The Democrats will probably wrest control of one or both houses of Congress from the Republicans in a few weeks. As far as I’m concerned, that’s a good thing. But it’s a good thing largely because the Republicans have been doing a bad job governing and they deserve the boot — not because the Democrats have presented much in the way of a viable alternative.
The Democratic Party worries me. They’ve been witless, hapless, senseless, and scrotumless where the Iraq war is concerned — and if anyone on the left has a better plan for the Middle East than Bush’s rather abysmal “stay the course,” I haven’t heard about it. “Let’s get the fuck out of there” isn’t half-bad as plans go, but unfortunately the country’s still going to be there after we leave, and it’d be nice to figure out some way to clean up a little bit of our mess first.
Nevertheless, the Democrats’ short term prospects for capturing the House and the Senate are looking good. Their long term prospects, however, still seem dismal to me. Unless some charismatic and substantive leader steps forward to carry the banner in 2008 — Hillary? Barack? Al Franken? — I’m afraid that any gains the party makes will be short-lived.
Why? Because the Democrats whine. And while they have plenty of legitimate gripes, they’re still holding on to a number of gripes that are silly, disingenuous, or just plain wrong. To wit:
1. The Republicans stole the presidential election in 2000. You don’t hear a lot of candidates actually saying this anymore — not since George W. Bush solidly trumped John Kerry in 2004 — but in the Democratic grass roots this idea still gets a lot of play. The fact of the matter is that someone had to lose the Florida vote, and with the numbers only separated by a fraction of a percentage point, it was pretty much guaranteed that nobody would be satisfied with the outcome. Yes, the recount process was a little too chaotic and too politicized, but according to nonpartisan studies conducted after the fact, the end result was the correct one.
2. George Bush lied to get us into Iraq. To say that the president and his advisers lied is to assert that they knew the truth and purposefully stated the opposite. But intelligence is always something of a guessing game, and the best guess of the intelligence community in early 2003 was that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. (Remember, George Tenet, “slam dunk”?) The Clinton administration had concluded the same thing. Wrong conclusion, as it turned out — but nothing I’ve heard or read has convinced me that the Bush administration actually believed that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and yet led the public astray for their own nefarious purposes. They were incompetent, inefficient, and looked at the facts with blinders on — but that’s not quite the same as lying.
3. The Republicans have ruined the economy. Actually, the economy as a whole has been doing rather nicely. We have an enviable jobless rate of 4.6 percent, a Dow that’s just crossed 12,000 for the first time, and lots of companies posting record profits. Your 401k might no longer be doing somersaults and giving you neck rubs, but we knew that couldn’t last anyway. (That being said, what the Republicans are guilty of vis-a-vis the economy is giving the spoils to the rich through tax cuts and a stagnant minimum wage, among other things.)
4. George Bush has been lying about the progress of the Iraq war. I don’t think the Democrats should stop whining about this because it’s untrue. To the contrary, the Bush administration has been misleading the public about how bad it is out there. But during wartime, that’s part of the president’s job. Boosting morale, garnering enthusiasm, doing the rah-rah thing, sticking Jessica Lynch on a pedestal. Governments have to control the flow of information and continually present their case to the public in black-and-white terms during wartime. Lincoln did it, Roosevelt did it, Nixon did it. Otherwise the public will grow restless and demand the troops come home, regardless of the merits of the war. (Now, the fact that the Bushies are clumsy and vindictive in their propaganda — that’s another story.)
5. The only way Republicans win is by scaring the bejesus out of people on hot-button “values” issues (gay marriage, abortion, flag burning, etc.). It’s true that the GOP tends to trot out the same hoary old chestnuts every two years. “If you put Nancy Pelosi in power, she’s going to come to your house and personally give your 14-year-old daughter an abortion while dancing on a burning flag! And then she’s going to take away your guns!” But that’s the nature of politics, and television advertising in general. (Have you ever seen a subtle television commercial?) Until the Democrats stop rounding up senior citizens every two years and warning them that the Republicans want to take away their Social Security money, it’s really hypocritical for them to complain.
Next week: Five Things Republicans Need to Shut Up About if They Intend to Run the Country Again at Some Point.
Following that: Five Things Neither Democrats or Republicans Are Talking About, But Damn It, They Should.