timestamps, links, etc is in order, because maybe my impressions are a little warped.

For starters, here's a post I made in reply to someone at DailyKos who posted something absurd, that I later found that they had picked up here:
http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2006/1/28/02059/1098/233#233

To sum up something of a timeline:
1) On January 20th, John Kerry made his first post at DailyKos. It received over 1200 comments. He followed it up with another, that received over 800 comments. Two diaries - 2000 + comments.

The diaries weren't about Alito. You can go read them for yourself, if you managed to miss them:
Real Hardball
Thank You

However, many, many of the comments were about Alito. Begging John Kerry to start a filibuster.

2) On January 24th, the Alito nomination was reported out of committee, on a party-line vote. Note: John Kerry is not a member of the Judiciary Committee. If he was discussing a filibuster with other Dems already, prior to the nomination even coming out of committee, I am sure it was assumed that it must be kept quiet.

3) On January 26 at 11:52 am, Will Pitt posted a thread at Democratic Underground,
Source tells me Kerry is now openly in favor of a filibuster.
This thread got a ton of "recommends" and ended up on the "Greatest" page, where yours truly saw it.

As a big Kerry fan (yes there are a few of us in the "lefty blogosphere"), I was fairly sure that this was a good thing to spread around, if I could be sure that it was true; because it seemed there was nothing but despair in blogworld for the fact that not one Democratic leader had stood up to fight against Alito. Plus, there were all those comments people at dailykos had written on the diaries John Kerry had posted. It seemed they would like to know Kerry had listened to them.

Soon after that I saw a post by dwahzon at dailykos corroborating Will's claim. Between what I know of Will Pitt and dwahzon as sources, that was good enough for me.

4) At 12:37 pm on January 26, I posted this diary at dailykos, Kerry wants filibuster - CALL SENATORS to Support him!. It SHOT to the top of the recommended list - ultimately ending up with 348 comments. Many were asking for corroboration. Most were saying, (to the effect of) "let's get this show on the road." By 4:30 pm there were already 250+ comments on this diary. Most of them were about how to contact Senators, and reports of contacts - later, reports that Senators' lines were jammed. The filibuster show was on the road.

5) At 7:28 pm on January 26th, only 7 hours after hell started breaking loose at both DU and dailykos because of Pitt's post (DU) and mine (dailykos) - and others after that, to be sure - John Kerry posted at dailykos, Filibuster Alito. Of course Kerry's diary jumped up on top of the Reco list even faster than mine had - and I had the distinct pleasure of realizing that my diary had been bumped off the top by John Kerry ;-).

So what's my point?
* John Kerry's "announcement" did not come with his diary posting at 7:28 pm on Thursday night. It came much earlier in the day, when his office allowed it to be known that he was "supporting" a filibuster.
* Frankly, I think it was the combination of his dialog at dailykos the prior weekend, plus the incredible reaction to mine and Pitt's posts - which itself was a reaction to the mere hint that John Kerry might lead the Senate in this (note the word supporting not leading was always used by Kerry) - that motivated him to cancel a prestigious speaking invitation at the University of Ulster, leave the World Economic Forum, and return immediately to the Senate once Frist had announced the cloture vote would happen on Monday. I don't have those details, but I've been told that Kerry would have had to have jumped on a plane almost immediately after the call for the cloture vote was announced.
* John Kerry only "led" this filibuster effort in the Senate. We led this filibuster effort in the blogosphere. We were galvanized by the knowledge that someone - as someone put it, "even Kerry" - would actually step forward in the Senate. Before that it probably seemed like a wasted effort. That is not to diminish one iota the courage that Kerry and Kennedy showed in stepping forward. (If you know how I feel about John Kerry, you know better.) But the thing is, they couldn't do it without us. And we wouldn't do it - at least not with all the passion and fury we subsequently proved capable of - until we were assured we had one of them.

What was missing was the connection. That connection was made by John Kerry posting at dailykos. You can say he should have done it sooner. But I am pretty sure that his initial posting had nothing to do with Alito - remember the nomination hearing was underway at the time, and that was the responsibility of other Dems - but it was made apparent to him from the comments that this was something the folks at dailykos really, really cared about. Was he hearing it too late? Perhaps. But the fact that he did hear it, and did act on it - I think that is what has really impressed a lot of folks, and perhaps even given them new hope. Perhaps that sense that someone - a high-profile Democratic Senator - had finally listened to them and was going to stand up for them - that is what really made the difference.

