Schumer II: The Wrath of Dems

Following up on my post from yesterday, I had some thoughts after listening to Chris Hayes interview Chuck Schumer this evening.

First off, Hayes was outstanding in pushing for better answers and bringing the things Schumer seemed to be missing to the fore. As a journalist, he did a great job here and I'm embedding the segment below, please to enjoy.

My takeaways from the conversation are that:

1. In isolation, considering only the situation of the moment last Friday, I've come to agree with Schumer that the vote to allow the so-called Continuing Resolution to pass was the better of the two unacceptable options, mostly because of the effect a shutdown would have had on courts. I don't fault him for that vote or for lobbying others to his position in isolation at that point.
2. I do very much fault him for his lack of foresight in the weeks leading up to last Friday. That Hobson's Choice of a vote came to be without Schumer having any plan, contingency, bigger-picture strategem, anything at all in mind surrounding the issue. It was entirely predictable that the CR would arrive in the Senate and have Republican support to pass, yet Schumer was caught flatfooted and unprepared. His plan seemed to be "Hakeem gets the House to vote it down and it won't get here."
3. My position that Schumer should step aside as leader was reinforced by the second half of this interview segment. Not only was he caught with his metaphorical pants down on the CR, he has articulated that we have not reached crisis point yet (boy howdy, is that wrong) and his strategy going forward relies on politics-as-usual that no longer applies.
4. The 47 regime is defying court orders now, is kidnapping legal U.S. residents and paying another country to abuse them as prison labor, but Schumer is waiting for the regime to defy a Supreme Court order before he will consider us in crisis. He is relying on public opinion and approval ratings to catch up to reality in advance of his taking any real action. He does not appear to realize that POTUS47 does not care about polling because he does not intend to allow fair elections. He further does not seem to recognize—and this is, sadly, a common problem with my party—that as a U.S. Senator (party leader, at that) he needs to lead public opinion, not follow it.

As Hayes points out in the interview, this stance might be fine if we were dealing with President Mitt Romney. But we're not. Schumer is emphatic (for him) when he indicates he knows this is a far different situation, yet there's a disconnect there. We can't wait until the midterms because we can't depend on there being midterms. We have to fight tooth and nail to make sure they happen and that they're legitimate.

Chuck is failing as leader. He'd better step aside or get a clue right fucking now.