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Yup. Those newly-elected Democratic chickens have clucked right back home to the coop from whence they came (thanks to the
party's selective campaign financing of conservative Dems), where they have fluffed up a storm installing the Bush-henpecked
Steny Hoyer as Majority Leader over Nancy Pelosi's pick, the unbowingly principled John Murtha.
But first the good news:
We now have a Democratic Speaker, a Democratic Majority Leader, and a simple Democratic legislative majority in a position
to begin to undo some of George W. Bush's most horrific damage. Already, Senator Christopher Dodd's proposed bill to restore
habeas corpus rights to war-on-terror detainees, restrict evidence gained through coercion, and restore congressional oversight
is a shaft of light in the dank cavern that the Bush cave-dwellers have made of the House. A year ago, would we have thought
it possible? Who knew that raw hubris could render Bush's team of neocon brainiacs so blazingly incompetent?
I mean, our being in a position -- as progressives or liberals or non-fascists or whatever we choose to call ourselves --
to goose the ruling party toward honoring its promise of righting Bush's wrongs, as opposed to having to watch the ruling
party continue to lie and cheat its way toward Armageddon, ain't a half-bad place to be.
But now back to the henhouse, where we shouldn't yet count our unhatched eggs:
I'd call Hoyer's lopsided triumph a direct return on Democratic campaign funding chair Rahm Emanuel's penny-wise investment
in right-of-center candidates [if you're wondering why I think this tactic was unnecessary to bring about a Democratic takeover,
and why it will be a long-term loss for Dems, see my posts of 11/14 and 11/13]. I'd also call Hoyer's win a lasting legacy
of a party that has grown afraid of its base. Even as the Republicans have been kicking their butts for 20 years, the Dems
have never seemed to learn to respect and mobilize their own constituency.
Here's my prediction, about which I'd be pleased to be wrong: The new Democratic majority, being farther to the right than
its Speaker, will be cowed by the Pentagon into backing away from its timed troop withdrawal demands on Iraq, and will negotiate
its power away on key issues (such as meaningful health care reform, accountability for the dishonesty of the case for war,
and the illegality of Bush's warrantless wiretapping) even though Dems have the votes to dare Bush to veto popular legislation.
But hey, at least the Dems mean well. That's reason to celebrate.
Isn't it?
© 2006 Bruce A. Jacobs (Posted 11/17/06)
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