The Hapless Democrats
Time's Joe Klein has a pretty good column about the current Custer-like position of the national Democratic Party: co-opted or outmaneuvered on just about every front.
The week's events illuminate a fundamental difference between Democrats and Republicans on domestic policy. The Democrats are boxed into complicated and unpopular positions because they tend to stand on principle—although the principles involved are often antiquated, peripheral and, arguably, foolish. The Republicans, by contrast, have abandoned traditional conservativism to gain political advantage (with the elderly, for instance) or to pay off their stable of corporate-welfare recipients.
Comments
Which Democrats is he talking about? The grass-roots organizers? The Nancy Pelosi Democrats? Or the Tom Daschle screw-the-taxpayers-as-long-as-the-energy-bill-can't-be-used-to-deny-me-reelection Democrats?
And why is it OK for Republicans to shamelessly bribe legislators with pork to support the Medicare bill but not OK for Pelosi to deny committee posts to Dems who oppose it? (And this is a REPUBLICAN asking.)
One thing you need to watch about Joe Klein: He often dispenses with contextual accuracy. Or, put another way, as an analyst, he makes a fine novelist.
Posted by: Lex | November 26, 2003 2:44 PM