Scarborough on Nuclear Option: Historians Will See Obama as a Power-Grabber

Scarborough: Historians Will Treat Filibuster Change As A Power Grab By Obama (RealClearPolitics)

JOE SCARBOROUGH: Well, they can make that argument, but if you listen to what they said when they were the minority, this is a grave challenge to America’s democracy as we know it, and as Barack Obama wisely said when he was Senator in 2005 on that floor speech, if you are already have a partisan environment, and you bring out the nuclear option, then you're going to make a partisan environmental all the more partisan. I will say this. For progressives that have said that this president doesn't play "hardball," that he's not a bare knuckle brawler, that he's not afraid to get down in the mud and be dirty and fight dirty and fight hard, which progressives have been saying for years, I think you can take that complaint about your president off the table because here, think about it.

Health care reform itself was passed by blowing up the filibuster. They couldn't go regular order in the Senate. So they blew it up to get this unpopular health care reform bill. The president over the past year has been unilaterally making one change after another without any approval from the United States Congress. Howard Dean even coming on this show suggesting he may not have the constitutional right to do that. And now the very judges who will be determining whether what he's doing and these changes, whether it's Constitutional or not, they are only going to get through by a nuclear option.

You look at the history of this presidency and look specifically how he has handled the messy rules of the Senate; I think historians will find him to be a breathtaking grab of power. Now, of course, they can blame Republicans too, but Cokie, what I was always fascinated by when I was in Congress and I would always turn to my Republican brothers and sisters, I say you guys are acting like Republicans are going to be in charge for the rest of our lives. You do know that the way we treat them will be held against us when they get back in power. I just wonder, Democrats employing this option, do they not know 2014 is a pretty grim landscape right now for them?