Now, because I just can't let this mischaracterization stand, let's look at the statement in your post, and compare it with the timeline. You say, "That same day, *a couple of hours later*, John Kerry publicly announced that he was going to try and organize a filibuster to stop Alito on Dailykos." Well, if the time that you knew the filibuster was "lost" was only 5:30 pm, then Kerry had already publicly announced more than 5 hours earlier, when his office started telling people he was supporting a filibuster and trying to get other Senators on board. Presumably, he didn't just wake up Thursday and start doing this, either. And by 5:30 pm on Thursday, the "filibuster effort" was already in full swing in the blogosphere, with John Kerry's name all over it. His posting at 7:30 was only an affirmation, not an "announcement", "2 hours after hope was lost", and therefore is not deserving of the vilification that certain members of the MyDD community have been slinging around. What would you have had him do, make a post saying "Sorry guys, we appreciate your efforts, but we just found out a couple hours ago that all is lost, so don't waste your efforts"? No, of course you wouldn't have wanted him to do that! People were pouring their hearts and souls into making this happen...knowing it was an extremely high hurdle, but making the effort anyway. Being engaged. Making themselves heard. Kerry should have come out and slammed the brakes on? No. And he didn't. He came out with encouragement, but realism. (Go back and read his diary again if you missed the realism.) He did the right thing at the time with the deck that was dealt him. The questions of whether he should have acted sooner altogether - or whether other Democrats should have done a better job of leading this from the start - are valid questions but are entirely different than your argument.

So ... if this post has been too long and confusing, I apologize, but please go back and re-read the timeline and understand why the point about Kerry "announcing" 2 hours late is just wrong. I trust that your post here was in good faith, and I hope that my post sheds some light. If I've overblown my own role, well that comes from the distorted perspective of looking at it from inside my own head. Check the diaries and the comments and the timestamps and draw your own conclusions about all of it. I really hope you will do that, and that it will all make sense.

If you want to discuss the details further, you can reach my by leaving a comment on my blog. I will probably post a version of this there, now that I've taken all this time to write it.

Peace.

[kerrygoddess]

1. This was in a post I wrote Sunday

"Word has it through my sources, that Kerry actually announced a filibuster to his colleagues on Wednesday in the Democratic Caucus and asked them to consider it, before leaving for Davos."
http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=1784

This also might be helpful to you -

John Kerry - Stand with Us: No on Alito
Monday, January 23rd, 2006 -
http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=1722

John Kerry Nails Bush: President Fails to Explain Why He’s Above the Law
Monday, January 23rd, 2006 -
http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=1724

From the first day of the Alito debate on the Senate Floor -
John Kerry on His Opposition to Judge Alito’s Nomination to the Supreme Court
Wednesday, January 25th, 2006 (link to video included) -
http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=1749

More on Kerry Backing Filibuster
Thursday, January 26th, 2006 -
http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=1759

John Kerry Supports Filibuster on Nomination of Judge Alito
Thursday, January 26th, 2006 -
http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=1761

Filibuster Alito
Posted by John Kerry
January 26th, 2006 @ 4:52 pm
Do I support a filibuster? The answer is yes. -
http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=1762

John Kerry on the Alito Nomination: The Time To Stand Is Now
Friday, January 27th, 2006 -
http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=1774

Fighting the Good Fight, Knowing When to Pick Your Battles
Saturday, January 28th, 2006 -
http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=1784

John Kerry: The Vote Of A Lifetime
Sunday, January 29th, 2006 -
http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=1796

[MH1]

4. Thanks kg!

I saw your comment over on Chris' post, too. Excellent.

I'm thinking of reposting it as a diary later. I also want to include Ted Kennedy's announcement too - I think Ted stepping forward to stand with Kerry was more key than maybe some recognize - and certainly more than I've said to this point, but I want to be clear that I think it was absolutely huge. I know TK was with JK all along, but the public announcement was important, to make sure it wasn't all about Kerry.

Unfortunately I have a ton of work at my paid job today, so I don't know when I'll be able to do the diary. But I think this is a story that needs to be told accurately, before the misinformation takes hold.

[Noisy Democrat]

2. 2 comments

I thought the Bowers thing was more about why the blogosphere acted so weird than accusing Kerry of anything (even though it repeated the "2 hours too late" meme). But for once, I thought it wasn't beating on Kerry as much as usual.

