Archives for 2003

Fresh after rolling over and playing dead over the Prescription Drug Benefit while simultaneously failing to recognize the long-term implications of their new jihad against the AARP, I don’t think this is an unfair question to ask:

“Exactly how stupid are the Democrats in Congress?”

The answer, it seems, is just as dumb as the people who vote for them. Check out these responses to the revelations that a Republican staffer stole secret internal Democratic Senate Judiciary Committee member memos.

Atrios calls this ‘Watergate II,” the Daily Kos notes that “Republicans are Thieves” and that “it shouldn’t be too surprising,” while chief muckraker and lead memeufacturer for the silly left Josh Marshall (fresh off being wrong about everything in North Korea) has this to say:

Caught red-handed. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch has placed one of his committee staffers on administrative leave for what the media reports are agreeing to call, with some delicacy, “improperly obtaining data from the secure computer networks of two Democratic senators.”

(Reminds me of my pals who used to get kicks by improperly obtaining Snickers bars from the local drug store when we were in grade school.)

Keep in mind, Democratic Senators raised questions about how an unsent memo from the Democratic staff on the Intel Committee ended up in the hands of radio chatmeister Sean Hannity three weeks ago.

Now that it seems the Judiciary Committee memo was in fact stolen, the Democrats’ demands that the other incident be investigated sounds a lot more compelling. Was that one ‘improperly obtained’ too?

Josh then links to a transcript that shows that Orrin Hatch is not only cooperating willingly with the investigation, but actually launched it at the behest of three Democrats (Kennedy, Leahy and Durbin). I don’t want there to be any confusion- if this staffer did indeed break the law, I think he should be punished, and I think that at the very least he should not work on Capitol Hill again, but how does this in any way excuse the disgusting behavior that is reflected by the actual memos?

How stupid, shortsighted, and myopic must this party be that they think this is going to sell well with the American public:

“Sure, we had secret internal memos detailing how our judicial selection process is beholden to special interests and explaining how we were conspiring to play race politics with certain minority nominees, but those MEMOS WERE ILLEGALLY OBTAINED FROM OUR SERVERS!”

Since Josh already made the leap of faith that if the memos from the Judiciary Committee were pilfered, the Rockefeller Intelligence Committee memos might be stolen as well, let’s do another thought experiment:

“Sure you caught us trying to politicize the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee. We were going to bully the Chair, obfuscate evidence we found to our distaste, distort and leak out of context intelligence to the press, and then wait until the election cycle to launch our own partisan investigation for maximum political gain, BUT YOU WERE NOT SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT. Those were private memos.”

Can you ever imagine yourself, while standing ina court of law, saying “Sure I e-mailed my mistress about my plans to kill my wife- but you weren’t supposed to read it” (and before the wingnuts claim I am equating the memos to murder, back off, fools)? Essentially, this is the sort of statement the Democrats are now willing to make loudly in the Court of Public Opinion, and the funniest thing is, they think it is going to help them.

This really is the party of Clinton- same tactics, same atttitudes, same short-sightedness. The problem is that Clinton had brains, style, charm, and could talk his way out of a heart attack. The current party is a ghoulish Frankenstein- one part Pelosi, one part Kennedy, one part Leahy, one part McAulliffe. By my read, that is one part West Coast liberal, one part eastern establishment elite, one part snarling condescension, and one part amoral big money- this ain’t your Daddy’s DNC.

I don’t have to remind you how the populace reacted to Shelly’s Frankenstein.

*** Update ***

Matt Stinson discusses the issue.

How Dumb Are the Democrats in Congress?Post + Comments (43)

So, your team just falls over and plays dead and gets steamrollered by the GOP on the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit. This occurs, mind you, while the AARP, previously one of your staunch allies, is spending 7 million dollars on an ad campaign to tell the public they disagree with you, yet you continue on. So what is the solution for your party’s woes? To keep fighting the really important issues:

The Democrats asked whether the Republican National Committee had gone to the White House with sound equipment to have Mr. Bush recite the line anew for what was the first Republican commercial of the campaign season here. That might have meant that the party was not being truthful when it said it had not coordinated with Mr. Bush when it made the advertisement, a possible violation of law.

The Republicans said there were no such doings. “The audio that you hear is from the State of the Union address, the video that you see is from the State of the Union address,” a spokeswoman for the national committee, Christine Iverson, said.

Party officials said the line in question was “cut and pasted.” Still, Democrats were ecstatic over the perceived chink in an advertisement that they have criticized for days as unfair.

The slow, steady fall into obsolescence is painful to watch. I guess I know what the problem is- they just aren’t attacking Bush enough!

Seriously, though- if they had the votes to block the Medicare bil, why didn’t they? Exactly what reason is there to vote for a Democrat? I hate the Medicare bill, but I see no damned reason to vote for Democrats after that performance. They are, quite simply, weak, ineffective, unprincipled, and without ideas. That was clearly demonstrated at that absurd debate last night (how many more of these are we going to have to suffer through?), where the carping ninnies alternately distorted each other’s records while taking pothsots at the President. This part of the debate was quite, ummm, illuminating:

KERRY: But you still haven’t answered my question.

DEAN: We’ve done a great job on kids.

KERRY: But you still haven’t answered my question.

DEAN: And Tom Beaumont wrote in the Des Moines Register weeks ago that Medicare is off the table.

BROKAW: Congressman?

KERRY: No, the question is will you slow the rate of growth? Do you intend to slow the rate of growth in Medicare because you said you were going to do that?

DEAN: Well, what I intend to do in Medicare is to increase reimbursements for states like Iowa and Vermont, which are 50th and 49th respectively.

KERRY: Are you going to slow the rate of growth, Governor, yes or no?

DEAN: We’re going to do what we have to do to make sure that Medicare lasts…

KERRY: Are you going to slow the rate of growth, Governor?

(LAUGHTER)

Because that’s a cut.

DEAN: Well, I’d like to slow the rate of growth of this debate, if I could…

(LAUGHTER)

… but we’re going to make sure that Medicare works.

KERRY: Well, I’m sure you’d like to avoid it altogether, but…

BROKAW: OK. Let me ask you, Senator Kerry…

DEAN: Medicare is off the table.

We are not going to cut Medicare in order to balance the budget. I’ve made that very clear. I’ll do it one more time.

It is nice to have John Kerry on record stating that the Democrats have been lying out their asses for forty years. A cut in spending is when you spend ten dollars year one, 12 dollars year two, and then ten dollars again in year three. A cut in spending is not when you spend ten dollars in year one, twelve dollars in year two, and 13 dollars in year three. That is a reduction in the size of the increase. We have all known this for years, but the Democrats have lied about it for as long as I can remember, claiming that slowing the growth of a project is “Slashing the funding.”

Idiots, and to be fair, some Democrsats are finally ready to depose Daschle.

Going the Way of the Betamax and the EdselPost + Comments (10)