PYRRHIC VICTORY: a victory or goal achieved at too great a cost.

Item #1: This past week the President went to Copenhagen to address leaders from around the world. The topic was the environment and the continuing threat to it by industrial nations. The hope was to come away with a major agreement on limitation of release of damaging gasses into the environment. Even before he left for Copenhagen, President Obama knew that the possibilities for that agreement had disappeared.

However, during the time he spent in Copenhagen the President was able to extract a verbal agreement from the leaders of China, India and South Africa regarding a willingness to continue to participate in strategic conversations which could lead to such limitations eventually. That was seen by many as a significant step toward reducing global warming.

His detractors in Congress labelled his accomplishment as a Pyrrhic victory.

Item #2: On Saturday 60 Senate Democrats came to a consensus that the bill being shaped by Senator Reid was capable of being placed before the Senate for approval by the entire Senate. There had been a lot of give and take among the Democrats, finally focusing on a Senator from Nebraska who extracted bill-limiting concessions in return for his 60th vote. Republicans were caustic in their response, saying the process was embarrassingly flawed. A a number of liberal Democrats were angry, saying that the Nebraska senator had blackmailed Senator Reid into concessions which destroyed the central purposes of the bill.

The President breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that a limited, but historic, step was being taken, and that his administration could claim that as a victory. His detractors labelled this as a Pyrrhic victory.

I don't know about you, but I had to go to the Internet to discover the meaning of this term which had been used twice in a single weekend's media reports. I knew that I had heard the term used before, and I understood the intent of the comment. But I didn't have a clue what the word Pyrrhic victory meant. The fact that Pyrrhic was capitalized made me even more curious.

It turns out that Pyrrhus was a third century B.C. King whose forces battled the legions of Rome. The army of Pyrrhus defeated the Romans in several key battles, but each time the Romans were able to replenish their troops from the thousands of recruits waiting in Rome. Pyrrhus had no such capability, and commented something to the effect that if he continued to win such victories he would return home to celebrate alone.

Thus, the term Pyrrhic victory has come to mean a shallow victory with the possibility that such continued victories will result in a moral defeat. It is a colorful term, and one whose subtleties are not lost on anyone, especially the President.

The political climate in Congress is such that these victories by the President's supporters are hard-fought and significant. The climate is far less than Americans hoped for in the election of Barack Obama as President and the overwhelming Democratic elections in both the House and the Senate. This was to have been an historic era, during which great progressive steps could be taken toward a new system of governance in this country. However, that is not to be, at least given the current climate.

Republicans in Congress are determined to undermine and destroy the Obama administration. I'll leave it to you to articulate the reason for this phenomenon. The reasons may vary, both in their stated purposes and in their more subtle sub-texts. At the same time, Conservative Democrats have chosen this moment to exert an ideological battle within the party. The Democratic Party traditionally is known as a volatile bunch, so it's not a surprise that volatility has been demonstrated over such historic legislation. But the reality is that the current drama in Congress is a tragedy when it could have been a comedy (to use the language of drama.)

Clearly, the strategy being employed by Republicans is to affect the 2010 elections in the hope of changing the makeup of seats in Congress. They may well achieve that goal, although it is too early to be sure. But the more significant result of this strategy is that the very fabric of Congress is being weakened. The public perspective on Congress is so negative (deservedly so) that an anti-incumbent furor has been created. While the removal of some members of Congress as a result of this furor may not be all bad, it will be a Pyrrhic victory for those feeding the flames.

And the missed opportunity that the Democrats have to effect an enormous transformation of the governance of our nation is tragic. The small victories of the Conservative Democrats also will turn out to be Pyrrhic. This opportunity for effective redesign of a governance system may not occur again in the lifetimes of the current population.

Photo Credit: Flickr.com
Definition Credit: Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.