Terence Samuel of the liberal American Prospect has penned an editorial in defense of congressional Democrats, the penning of which one assumes required numerous pauses for some serious gastrointestinal heaving. I'll give him credit for pluckiness, though, since defending the indefensible requires a real chin-out, stiff-upper-lip sort of damn-the-torpedoes paralogism that few with good reputation would be willing to dangle for public consumption and inexorable ridicule.
But dangle it he did; and sure enough, there in his plucky piece sat a gaping contradiction (if contradictions, gaping or otherwise, can sit) big enough to drive Bill Clinton's ego through.
Samuel is upset that congressional Democrats have been receiving -- imagine this -- bad press. It's haunting the poor pols everywhere they go, and the columnist deplores what appears to be an editorial consensus in the making: "In recent days, one story after another has built on the now familiar theme: 'Democrats Bow to Bush's Demands in House Spending Bill,' declared The Washington Post. From CQ: 'Senate Republicans Keep Democrats Off Balance.' 'Dems Cave On Spending,' screamed another headline in The Hill."
Furthermore, "the liberal blogs are ablaze with rage at congressional Democrats," laments Samuel.
He would countenance this unfairness no more. So he whipped out his editorial rapier and then slashed out a most peculiar defense, beginning with a review of the now-familiar and thematic bad stuff.
The storyline trailing them as they head home for the holiday break is that, once again, for what seems like the gazillionth time, they have capitulated to the White House on important priorities: They voted more money for the Iraq War this week; they allowed Michael Mukasey to be confirmed as attorney general even though he was ambivalent on the issue of torture; the illegal warrantless wiretapping continues, and nothing they have done has had any perceptible impact on ending the war in Iraq.
Yep, true enough. And he does a little skewering of his own, just to show you that he's a right-thinking guy -- no partisan sycophant, this Mr. Samuel.
"Rather than responding to allegations of ineffectiveness, Democrats offer instead a long checklist of accomplishments: a minimum-wage increase, ethics reform, implementation of 9-11 Commission recommendations, a good chunk of the appropriation bills done, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera." Or, in the vernacular, blah, blah, blah.
He then pronounces his penultimate judgment: "There is the even longer list of things they say would have gotten done, had Republicans not gotten in their way. The truth is, both lists are paltry." Yep, again, true enough.
"But...," Samuel continues well after he should have had the good sense to stop, "I think that Democrats have put up a good fight and have nothing to apologize for." They could do no other, you see, given the really nasty opposition.
And then, after noting the Senate's built-in firewall against "quick or easy maneuvers," he let loose a bomb of such illogical force it left nothing standing of his own argument: "The suggestion that [Majority Leader] Reid should just let the Republicans filibuster ignores the responsibility Democrats have to keep the government functioning."
Whoa. There it is. I trust you didn't fall through that unpatchable hole of a vile and massive contradiction.
The government that Mr. Samuel praises the Democrats for hobbling along -- the one, he says, they have a responsibility to keep functioning -- is the very government he also says the Democrats find so justifiably intolerable and, in fact, were hired to undo: the government that "votes more money for the Iraq War," the government that allows the torture-schmoozing "Michael Mukasey to be confirmed," the government in which "illegal warrantless wiretapping continues," just to name a few of the president's greatest unconstitutional hits.
Is it bomb-throwing to suggest that such a government is not worthy of functioning? Is it a mark of irresponsibility for liberal bloggers to demand its abrupt cessation? -- to note, and to have to repeatedly note, that such a government is the savage negation of all that is Constitutionally worth preserving?
Amidst the frantic heights of the Cold War, more than a few right-leaning Americans chanted with philosophical certitude, "Better dead, than Red." All the left is saying these days -- which may lack the enchantment of rhyme, but happens to have the U.S. Constitution behind it -- is that we're better off idly adrift, than Bushed.
Now I had best go douse my hair, which Mr. Samuel tells me is ragingly ablaze.
Recent Comments