Senate's mantra: ‘No prisoners'

Senate's mantra: ‘No prisoners'

I'll bet you've never given any thought to the connection between the movie "Lawrence of Arabia" and the U.S. Senate. Neither have I, until recently.

Directed by David Lean and with Peter O'Toole in the title role, "Lawrence of Arabia" was far and away the blockbuster movie of 1962. It was nominated for 10 Academy Awards and won seven, including best picture.

Lawrence was a lieutenant in the British Army stationed in Cairo as World War I began. At its outset, Europe had divided itself into two vast and opposing alliances. The Triple Entente included Great Britain, France, Russia and the Arab rebels. The Triple Alliance included Germany, Austria-Hungary and what remained of the once proud Ottoman Empire, which included Turkey and most of the Arabian Peninsula. The Arabs chafed under Ottoman rule, and the British, anxious to protect the Suez Canal, sought to exploit the restive Arab rebels.

Lawrence was the perfect man for the job. He was expert in his knowledge of the Bedouins. His loyalties were deeply divided between Britain and the Arab rebels. He was charismatic, daring and self-absorbed to a fault.

Near the end of the movie, with the Ottoman Turks in retreat, Lawrence and his Arab mercenaries encounter a column of Turkish soldiers. The slaughter that ensues is ghastly and is undertaken in reprisal of the Turks having recently annihilated all the inhabitants of the nearby town of Tafas.

As Lawrence and his men charge the Turks, Lawrence cries, "NO PRISONERS, NO PRISONERS." The Turkish column is butchered.

Lawrence, his dishdasha spattered with blood, is in a surreal, mad trance brought on by the sheer joy of what he has done. In his book "Seven Pillars of Wisdom," T.E. Lawrence refers to the incident and says, "In a madness born of the horror of Tafas we killed and killed."

Lawrence and his Arab followers outpace the British Army to Damascus. But even with his inspirational leadership, the Arab rebels can't even agree on how to keep the lights on in the city. They leave Damascus to the British Army and melt back into the desert. The Arab Spring will have to wait for at least another century.

So what's all this got to do with the Senate? Plenty. Now don't get me wrong. If we were to send NCIS' forensic specialist, Abby Sciuto, into the Senate Chamber to analyze the carpeting, she would not find samples of blood. But that doesn't mean that something lethal isn't going on there. It is!

And it is a lethality that is almost completely disguised by the Senate's rules, procedures and obsession with the appearance of decorum. But for the Senate to work, it must be able to forge bipartisan alliances on major legislation. That means there must be a large cadre of senators from both parties who are willing to compromise. That cadre is shrinking, and shrinking rapidly. It's a casualty of the Senate's current mantra: NO PRISONERS, NO PRISONERS.

In the 2010 election cycle, 12 senators chose not to run, the highest number in 75 years. This year, another 10 will be gone. And many of the them are the ones whose careers are replete with bipartisan compromise. What's being lost is the connective tissue that holds the Senate together and enables it to function.

No single loss even approaches the magnitude of the loss in 2009 of Sen. Edward Kennedy to brain cancer. Although many don't know it, especially here in the South, Kennedy had no peer when it came to forging workable legislative accommodation on bills that were intensely controversial.

Without doubt, his highest priority was achieving health care reform. His work on it began in the early 1970s as chairman of the Health Subcommittee, and it never ended. Had he been in the Senate in 2009-2010, the course of the legislation would have been profoundly altered — for the better. Would he have openly opposed President Barack Obama? Of course not. But behind the scenes a different, better, bipartisan bill would have taken shape.

Here's a sampler of why senators are retiring:

Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., said: "There is too much partisanship and not enough progress, too much narrow ideology and not enough practical problem-solving."

Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, said figuratively of Congress: "I think we have to blow the place up."

Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said: "I have spoken on the floor of the Senate for years about the dysfunction and political polarization in the institution. ... There is no practical incentive for 75 percent of the senators to work across party lines."

Sen. Paul Kirk, D-Mass., the man who was appointed to fill Ted Kennedy's seat, denounced the raw politics in the Senate.

Make no mistake about it, the long knives are drawn, and the Senate is hemorrhaging. And don't believe for a moment that all the blame is attributable to the Republicans and the tea party. The responsibility for this institutional crisis rests squarely on the shoulders of both parties, and the Democrats have the majority.

You have to look no further than the two leaders, Democrat Harry Reid and Republican Mitch McConnell, to find the heart of the problem. Think of them as pathetic versions of Lawrence of Arabia and the Turkish commander at Tafas.

How do those two bozos hold power? They get it from bozos like Kay Hagan and Richard   Burr, who get their power from bozos like us!

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