http://mediamatters.org/research/201001210001Once again conservatives have jumped at the chance to define and confuse the terms of the debate. Why are they so darned good at this?
Now it's concerning the idea of a "nuclear option" -- originally coined to mean a senate procedure which would do away with the 60-vote cloture requirement with only a majority vote. Nuclear both because of potential political fallout, and because it would do away with filibustering forever, and therefore potentially harming both parties. The republicans were considering using it to bypass a filibuster of some nominees, but a small bi-partisan group managed to forestall its use.
Another more limited method of getting around filibusters is the budget reconciliation process. Limited because nominally it only can apply to budget-related issues. The republicans actually used this process to enact some of bush's tax cuts, without any populist uprisings whatsoever.
But now fox news and some republicans have started using the term "nuclear option" to refer to
both of these processes, in a way that is very hard to interpret as anything other than intentional, disingenuous attempt at confusing the debate. A quick search on the internet finds that conservative blogs have quickly picked up on this, and are deriding how terrible and authoritarian the use of the "nuclear option" (meaning budget reconciliation) would be. Many mention the actual threat of the nuclear option the republicans made, but no one seems to mention the actual uses of budget reconciliation.
Honestly I think that both techniques are undesirable, and as much as I wanted this health care bill, I wouldn't suggest democrats use either for the health care bill itself (budget reconciliation for a "clean up" bill to adjust taxation and entitlement structures to make the house happier is more palatable to me -- but just a little). But why confuse the terms at all? Why can't we have debates on actual facts rather than spun-up labels topped with distorted historical perspectives? Or is it the liberals who are being overly pedantic and worried about semantics and details while the conservatives are simply cutting to the core of the issue and "clarifying" things for the public? But then, why can't the public just look at the actual facts and "clarify" things for themselves?