Who's obstructing what?

The Democrats issued an accusation of Republican obstruction during their idiotic all-nighter. The Republicans, apparently, are being obstructionist in their unwillingness to break their filibuster of the Democratic endeavor to ignore all the good news coming from Baghdad, Anbar, and Diyala. The Democrats know how the process works; they used Senate filibusters during their time in the minority to block enough judicial appointments that they understand that you need 60 votes in the Senate to make anything happen. They have 53. Even if they were magically able to get 60 votes, they still have to withstand a veto. Thus, they really need 67 total votes. That isn't going to happen in anyone's world.

What, then, are the Republicans obstructing? An inevitable veto?

More importantly, though, is what else is getting done during this stunt: nothing.

We still have a crippled domestic auto industry; we still have a devastating problem with social security; we still have a poverty rate in this country which is around 18%; we still have villages being razed in Darfur; we still have 15% of the population without any sort of health care; we still have massive shortages of nurses, special education teachers, and computer specialists; we still have a $375 billion gap between what people are required to pay in taxes and what they do pay; we still have the alternative minimum tax which is bearing down full-speed on more and more Americans; we still have millions of illegal immigrants in our country and thousands more coming in every day; we still have a murder rate among the highest in the developed world; we still have Iran and North Korea pursuing nuclear weapons. In short, we still have enough serious problems facing the country that we could try to do something about, that both sides could agree on, but which are being ignored so that the Democrats can put on their little pony show.