Kevin sums it up. Also see recent leadership polls for Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi over at Kos. Right now Democrats hate their leaders as much as Republicans do, and the reasons just aren’t that hard to figure out. They got rolled on wiretapping American citizens, they have no plan for getting ahead of the mortgage meltdown and on most days crucial committee members like Rockefeller and Feinstein act more like their craven predecessors than like Democrats. Majorities in both houses can’t being themselves to pass any funding bill except what the president asks for in his words.
Claims that Republican minorities have some institutional trump card that keeps anything from getting done strike me as a copout – as Kevin thoroughly documents far too many Democrats, possibly most, act petrified of their own shadow. And if Jonah Goldberg ever got anything right (experience I guess) it’s that abuse only gets worse when you telegraph that you’re scared to fight back.
As I pointed out before Republicans are afraid of looking weak, Democrats are afraid of losing. There’s no joy in events proving me right.
***Update***
Also see John’s earlier post on this topic. At this point I don’t see any way to convince me that the Dem leadership in Congress should not move on in 2009 and make room for people with the courage of their convictions.
Jake
O! O! I know!
What is the soft bigotry of low expectations?
r€nato
AFAIAC, the Dems seem to figure that they can back their way into office by simply being the only viable alternative to the chronic and multiple fuckups under Republican rule… so why risk anything?
That’s hardly an inspiring reason to vote for them… and yet, what alternative do I have? If I stay home or vote for an inconsequential third party, I’m just enabling the GOP.
dingo
Why are you talking about this silliness when al Qaeda has detonated a newk-a-lure, napalm bomb on Southern California? We MUST bomb Iran NOW!! They funded this terrorist attack on our sacred homeland! You know I’m right, you librul pansies.
Zifnab
When will Democrats learn? We don’t give a flip if we lose. We’ve been losing since 2000, in one way or another, so its hardly new. Democratic voters are well aware of what a veto and a filibuster are. When the Dem Congress throws up an End The War Bill or a Stop Bashing Gays Bill, and it gets shot down, we don’t call the Dems losers and wimps. We give credit where credit is due and call Republicans warmongers and bigots.
But this Telecomm act, the last round of war funding, backing down from filibuster threats on autopilot, letting Lieberdick keep his committee seat, rolling over every time the White House rejects a demand for information, OMG MoveOn.Org!… it’s the giving up and going home that pisses off so many people. Fight tooth and nail, throw hissy-fits on the floor, egg the White House, do whatever it takes.
p.lukasiak
What is really needed is for Reid and Pelosi to move aside now. Pelosi is simply not fit for leadership under the current conditions — and has consistently embarrassed herself, and the Party, making promises on key issues that she can’t keep. Nor is she the kind of leader a Democratic President would need to keep the troops in line.
Reid is a problem for a different reason — “Tom Daschle”. Nevada is no different than South Dakota — in a year where the GOP wins big, Reid could lose his seat if he goes too far left, so he’s not willing to go out on a limb. And the situation with Reid only gets worse if a Democrat wins the White House. Reid will he have to shephard “liberal” legislation through the Senate, and he can expected to “balk” with enough frequency to impress his constituents — and screw up the ability of the President to make significant changes.
So, both should go NOW. They suck now, and will be worthless (or worse) in the future.
The Other Steve
You know the telecom immunity thing… Nobody I know really cares about that. In fact it seems as though the Democrats are helping Bush get off the hook.
Look, it’s not Bushes fault. The Telecoms did it and now they’re trying to get off. Well, uhh, hello buehler? anybody home up in your head?
Dreggas
I read that and wanted to punch those morons on fox…repeatedly. This is just unbelievable.
As far as the congress goes. Yes Reid and Pelosi should be ousted from leadership along with, hell, most of the dem leadership at this point because they are part of the fucking problem period.
The Other Steve
I had expected Hillary Clinton to gain the Senate majority leader position. It would have made so much sense.
But now she’s running for president, so that’s out.
But yeah, he seems unwilling to take risks right now.
JYengich
Things will never change. At least not until there is a total meltdown of the economy, or Americans somehow begin having to pay the cost of this administration and it’s puppet congress’ war now, as Americans did during WW2.
People bitch about congress, but continue to re-elect they’re own reps thinking it’s the fault of all the other people in congress. Lieberman is an example of this in the extreem. So we get year after year of worthless or dangerous rule. Depending on which group of nutbags is in power at the time.
