Harry Reid Bayonets A Grand Illusion
La Grande Illusion, the 1937 Jean Renoir film, is one of the
great masterpieces of French cinema.
Although the story is set in WWI, it is rooted in time, less about war, and more about the
relationships between men.
Two French aviators, the aristocrat Captain de Boeldieu and
his working-class Lieutenant Maréchal, go on a reconnaissance flight. Their
plane is tracked and shot down by the German aviator and Junker, Rittmeister von
Rauffenstein. The two Frenchmen land safely, but are captured. When Von Rauffenstein returns to base and
learns this, he inquires whether they are officers, and when the answer is in
the affirmative, they are invited to lunch. During the meal, von Rauffenstein and de
Boeldieu discover they have mutual acquaintances—and an odd friendship is
begun.
The idyll is short-lived, and de Boeldieu and Maréchal are
moved from camp to camp, suffering greatly, finally arriving in Wintersborn, a
mountain fortress prison commanded by Von Rauffenstein himself. Van Rauffenstein can no longer fly, having
been badly injured in battle. He chafes at inaction as much as he chafes at
brace on his back, but he renews his friendship with de Boeldieu.
Wintersborn, the Germans think, is escape proof, but de Boeldieu
comes up with a scheme. The prisoners
create a commotion, and when the German guards assemble, de Boeldieu calls
attention to himself on a fortress roof.
The guards shoot, but thanks to de Boeldieu’s distraction, Maréchal and
another prisoner, Rosenthal, escape.
Von Rauffenstein emerges and has the guards stop shooting at
de Boeldieu. He begs his friend to come
down, but de Boeldieu refuses. Von Rauffenstein finally shoots at de Bouldieu’s
legs, but the stiffness from his injuries causes him to hit de Bouldieu’s
stomach, mortally wounding him. In de
Bouldieu’s final moments, Von Rauffenstein, who is consumed by guilt, attends to
him. His death marks the passing of not
merely a friendship, but an era where the kinship of those of a common class was
often more important that mere national borders. Their era is passing, to be replaced by one
that is perhaps more egalitarian, but more brutish.
I don’t know if Harry Reid is an old movie fan, but I think
he’s absorbed the lessons of Grand Illusion, both past and present. His institution, the Senate, has long
functioned as a type of aristocracy, a “cooling dish” designed by the Founders
as a place for contemplation and debate, quite untainted by the hurly burly of
those crass two-year House of Representative types.
Sarcasm aside, there is much to support this argument. The Founders were influenced by the House of
Commons/House of Lords model, as are almost all of the State legislatures. Theoretically, the six-year term serves as insulation
from the hottest political passions and allows the luxury of legislating in a
more inclusive way. Even that wasn’t
enough, however. The Constitution itself created an even greater opportunity
for the elites to keep sway. Until the enactment of the 17th
Amendment in 1913 (1913!!) it was state legislatures that picked Senators.
Inside the Senate, a web of rules has taken hold to give
minorities, even a minority of one, the ability to delay or even block
legislation or Presidential nominees.
The filibuster is the most prominent one, but procedural tricks like the
Senatorial hold can gum up the works effectively. Again, this is supposed to have a moderating
effect: if the majority knows that the minority can be obstructive, they pick
with more care and “cool the dish” again.
The system has largely worked. You can always find mistakes or overreaching,
but generally Senators have played by the rules. They roll out the filibuster for something
really big, with the implicit understanding that it’s a “no” for this person or
law, at this time, under this set of circumstances. Historically, it was preserved for things
like Southern opposition to Civil Rights legislation or a way-out-there
nominee—a discreet, isolated, no.
Through 1970, there were virtually no filibusters.
Have there been mistakes and overreach, by both sides? Of course.
But they have been mitigated by four interlocking concepts. The first is that, to an extent, elections do
matter, and you give the President a certain amount of leeway (not unlimited,
but a fair amount) to pick his own Cabinet and judicial nominees. The second is
practical: government has to function, and while nutty Congressman can be
bomb-throwers because they have no one to answer to other than their possibly
equally nutty District, Senators have a broader responsibility and know better. The third is purely self-protective, although
probably the most motivating; there is no such thing as a permanent Senate
majority, and the shoe will be on the other foot. And the fourth is a corollary of the third:
use the tool too often, and it will be taken away.
But the rules of the game have changed, because the
aristocracy of the Senate is fading into irrelevance. The numbers are staggering. The GOP uses the filibuster for virtually everything
they oppose, both appointments and legislation.
As Ezra Klein quotes Professor Gregory Koger of the University of Miami,
it has become the “new veto point in American politics”.
There are a lot of reasons for this. The “aristocracy” is fading—fully 40 new
Senators have been elected over the past decade, and many are coming from the
fiercely partisan House of Representatives.
These people have no institutional memory beyond trench warfare. Mix the newbies from the House with the Tea
Party-take-no-prisoner types like Ted Cruz, and cooperation becomes a mortal
sin. And, it is not only the parties
that have become more polarized; the regionalization of ideology is becoming
the rule. In effect, whole states are
becoming more like Congressional Districts—win the primary by satisfying the
most motivated and rabid, and you win the Senate seat. That pulls everyone from the center--even established
Republican Senators who have been dealmakers in the past have had to prove
their bona fides by playing the partisan. That’s not merely rhetoric—look at Lindsey
Graham (former member of the “Gang of Fourteen”) blocking everyone in
sight. His excuse—a 60 Minutes report on
Benghazi. When CBS had to retract it,
Graham simply said, “never mind” and dug in.
His original rationale was no longer relevant, but the answer was no, it
would remain no, it will always be no.
Harry Reid is no saint.
But he also recognizes the obvious. In a game where one side no longer
plays by the rules, then the rules only constrain the side observing them. He got support from Senate Democrats, many of
who are still institutionally (not politically) conservative, because they now
believe that the minute the GOP gets control of the Senate, they will toss out
any Senate rule they don’t agree with, no matter how long-standing. In this respect, John Boehner did the nation
a great disservice last month with his eleventh-hour seizure of power in the
House—he eliminated the rule that any House Member could get a vote on a
pending bill and arrogated it only to the Speaker or his designee. And, the GOP’s opposition to three Obama
nominees to the influential D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals might have been the
clincher. Even Republicans agree that all three are highly qualified. They just don’t want them on that Court,
because it is presently a tie. So they
have outdone themselves with specious excuses, including the latest that the
Court isn’t busy enough. There isn’t a
Democrat in the Senate who doesn’t believe that this alleged lack of workload
will suddenly disappear upon the election of a Republican President.
In short, there is no trust.
While it is hard to visualize Reid and McConnell as the dashing,
elegant, and honorable de Bouldieu and Von Rauffenstein, simply sticking to the
rules shouldn’t have been a stretch. But
they haven’t, to everyone’s detriment.
Renoir’s film was widely admired and became the first
foreign film to be nominated for an Oscar.
The original print was thought lost, but, in the late 1950s, a partially
restored version was made from extant prints.
Renoir personally reintroduced
La Grande Illusion,
saying “It is also a story about
human relationships, and I am convinced that the question is so important today
that, if we don’t solve it, we will just have to say goodbye to our beautiful
world.”
I
agree with Renoir. And I think Reid made a mistake, because I believe human
relationships mean something, and the rules mean something.
But,
I understand Reid’s thinking. As de
Boeldieu tells von Rauffenstein, "Neither you nor I can stop the march of
time.”
Michael
Liss
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