Umm-- how is it chickenshit to not propose something that you cannot bring to the floor, because you don't control the rules committee and don't have the votes?
Yes, the 11th hour executive order was an attempt to slam this through and hope Bush would not want to take the negative hit or, with more Dem Senators, have some chance to hold onto it.
Why picking a strategy that gives some better chance of winning is chickenshit, I can never understand.
These OSHA rules are probably the most important ones passed since the 1970s. It's not symbolic but a critical close to life-and-death issue for a lot of workers. Unfortunately, it's also too important to business profits not to do everything they can to kill the rules. They don't care about "worker health"-- if they did, they wouldn't cripple their workers and kick them to the curb.
> My intention is not to take potshots at electoral "lesser-evilism," but to
> seriously pose the question, don't you think Democratic timidity made
these
> new standards ripe for the plucking from the very beginning ? Same as the
> Roadless Initiative, etc.
Again, what timidity? Even if all the conservative Dems were solidly on board (which a lot were not fully), there were not the votes because the GOP controlled the majorities and the rules. So they ran it through the executive branch, one of the perks of controlling it which those who voted for Nader too easily dismissed.
And workers will pay for it now, unless the Dems in the Senate can hold their folks and pull a GOP Senator or two to their side.
-- Nathan Newman