The argument the Democrats must make. Conyers/Lyons

[Hamlette]

I get Gene Lyon's columns via email as he paper went to charging for them. Here's part of what I got today:

snip

Which brings us to the Chicken Little theme on which Republican hopes appear to hinge. Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., first raised it in a recent fund-raising letter on behalf of the party's Senatorial Campaign Committee. If Democrats regain Congress, see, they'll act the way Republicans acted toward Bill Clinton, calling for "endless investigations, congressional censure and maybe even impeachment of President Bush."

The best way for Democrats to deal with this Chicken Little theme is straight on, as Conyers has attempted to do. In a recent Washington Post column, he correctly identified the "straw-man" logical fallacy that underlies it: attacking arguments your adversary has never actually made.

Years of one-party government, Conyers said, have left Americans with many unanswered questions, such as "whether intelligence was mistaken or manipulated in the run-up to the Iraq war... the extent to which high-ranking officials approved of the use of torture... whether the leaking of the name of a covert CIA operative was deliberate or accidental" and who did it. Any alert citizen can add particulars: the legality of National Security Agency's warrantless wiretaps and the constitutionality of Bush's 740 "signing statements," as reported by The Boston Globe, in which the president claims the power to ignore laws with which he disagrees. Conyers wisely stresses that the GOP-led House impeachment of Clinton proved "that partisan vendettas ultimately provoke a public backlash and are never viewed as legitimate." Nobody wants a government that does nothing but investigate itself. But the Republican Congress has completely abdicated its constitutional responsiblilites. Our democracy cannot long survive a president who claims the prerogatives of a king. That's an argument the Democrats must win.

Lily Tomlin said it best. "No matter how cynical I get, I just can't keep up."

(I added his tag line because it is my fav. He always ends with the Lily Tomlin quote. Sorry for no link but it might be available online someplace.