The other thing is that apparently Kerry had urged the other senators to filibuster as of Wednesday. He just didn't take it straight to the blogosphere till Thursday. The thing that strikes me is that Kerry couldn't possibly have tried to publicly lead the charge for a filibuster 2 weeks earlier, and thus appeared to do an end-run around Harry Reid. He had to wait and urge Harry Reid to lead. If he'd come out as leader 2 weeks earlier, the blogosphere would've been full of, "John Kerry thinks *he's* a leader! What about Harry Reid? When is Kerry going to learn to be a team player? Why does he always have to put himself at the front? When is Harry Reid going to smack him down?"

So in this case, Kerry waited for the Minority Leader to lead while he worked behind the scenes, and then he took the fight public. It's ridiculous for anyone in the blogosphere to claim he was moving too slowly when we know they would've been the first to complain if he'd moved faster.

[MH1]

5. I agree about Chris' post.

I've met Chris - had a few beers with him, even, although that's been quite awhile ago - and I think he's a decent guy, and he's not - or at least he wasn't - a committed Kerry-basher. So when I saw him picking up on that "too late" meme I thought it was a good opportunity for clarification. Chris will probably at least pay attention. I believe that some of the others there are so anti-Kerry they would just totally blow me off.

So, I agree his post wasn't about Kerry's timing - as you said it was about why did the blogosphere react the way it did. But, he included the MyDD-generated myth of Kerry's timing as a basic assumption of his post. He asked to be "edjamacated." Well there is no way he is going to understand why things happened as they did, if he doesn't even have an accurate understanding of the timeline of key events. So I felt I needed to at least attempt to "edjamacate" him.

I don't know if Kerry planned his Thursday evening dailykos post much ahead of time, or if that was motivated by events once the word got out from his office. It may be that they released the info from his office strategically, with an eye on whether it would take off. Or maybe they were totally surprised by the reaction. Who knows - we probably never will, and that's fine.

As for everything else you say about the timing, I think you're spot on. There's a protocol that has to be followed. I think JK did the best he could with the hand he was dealt, and what he did was, on balance, wonderful.

[ProSense]

6. Thanks for the excellent summary.

I'm just clueless as to why anyone would think that in the span of less than 24 hours Kerry would give an action of such magnitude a little thought (all that that time frame would allow), make a decision and act on it. If that was the case, I would consider it irresponsible. Think about what actually had to be considered: everything from the actual leadership to rallying support, as well as a strategy to do so. Imagine being in Kerry's shoes, then insert Noisy Democrat's point from post 2:

He had to wait and urge Harry Reid to lead. If he'd come out as leader 2 weeks earlier, the blogosphere would've been full of, "John Kerry thinks *he's* a leader! What about Harry Reid? When is Kerry going to learn to be a team player? Why does he always have to put himself at the front? When is Harry Reid going to smack him down?"

While there was urgency in his actions, I don't think his actions resulted from panic. That timeline also plays into the media's portrayal that this was political opportunism.

JMO

[ProSense]

8. And to this point, Kerry op-ed on the filibuster

and nuclear option.

05/24/2005

Fallout from "Nuclear Option

BY JOHN F. KERRY

THE REPUBLICAN leadership's "nuclear option" would eliminate the filibuster and turn the Senate into a rubber stamp for even the most controversial of President Bush's judicial nominations. The arguments can seem obscure, but there will be consequences for all of us.

Snip...

The filibuster fight is more than a beltway battle. The very foundation of our government an effective system of checks and balances is at stake. Over 200 years ago James Madison warned us: "The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny." We must remember that warning, and remember that the greatest strength and virtue of our democracy is the protection it provides to the minority.

If the Republican leadership gets its way, America will lose the protection of a strong, independent judiciary for the first time in history. In 1937, President Roosevelt attempted a court-packing scheme to assert his influence on the courts. His own party said no. Thomas Jefferson once attempted to impeach a Supreme Court justice who disagreed with his political agenda. His own party said no. I hope some Republican senators look at history and find the courage to speak truth to power in defense of our democracy.

http://kerry.senate.gov/v3/cfm/record.cfm?id=239282

[beachmom]

3. Excellent summary, MH1

This is why it is SO wrong to blame Kerry for everything when the blogosphere was literally a partner with him. WE need to take responsibility for this, too. If he's being ostracized in the press and by his colleagues, well we need to stand with him. But you know, dKos is a place you can make temporary alliances but they'll NEVER really defend Kerry. I'm not talking about Dean here, I'm just talking about the Deaniac mentality over there which includes never forgiving him for a) voting yes on the IWR vote, b) defeating Dean in the primaries and c) losing the general election. And a corrollary to that is d) some will never forgive him for conceding the election, when they are convinced, absent any prosecutorial evidence thus far, that the election was stolen in Ohio.

