Bush is Against the Ropes, but are Democrats able to Put Him Away?

[Totally Committed]

Bush Against the Ropes
Democrats ought to be able to put him away, but you know how they are

by James Ridgeway

The Democrats ought to be in great shape: Bush is going down in the polls. Social Security has become a disappearing issue. The Plame investigation threatens Karl Rove and perhaps others on the White House staff. The Christian right is pushing Bush further and further into kookiness, with calls for remaking education along the lines of "intelligent design." Bush's energy policy has no effect on slowing runaway gasoline prices. People across the nation dread what's going to happen to their pocketbooks when home heating bills for both oil and gas hit at the first cold snap. The war is still an important plank for Bush. But God works better. And John Roberts works best of all. To cheers and standing ovations before the Idaho National Guard last week, Bush returned to a campaign slogan that brings people cheering to their feet: "Freedom is not America's gift to the world. Freedom is an almighty God's gift to each man and woman in this world."

>snip

Where are the Democrats? The party's establishment, such as it is—Joe Biden and John Kerry, for example—are socked into the war. So, it appears, is Hillary Clinton. She acts like she's already the nominee, "bobbing and weaving" as one activist put it, and in typical Clinton style, acting as if the rules don't apply to her. Hillary is Hil-lary. She doesn't have to lead. Instead, the senator from New York plays with words on abortion and studiously ponders such subjects as how to get religion back into the mix without looking like an opportunistic nut. She doesn't talk about the war, which she has supported, nor about Cindy Sheehan. Time and again she looks like the model Bush Lite–DLC candidate. And it works. She's getting accolades from George Will for resisting the "siren songs" of people like Sheehan.

The nomination of Roberts to the Supreme Court already has split the Democrats, making any opposition to him seem dubious, if not reckless, for a politician. When the hearings start, there's likely to be more disarray, leaving Bush looking better and better.

Taking on the war is tricky business. "Democrats with long memories know perfectly well that similar demands for withdrawal during the Vietnam War wrecked the party's reputation on national security issues for a generation," Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum writes in the Los Angeles Times. "The American public tended to associate Democratic doubts with the nation's first-ever military defeat, and regardless of whether that conclusion was fair or not, no one is eager to repeat it."

http://villagevoice.com/news/0535,mondo1,67308,6.html

TC

[Botany]

1. No we must play nice.

and not mention that he stole the election

and 9/11, the Iraqi War, and New Orleans going underwater happened
on his watch.


Or the gay hooker pretending to be a reporter to make the President look
good @ press conferences

[MichiganVote]

2. Smae mistake they made in the election-keeping mum

[lancdem]

3. I don't see any way Bush is going to look better and better

[kenny blankenship]

4. Look it's UP TO US

It's not going to come from the Congressional Democrats, and I'm not even faulting them for it. They can't act or propose action without being paralyzed by the accusation of partisan bias. It's up to us the people to demand Bush go.

[GoBlue]

5. Hope to disillusion you...

I think the public is finally 'getting it' about corporate politicians. We need to get rid of nearly all the incumbents. IMHO.

[welshTerrier2]

6. it's the wrong question

bush is a lame duck ... lame duck's eventually grow weaker and weaker ... his own party will be less and less likely to stand with his extremist agenda ... bush has been de-fanged ...

so, if the question is, can the Dems capitalize on this weakness, the answer is a qualified "yes" because bush knows he's going to have to compromise and his own party will insist on a more moderate agenda ...

but that's not the real question ... republicans, like Hagel or McCain for example, will gain all sorts of extra points as "men of integrity" when they stand against their own party, show the courage of their convictions, and take a more independent stand ... Democrats, on the other hand, have no such opportunity ... they are expected to be oppositional ...

and to make matters worse, they have seemed too timid to actually be oppositional ... the stage has been set, the curtain opens, the audience anxiously awaits ... but the star of the show, a Democrat who appeals to ALL Democrats, is missing ... time is growing short and no Democrat has sufficient party-wide stature to define the Party's agenda and its platform ...

Democrats need to address their unity issues ... what's going on right now is untenable ... and there's been no leadership, i mean ZERO leadership, on addressing this issue ... maybe it is a rift between Dean and the DLC ... maybe it's between the left and the right ... maybe it's all about differences over Iraq ... but whatever the cause and its manifestation, it's real ... very, very real and no intra-Party dialog has been planned to address it ... the status quo is a recipe for disaster ...

the issue is not whether Dems can beat bush; the issue is whether Dems can first avoid beating themselves and then be strong enough to stand up to a more moderate republican ticket ...

[Totally Committed]

7. Someone over in GD just said that Harry Reid

has called for us to "unite" behind Bush in this time of disaster, or somesort of words to that effect. I haven't heard that. Has anyone here?

IF THIS IS TRUE, all I can say (after the Bill Clinton let-down from this afterenoon) is we need to get serious about changing this Party, from the top, down!

Has anyone heard this? And, if so, can you provide a link? Google has come up with nada!

TC

[jayctravis]

8. I think the Democrats have been slapped down enough

that they're in the "Okay, you think you can run the country on your own..." anger phase.

They were on vacation too. I don't ever remember the entire administration being "off" at the same time. There is no freaking summer vacation when you work in the government. You rotate.