The Bad Democrats

Sorry it's been so long since my last post. I started a new job and well, time to blog thins out when you're never home.

Anyways since my last post the most disconcerting thing occurred. The Democratic Cave-in of 2007. Yes it even has a title.

Basically the Democrats did what they always seem to do. Back down.

They had sent the President a timetable in the previous Iraq Reauthorization spending bill and he of course Vetoed it. Somehow he and his spinsters were able to get the Republican contolled media to echo that it was Democrats denying funding to the troops even though they passed the funding and it was Bush vetoing it.

Democrats had to face a ridiculous choice. Sending the bill back repeatedly with the same timetable knowing Bush will veto it every time and hoping to retain the small amount of Republican support needed in the Senate to carry it through, or just taking the timetable out.

Bush played chicken with the Soldiers lives. He knew Democrats cared more about the troops than he did so he gambled that they would fund the troops if he kept vetoing their money. It's sadistic for sure but it's what he did.

All of us on the left were furious with the people we elected. Certainly we felt we elected Democrats in November of 2006 with the impetus to end this war. There were other reasons, corruption etc., but none of them trumped the end of this war.

Realistically though that dream should have ended in November 2006 after those elections. We won but we didn't have enough votes in the Senate to beat Bush. We didn't even have enough to invoke cloture and force bills to an up or down vote.

Obstructionist Republicans held over from the Do Nothing Congress could continue to do what they did best, Nothing. Roll over, sit, lie down, fetch for Bush and Rove. It's their only trick and they kept on doing it.

When the bill came back, they refused to override the veto and fund those troops. Politics after all is more important than human lives.

And now here we are.

I grappled with who to hate. Who to be mad at. Who to feel betrayed by.

The answer was... myself.

It was my idealism and that of many of us on the liberal left that didn't seem to realize that unless our numbers were greater we didn't have the ability to do anything other than investigate.

Impeach? Ha! Even the Republicans with us on Iraq wouldn't join us for that and we wouldn't have close to enough votes to get that through even with every Democrat voting that way. Not to mention there are many DLC or right-leaning Democrats (see: Ben Nelson, Nebraska) who would come out attacking their own if the left were ever to manage such a coup.

See that's another thing. We Democrats are high minded and believe we're above reproach. Impeachment is beneath us. Republicans pulled impeachment out of their asses for oral sex because they didn't like Clinton even though he gave in on many of their policy issues. They're ruthless, heartless and could give a fuck what anyone thinks. Corporate America eats that up and plays up such bravado as false machismo. Democrats and that high minded thinking are considered pussies and spineless wafflers.

It's hilarious since most elected Republicans haven't served a day in the military nor have their children and most elected former military members are Democrats. Just as they painted a Max Cleland, who lost three limbs in Vietnam as "soft on defense" while his opponent took a deferment for a bad knee and listed jogging as one of his favorite hobbies on his campaign site years later, they can push the envelope of false rhetoric and win.

Stop the War or End Funding? No way! We can't get a bill to cloture with either of those in the Senate. We need 60 votes for that and worse the majority we have hinges on a traitor to the Democratic party, Joe Lieberman.

And therein lies the problem. As much as I despise some of the centrist Democrats who shake and cower in fear of their conservative bases and refuse to tell them the truth and do the right things rather than saving their own skins for future election cycles, they at least stick with us most of the time.

All that searching for a scapegoat and really the only thing we can do is elect more liberal Democrats to the House and Senate to go with a Democratic President in 2008. Then we can reverse this mess and not have to worry about procedural crap like cloture.

In the meantime there's one guy whom we all need to take aim at.

Focus in on this man. He is the reason gaining more Senate seats is crucial. He is supposedly a life long former Democrat but when he finally lost his Democratic primary, he did so in the least gracious fashion ever. He created his own party (one that was so pathetically self involved it was named Connecticut for Lieberman) and with the help of Rove and Bush, ran as an "independent" convincing Fox News to basically openly campaign for him and get Republicans and long time apparently brainwashed Democrats to give him a general election win.

Now he's paying back his masters, supporting them on keeping the debacle in Iraq alive and spouting Administration talking points. He goes to Iraq and the troops know who his master is so they won't even tell him what they really feel about the situation for fear of demotion or worse. He goes off the deep end to prove he's as much of a murdering war monger as his buddies in the White House and declares that we need to begin a war with Iran. He even blocks a no confidence bill on Alberto Gonzales when even Republicans aren't with that guy anymore.

He's completely nuts and clearly Bush's boy. He even said he could vote for a Republican in the 2008 Presidential race. Yet he caucuses with the Democrats and still chairs committees thanks to the Democratic majority (even though he abuses some... he refused to investigate Hurricane Katrina to protect Bush and Rove). While I personally and most other Democrats are sick of this traitor, we can't just expell him from our ranks.

Yes, he's not a Democrat (and funny enough the chair of the CT for Lieberman party wants him to resign from his own party that bears his own name!) and yes he sides with Bush AGAINST us now more often than not. Oh and yes we don't have to give Republicans the organizing ability to change committee chairs if we don't want to...

But as I said before, the Republicans own the media and as "The Anonymous Liberal" pointed out in an excellent post this past February, the media would make it impossible for Dems not to cede power and probably would do serious reputation damage to the party.

Not that the damage WITHIN the party hasn't been done on the Iraq Bill cave, but this from the outside, would be worse.

What to do? How do we get our party back?

Hell, do we even have a party anymore?

I wrestled with all of those questions. In the current political environment, the only thing to do is to keep voting liberal. Work hard for the more liberal Senators (no more Republicrats like Casey from PA just because they have the name and money to whoop an idiot like Santorum without a fight). Get a LARGE majority in both houses and the White House in 2008. Then we can turn it around and kick Lieberman's ass to the curb.

It's not a soothing, comforting answer, but realism needs to trump idealism for the moment and at the moment, the Democrats are the best we've got. Let's get them in and start reversing this course of destruction.

One new Liberal vote at a time.

Rp