ONCE AGAIN, DEMOCRATS PLAY BY NONEXISTENT RULES

Democratic leaders in the House and Senate recently joined Republicans in inviting Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to deliver a speech to a joint session of Congress. As a Politico Playbook story makes clear, this is another example of Democrats playing by rules that aren't really rules.

The most consistent thing we heard in our calls last night was puzzlement to flat-out exasperation at why the two Democratic leaders would have signed on Johnson’s invite in the first place.

[Leah] Greenberg of the progressive group Indivisible] noted that [Senate majority leader Chuck] Schumer has already called for new elections in Israel: “Why we would then be undermining the clarity of that message by behaving as if Netanyahu has something important to share with Congress ... we’re baffled.”

Said one lawmaker in [House minority leader Hakeem] Jeffries’ leadership circle: “We’re already divided — we don’t need this guy who’s killing people coming to speak.”

But we're told that Schumer and Jeffries had no choice.

As early as March, Schumer had publicly backed a Netanyahu visit — seemingly afraid of further rupturing the U.S.-Israel relationship a week after making his comments about new elections: “Israel has no stronger ally than the United States, and our relationship transcends any one president or any one prime minister,” he said.

He left himself no room to retreat, even as news of humanitarian disaster in Gaza mounted and Netanyahu seemingly thumbed his nose at JOE BIDEN’s Rafah invasion warnings.

What does "He left himself no room to retreat" mean here? What rulebook is Schumer following? He could have retreated by retreating. There was no law or Senate rule preventing him from changing his mind.

And as for Jeffries...

Jeffries, meanwhile, has explained publicly and privately that this essentially wasn’t his decision — the majority leaders typically make decisions on joint meeting invitations and that it’s customary for minority leaders to sign on. “That’s the process that unfolded in this particular instance,” he told reporters yesterday.

"Customary"! You're killing me here, congressman. There is no obligation for you to do anything simply because it's "customary." Republicans refuse to do things that are "customary" all the time. They do whatever they think they can get away with, customs be damned. And it usuually works for them.

Also there's this:

A longtime Democratic aide close to the issue argued that once Schumer agreed to sign on, Jeffries “didn’t really have a lot of choice” but to stand with him, especially considering his own close ties with his considerable Jewish constituency in Brooklyn.

Both Schumer and Jeffries are from New York and need to worry about the opinion of constituents who vote Democratic but are highly supportive of Israel. On the other hand, here in Manhattan, Congressman Jerry Nadler led the fight against the politicized and cynical move by the House GOP to pass the so-called Antisemitism Awareness Act. This undoubtedly displeases some of Nadler's constituents. But he knows that many voters, including liberal and leftist Jewish voters who distrust Netanyahu and his Likud Party, back him on this. So he took a stand.

Playbook also tells us:

... people close to both leaders noted that [House peaker Mike] Johnson technically didn’t need Jeffries and Schumer's] buy-in: He could have unilaterally invited Netanyahu to address the House and given senators an open invitation to join — a scenario that would have heightened tensions even further, they note.

Tensions are already heightened. Why not lean in to them? Tell the truth about the speech: This will be a campaign speech. It will be a campaign speech for Netanyahu and Likud, and a campaign speech for the Republican Party. I'm not going to endorse a campaign rally against my own party. Why should I? If it's anti-Semitic to be wary of Netanyahu, are the many Israelis who regularly take to the streets to denounce him anti-Semites? Are the hostage families who blame him for their relatives' continued captivity anti-Semites?

I assume that elderly Democratic leaders don't fight Republicans because losing three straight presidential elections in the 1980s left them with a bad case of Stockholm syndrome. But why is Hakeem Jeffries acting this way? He's only 53. Is the torch being passed to a new generation of nebbishes?

If so, I hope Democrats who are less supine challenge them in the future. Democrats have to fight back someday, or this country is doomed to permanent one-party rule.