Zifnab
I’m way more pissed with Majority Leader Stenyer Hoyer than Nancy Pelosi. That rat-fink snake is behind half the bullshit blue dog garbage that gets kicked around in the House. It’s his fat ass’s fault that any war funding got passed after ’06, and he’s been a behind-the-scenes bullwark against anything resembling progress.
Reid, also, wouldn’t be nearly so bad if Fiengold and Lieberman were replaced by actual Democrats and not Republicans in high places on the wrong side of the aisle. Fiengold has been key in a number of committee votes that put trash like the FISA bill and a number of rotten confirmation votes in the Democrats’ lap.
While Reid and Pelosi can be accused of weakness, they’re nothing compared to the outright slap-to-the-face that Fiengold and Hoyer have regularly committed.
Shade Tail
“Republicans are afraid of looking weak, Democrats are afraid of losing.”
I thought it was the other way around. Democrats seem to faint whenever some GOP shill screams, “Homeland Security!!!” or “Support the troops!!!” Meanwhile, the GOP uses Rovian smear tactics and Nixon’s southern strategy to cheat their way to winning votes, whether in elections or Congress.
Billy K
Shit, we knew what we were getting with him.
MORE AND BETTER DEMS.
I predict a Category 5 Shitstorm on Nov. 5, 2008. Assuming we maintain control of Congress, the Democrat rank and file are going to be very upset at the likes of Reid, Pelosi and Hoyer.
Peter Johnson
Here’s the real reason the voters hate the Democrats. No it’s not “caving in” on wiretapping and SCHIP, it’s the extremist fringe of the party:
PK
Peter Johnson
You should be on fox news. Such perfect analysis! Its the fault of the MoveOn ad. Next up: Should Dmocrats be hanged for treason? Coming up right after the break!
Peter Johnson
Did I say that or is yet another example of something fictional “right-wingers” believe?
Dreggas
Just keep telling yourself that…
RareSanity
Great analysis!!
Now, explain why only 32% of the country approves of George W. Bush….
KCinDC
Uh, Zifnab, I think you mean Feinstein. Feingold is one of the good guys.
Billy K
FIX’D!
I’m still baffled by Wingnuts’ attempts to paint MoveOn as some sort of fringe left element*. They’re really not. The Left has fringe elements just as the Right does. The Left’s is mostly eco-warrior wackos. The main difference here is ours don’t make policy. The Right’s fringe elements steer the ship.
Yes, I know…I’m feeding the troll.
*Not baffled that they’d try, but baffled they keep trying after their attempts have mostly failed. If I were them I’d keep hitting Daily Kos and the like.
ImJohnGalt
I believe you mean “Feinstein”, rather than “Feingold”.
Zifnab
I will answer your question with a quote and a link.
So… um… yes. Right wingers like to talk about treason. Even the Senators do it.
Zifnab
Ack, right! Thank you.
Llelldorin
The problem is the 1980s. Anyone who was an active Democrat back then remembers the frustration. An entire generation of Democrats has this ingrained fear that to directly and forthrightly challenge conservatism is to stare at a bright-red electoral map with one state and the District of Columbia sadly flashing blue.
Reagan really started the modern Republican tendency to run campaigns entirely through nasty slander. “Joe McCarthy” nasty, “segregationist” nasty, and “theocratic” nasty are basically isomorphic, and Reagan combined all three. Pre-Reagan, Republicans tended to use roughly their current tactics against Democrats on foreign policy (soft on communism!), but on social issues you had one wing of Democrats squaring off against the rest of the Democratic party and the entire Republican party. Reagan brought the formerly segregationist Democrats into the Republican party (count the southern congressional party-switches during the 1980s!). The mixing of “eggheads soft on communism” tropes with “ungodly bleeding-heart yankee” tropes is what gave rise to the modern strawliberal. It also marked the beginning of the end of John Cole’s Republican party. (It took about ten years for the congressional leadership to catch up to the party–the turnover was complete when Gingrich replaced Michael as the Repulican House leader.)
Reagan was also much better at denouncing strawliberals than is the current generation of Republicans–he tended to project affability instead of the shrieking anger that’s now the face of Republicanism.
(There’s also a terror of internal dissention–trade unionists like Dingell don’t really have that much in common with environmentalists like Gore, for example. Still, when the entire Democratic electorate hates the Democratic congressional leadership with a firey passion, you’d have to think that internal dissention is a lesser concern.)
Tim F.
Dan Riehl and Michael Reagan are not fictional.
Peter Johnson
And your point is?
r€nato
sailing straight over your pointy little head.
r€nato
FYT.
Svensker
Peter Johnson Says:
Dan Riehl and Michael Reagan are not fictional.
