Dave Lindorff: Democrats Aren't Wafflers, They're Wifflers

[Demeter]

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/lindorff/008



The Democratic Party is not a bunch of wafflers. They are a bunch of WFILers. Let me explain.

If you assume the Democratic Party leadership is not a bunch of idiots, then the only alternative theory has to be that they think that we are.

How else to explain this continuing failed "policy" of so-called progressive Democrats in Congress of passing terrible legislation and claiming they will "fix it" later (WFIL)?

The approach seems to have first been developed early in the 1990s, when Bill Clinton came up with his disastrous "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy for gays in the military. Everyone knew it was a shameful climbdown from his campaign promise to end discrimination against gays and lesbians in the military, and that the policy was doomed to failure, but Clinton and his supporters claimed that they'd "at least" get that lousy policy adopted and then they'd "fix it" later. They never did.

The same approach was taken to welfare "reform." Everyone could see that throwing people off of welfare after one 5-year stretch in an economy that had no jobs and no childcare to offer was going to create more poverty and hardship, but Democrats promised that before that dire day came, they'd "fix it."

They never did and poverty rates have soared in America.

Likewise with the Clinton-era "Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act," which pandered to right-wing clamor for get-tough laws after the Oklahoma City bombing by undermining habeas corpus. "We'll fix it," the liberals promised.

They never did, and it paved the way for the vitiation of habeas under President Bush....

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DAVE LINDORFF, a Philadelphia-based investigative journalist and columnist, is author, most recently, of "The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office" (St. Martin's Press, 2006 and now in paperback), co-authored by Barbara Olshansky. A veteran investigative journalist and columnist, his work is also available at thiscantbehappening.net.