Will Rogers famously said, "I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat." The opening agenda of the Democrats seems to confirm the quote and I happy to see them tackling issues that will waste their political capital. Obama's supposed first act will be to close the Guantanamo Bay holding facility. I commented on this previously, but now I say, great, chew up political spin cycles on how you are going to deal with moving the prisoners to the U.S., the embarrassment of no other countries taking them and a big fight over what constitutional rights they should be afforded. Ultimately, this is a small issue. If the Democrats start to look weak in the fight against jihadis, I think that will be self correcting. Meanwhile, I look forward to them wasting time and political capital on this issue.
Second, in a shocker, Nancy Pelosi says she is open to prosecution of former Bush administration officials. I say, go for it. Hold hearings. Televise them. Get conservatives worked up over the injustice of it all. Embarass yourselves with comparisions to Clinton, Blagojevich, Tim Mahoney, Bill Richardson, the mayors of Detroit and Baltimore, etc. Criminalize participation in the Executive Branch and see how many capable folks on your own side decline nominations.
Third, the Democrats are signalling that they are going to run against Bush in 2010 and 2012 as well. They are trotting out talking points about how this "deep recession" might last that long, and why they should be forgiven if they don't have it fixed by then. Good luck. Even though the shenanigans at Fannie Mae could be fairly blamed on the Democrats in Congress and the previous Clinton administration, see how far that got the Republican party in the last election. And desrvedly so, I might add. Because, it was Bush's watch, and he could have used the investigative power of the Justice Department to clean up Fannie and Freddie if he had the will to do so. My point is that blaming the previous administration will only buy you about a year. Then, tough, it's your problem. Meanwhile, the Democrats will have given conservatives some time to re-group to challenge what I consider the biggest menace, the proposal to slowly nationalize health care.
See Carpe Diem and Beers With Demo for some excellent discussion on why more free market competition would be good for health care costs, not less. More from Professor Perry here and here.
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B-Daddy, I was giggling like a little school girl when I read about these developments over the past week.
ReplyDeleteI believe blaming the previous administration will buy more than a year. A consistent and lengthy pounding of "see what 8 years of Bush did to us?" will be followed by, "It took 8 years to get into this mess, don't think we can get out very quick"
ReplyDeleteThe Bush deraingment syndrom has been embedded too deeply in Americans and the press. There is no way to heal that kind of sickness within a year.
Dawg