Thursday, May 24, 2007

Dear George,   Take your victory lap, Big Guy; the Democrats have wimped out again.  There will be no timetables in the Iraq funding bill, no conditions, no diluting of the unitary power of the executive, no oversight, no balance of power.  Above all, there is no longer a loyal opposition, only loyal collaborators.    Yes George, in spite of the midterms the Democrats are still chastened, cowed and neutered, a group of toothless ninnies who will mutter under their breath and then bow and scrape when you or the Big Dick bark.   You see, the entire Democratic philosophy is based on the premise that they must never take a stand on anything because they are scared shitless of polarizing the country.  Of course, they ignore the fundamental fact that a healthy democracy works best when the country is polarized, because polarization is the source of the marketplace of ideas that gives a democracy its heft.   However, the Democrats are a sophisticated lot, and one of the symptoms of high sophistication is an innate distrust of common sense.  So, they hired consultants who ran some polls, convened some focus groups then worked their spreadsheets and ran their software, and guess what they discovered:  32% of the public self-identifies as conservatives while only 20% percent of the public identifies as liberal.[1]  I guess they figured that if the country became polarized, the undecided center would split 50/50 between conservatives and liberals giving the conservatives 82% of the vote while the liberals would be left with a mere 70% of the vote.  The 50/50 split is a shaky assumption; but what the hell, the guys are experts.   These experts concluded that the best Democratic strategy would be to offend nobody, thus keeping the center out of the conservative camp.  So they stressed image over vision, clichés over content, blandness over passion and buzzwords over ideas.   Meanwhile, we conservatives discovered that no matter how whacked out our positions were, the public loved them, especially when we screamed and pounded the pulpit.  We roused the rabble and played to their basest instincts; we scared the shit out of them and discovered that if you frightened the chickens enough they would vote for the fox.  The same public that loves slasher flicks and professional wrestling loves a strongly stated position, even if it signifies nothing.  They loved it so much they kept returning to office the very people who were screwing them blue.   All the while, the Democrats stood around shuffling their feet and coughing politely like a bunch of virgins trapped in a whorehouse.   The Democrat’s impotence was summed up when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said of the funding fold, “For heavens sake, look where we’ve come.  It’s a lot more than the president ever expected he’d have to agree to.”[2]  Now if Lyndon were still majority leader, would he begin a sentence with, “For heaven’s sake…?”   Your admirer, Belacqua Jones         [1] This letter owes much to “Third Way Is the Wrong Way,” by Guy T. Saperstein at http://www.alternet.org/story/51840. [2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/22/AR2007052201329. 6:27:33 AM    comment []

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