I assume you guys told him about the fickle Kossaks, so this isn't coming as a surprise to him now that a lot of the people who told him to do this now have their swords out to stab him in the back . . . and now back to our regularly scheduled program.

[beachmom]

7. Positive feedback from a friend of mine

I think this fits in this thread. I talked to a friend of mine who is very much up on the news, but doesn't know a lot about all the play by play insider political games (he doesn't read blogs or anything). I had called him to get an e-mail address for someone in a state for one of the fence sitter senators. He ended up using my form e-mail I created to lobby a friend in Washington state. Afterwards, I wrote him to tell him what happened, and especially how Kerry had been villified by the press as well as by his own colleagues. I said "I guess this is what happens to you when you do the right thing". Here is his response:

Your involvement does not get unnoticed and is, certainly by me, very much appreciated. Sadly, doing the right thing is in the current political climate, more difficult than doing the wrong thing. But that's a sign that doing the right thing is more important now than ever.

Since he is not a blogger this really gives me hope that this battle was not fought in vain. The Republican Noise Machine was so loud (and sadly, seems to include CNN, the networks, and even the NYT) that I just assumed the larger world must agree with them. Well, that's not the case. It wasn't just bloggers who were highly concerned about Alito, and the ones who learn the story of what REALLY happened I think will be touched by our passion.

I've thought about this the last couple of days, and maybe I'm in the minority here, but I think that what Kerry did was politically UNexpedient. It hurt him. Badly. But I am weighed down with the realization that he did it for US and the voiceless of this country. He threw himself on his sword, so that we could become empowered. As far as pandering goes, I think it's safe to say that Hillary Clinton, Joseph Biden, Evan Bayh, and others did not vote with their heart but with cold political calculation to cover their left flank. But Kerry? No way, this was JUST like Vietnam, but in political terms. He is a hero. But a stranger has never done something like this for me before, so I am humbled and awed. I mailed him a card today, but that seems pretty small compared to the self-sacrifice he made for us. Your timeline, MH1, only confirms what he did to be one of the bravest stances I've seen in a long time by a politician. God, I hope he doesn't regret it. Because I don't.

Edited for formatting

[wisteria]

9. I agree that what he did damaged him in side Washington , but

only temporarily IMO. Like you mentioned, some of those that went along did so because they were exposed and felt they had to. To those people, I say to bad, Kerry showed them all up with his leadership on this. Imagine, people couldn't figure out what he was up to and why. It wasn't the way they play politics. What does it say for our Party when many of them don't recognize an act of integrity and principle.
We didn't win, but we had a major force in numbers alone on this filibuster. They can't help but recognize that he was able to organize and amass such a large energized coalition in such a short period of time.
Reid better take notice and not discount Kerry anymore. Kerry brought important issues to the surface and they should discussing the differences and understand that one side is not going to control everything any longer.
Kerry stirred things up, that's for sure. and there is concern over this years red state elections. I personally think to much emphasis is placed on the obstructionist excuse as to why we have been losing elections in the south. Our election losses are more complex than just this one reason. You would probably have a better perspective on this than me since you live in VA. I spent four years in South Carolina and a year living in North Carolina,but that was ten years ago.I'm sure attitudes have changed somewhat since my time down South.

[karynnj]

10. I'm not sure it hurt him inside Washington

I think it simply brought out into the open what was already there. He never was the inside the belt way favorite. Even as the party's candidate in a close, tough election, soem of the Washington power players supported Kerry pretty weakly mainly speaking about how defeating Bush was important. I remember almost nothing that Carville or Begala said that was really positive about Kerry. (Surely they could have found something to praise).

I think that maybe the Clinton administration people who Kerry didn't seek out may have seen a Kerry win as the loss of any chance that they would be back in power - at least not for 8 years. Maybe they were afraid that he genuinely would clean things up. That Hillary was there as a 4 year out possibility may have made them not that desperate to help.

I know they want to run on corruption and incompetence - but there's a saturation point on this - it may well be that all the people who can be persuaded on these two things are. The contrast of Kerry or others speaking of the constitution in a way that breathes life into it was a startling contrast. Kerry was defending the best of American values, weaving compassion (like for the VT farmers) and the rule of law. Could you imagine how many people would have agreed if the media played Kerry's Monday speech.

What is telling is that in 1971, the media showed 5 minutes of a speech by a 27 yr old kid who was a war hero. On an important issue, the current media showed none of 3 speeches by the man who got almost half the votes for President about a year earlier.

[wisteria]

11. Good points, I didn't think of it in this way. Your take on the media

is very telling and demonstrate what we are up against.