The “them” of my title is the “Democratic Leadership” who have taken impeachment off the table, bowed down to George Bush and kissed his royal hiney before approving all his funding requests for the Iraq war, and expanded the President’s power to spy on Americans based on a White House campaign of manufactured, and bogus, fearmongering regarding a terrorist threat aimed at Washington, among other failures (Resolution to condemn Moveon.org, anyone?). But it isn’t just their timidity, their refusal to display any guts at all, in failing to actively and consistently oppose the most unpopular President since Nixon that has rightly earned them our opprobrium. It’s also their frank and open disdain for liberals and progressives of all stripes, the same people who support them with money, campaign volunteers and votes, which is making many Democratic supporters question why we voted for these people last Fall.
On October 10th, we had Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi complaining that liberal activists peaceably protesting outside her office and residence couldn’t be arrested for loitering. Well, today, it’s Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s turn to say STFU, not only to the little people (i.e., you and I) but also to one of his own, Senator Chris Dodd:
Tim Starks of Congressional Quarterly reports that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) plans to bring the Senate’s surveillance bill up for floor debate in mid-November. That’s despite the hold that Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) plans to place on the measure — something first reported by Election Central’s Greg Sargent.
So when is a hold placed on legislation by a United States Senator not a hold? When Harry Reid decides to cave in to the Bush administration and the Telecom lobby, that’s when. Normally, as one of Jane Hamsher’s contacts on Capitol Hill states, you don’t see a Senate Majority Leader screwing over one of his own party’s Senators, but then I suppose these aren’t “normal” times:
“I can’t think of one time when Harry Reid went around his own. It’s just not normal for a leader to do that to his own side. Sometimes you’ll go around Republicans, sometimes they’ll use holds to be “spoilers,” but that happens to the other guy. You just don’t do it to one of your own.”
You just don’t do it to one of your own. Well, until now that is. I guess Chris Dodd finally knows how I feel this morning regarding those “stalwart defenders of our freedoms,” Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and their various henchmen (Steny Hoyer, anyone?) among the Democratic Leadership. “Stabbed in the back” seems an apt metaphor for that particular emotion, does it not?
I guess 9/11 changed more than we knew. Or maybe it is just highlights the fact that, despite the presence of a few principled liberals/progressives in Congress, the Democrats really are the Party of Republican Lite: All the same disdain for ordinary Americans and the groveling after corporate bribes campaign contributions, without all the nasty eliminationist rhetoric directed toward Blacks, Latinos, Gays, Muslims, abortion providers, small children receiving government health care benefits and the husband of Terry Schiavo. No bitter aftertaste, in other words, but the same damn hangover.
Maybe it’s time to check out the local Green party in your district. Because, if Hillary Clinton is elected President, which most of our elites already assume to be a “done deal,” I won’t have any viable reason to support Democrats. Ms. Clinton won’t push a progressive agenda when in office, she’ll triangulate her way around her term in that office with the advice of her family’s loyal retainers. And Congressional Democrats will just follow her lead. Maybe not as faithfully as the GOP herd followed Bush, but well enough so that we still won’t have universal health care by 2012, nor will we likely have withdrawn from Iraq.
I may not support Republicans but I sure can withhold my money, my spare time and dedicated volunteer efforts, and my votes, from Democrats. And frankly, why should we give them the time of day at this point? Not when they continue to spit in the face of their base, of which I am a proud member. At least Bush and the Republicans had the decency to smear and demean their most committed supporters in private, not in the media.