And your point is?
He’s just explaining his deep depression.
Tim F.
PJ, start your search for fictional rightwingers here. Amazing how many made-up eliminationists one can find if one looks for a couple of minutes. After that you can settle by the firelight and warm your feet with some Michael Reagan. Excerpt:
Like totally fake. Surely Reagan meant to say stung for treason. Or, uh, flung for treason. Or maybe there’s some context that the NewsMax link misses. You tell me.
Tim F.
Of course, it should go without saying (or proof) that Democrats are worse.
Llelldorin
r€nato, no. Reagan was just as nasty a piece of work as Governor of California in the late 1960s. Unless you think Lee Atwater was some sort of anim
Llelldorin
r€nato, no. Reagan was just as nasty a piece of work as Governor of California in the late 1960s. Unless you think Lee Atwater was some sort of animé-esque specially-bred evil mutant youth political advisor at age eleven, I’m blaming the boss and not the advisor.
Tim F.
My first link goes to a series of posts – here is the specific post that “Peter Johnson” has been waiting for somebody to reference.
Jake
Yeah sounds great until you realize these days the people with the courage of their convictions are all nucking futters.
AnonE.Mouse
It’s clear to most here that Peter “Dick” Johnson has his head up his ass.The problem is,most Democrats in congress buy the bullshit peddled by him and his fellow anatomically anomalous.
Bob In Pacifica
It’s not Democratic stupidity. They know the score.
From Jim Garrison’s interview with Playboy forty years ago, in 1967:
“I was with the artillery supporting the division that took Dachau. I arrived there the day after it was taken, when bulldozers were making pyramids of human bodies outside the camp. What I saw there haunted me ever since. Because the law is my profession, I’ve always wondered about the judges throughout Germany who sentenced men to jail for picking pockets when their own government was jerking gold from the teeth of men murdered in gas chambers. I’m concerned about all of this because it isn’t a German phenomenon. It can happen here, because there has been no change and there has been no progress and there has been no increase of understanding on the part of men for their fellow man. What worries me deeply, and I have seen it exemplified in this case, is that we in America are in great danger of slowly evolving into a proto-fascist state. It will be a different kind of fascist state from the one the Germans evolved; theirs grew out of depression and promised bread and work, while ours, curiously enough, seems to be emerging from prosperity. But in the final analysis, it’s based on power and on the inability to put human goals and human conscience above the dictates of the state. Its origins can be traced in the tremendous war machine we’ve built since 1945, the ‘military-industrial complex’ that Eisenhower vainly warned us about, which now dominates every aspect of our life. The power of the states and Congress has gradually been abandoned to the Executive Department, because of war conditions, and we’ve seen the creation of an arrogant, swollen bureaucratic complex totally unfettered by the checks and balances of the Constitution. In a very real and terrifying sense, our Government is the CIA and the Pentagon, with Congress reduced to a debating society.”
The Democrats didn’t get tricked by Republicans. They are not dumb. They aren’t even wimps. Congress has no power. It has been reduced to a debating society.
This is my favorite part of the interview:
“But I’ve come to realize that in Washington, deceiving and manipulating the public are viewed by some as the natural prerogatives of office. Huey Long once said, ‘Fascism will come to America in the name of anti-fascism.’ I’m afraid, based on my own experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security.”
How are things in the Homeland, my dear citizens?
MNPundit
If I saw a Dem Congresscritter now I’d lay even chance if I’d yell at them or just spit at them.
TenguPhule
And yet Darrell II the Prick doesn’t see the irony in not being able to see how the extremist fringe owns his own party.
It was a nice experiment in democracy while it lasted.
Cinderella Ferret
Grab a double cheeseburger out of his hand and see how that works out for you.
Tut, tut PJ … Are you wearing your flag pin? Oh, and did those big, bad meanies at MoveOn hurt the Generals feelings? Jesus Sweating Christ! Go read Andrew Bacevich in the October 8 edition of American Conservative Magazine and his take on Petraeus. He calls Petraeus what he is: American Sycophant. Bacevich does a pretty good job of stripping the facade off the Petraeus mystique. After reading it come back and tell us what a traitor and coward Bacevich is.
Conservatives, at least those with a little dignity left, aren’t overly impressed with David. I am sure the General is a fine man, but he is no more or less a good soldier than most of the guys out on patrol humping a full combat load. So please do yourself a favor and stop whining about a bunch of weak ass punks and their stupid advertisement in the NY Times. If that is all the game you dead-enders got, your team is fucked.