Carpe Datum

Don't Be Stupid

Atrios points to a couple of different sources that summarize why Democrats should be done compromising, whether it is social security, homeland security or even designating a fucking national park. It makes for good Sunday reading.

Basically, the Democrats have this old habit of trying to compromise. It comes from running the government in a somewhat sensible fashion (relative to today's disastrous Congress) over the past few decades. These past ten years have beaten some sense into most Democrats and taught them that compromise is just another word for abject and total surrender. Unfortunately, not all have learned this lesson.

Every once in a while, Bush puts together some hare-brained scheme to reward his cronies (i.e. Medicare prescription drugs or in the current case, privatizing Social Security) and looks for political cover. He finds a Democrat or two (like Zell Miller, who is as much of a Democrat as I am a flying pig) who are looking for some kind of favor, maybe some pork for their district or they're just trying to survive in a red state (Tom Daschle's old problem). He convinces them that he'll give in to some sort of compromise on the Senate version of the bill, and then he'll proclaim that finally FINALLY he has found a Democrat he can work with (the rest are just too ultra-liberal and radical and out of the mainstream, of course).

Everyone in the "liberal" media tut-tuts the Democrats for not compromising more often, and they kiss the ass of whichever Democrat was stupid enough to compromise. The Democrat gets lots of face time on Fox, of course. Statesmanlike, they say ("Why are you willing to break with your liberal party and compromise on this issue that is so important to the American people, Senator?"), and the Democrat (e.g. Joe Lieberman) gets it in his head that maybe if he runs for president, he can reach across party lines and win. Yeah, right, even if nominated, who doubts Lieberman would be painted as an elite ultra-liberal Jew who hates family values?

What the media typically doesn't cover is the rest of the story after the brave Democrat crosses party lines to be by the side of our brave War President. Sure, the Senate bill gets passed because of a few stupid Democrats like this, and then the House bill (which contains no compromises, just as Bush wants) meets the Senate bill in conference committee, where various Republican goons turn it in to whatever Bush/Cheney/Rove wants. If the "brave Democrat" complains, anyone paying attention just brands him/her as another spineless Democrat "flip-flopper" or someone who got knocked back into line by ultra-liberal Democrat toughs.

It's a genius strategy, if the other side is stupid enough to keep falling for it over and over. Once it stops working, the well of political compromise runs completely dry, making it virtually impossible to get anything significant and positive accomplished. Which, for Republicans, is part of the plan. Even if they pass bad laws, it works to their advantage, because it plays into their argument that government can never do anything right.

The people in charge of our government aren't really interesting in governing. Just looting as much as they can until the music stops. And the Moron Americans, too proud to admit that they've made a horrific mistake, too naive to think that an aw-shucks guy like Bush would ever lie to their face (hey, at least he didn't waggle his finger and act all "slick"), retreat into a patriotic security blanket, branding any dissent as treasonous when they even bother to listen. We'll all pay for it, sooner or later. I'm just trying to get my "Fuck you"'s handed out in advance before the usual suspects start writing long articles about how all this bad stuff could have happened to such a great country.

Posted by Observer at February 27, 2005 01:27 PM