•••••• NY Times - G.O.P. Threatens Seats Long Held by Democrats ••••••

[breadandwine]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/us/politics/25campaign.html?hp=&pagewanted=all


For those Democrats who think this is just Ed Koch or the GOP noise machine screeching, they need to read this Times article. We're in trouble.

Despite some recent love pats against the opposition, some polite - er - fisticuffs, Democrats are still refusing to shout, holler, pound the podium and "demagogue" issues the way the GOP has SO SUCCESSFULLY. As long as the Democrats prissily insist on being namby pamby wimps and on bringing a knife to a gunfight AS WE ALWAYS DO, we are in for political chaos.

There are no cots being set out to fight GOP filibusters and double-dare them to take the blame for shutting down the government. Some of you may recall that Harry Truman was not afraid to send Congress one bill after another knowing full well they would obstruct. He did it anyway just to show what obstructionists they were and he didn't constantly wimpishly shelve bills that got filibustered.

Never in the history of this democracy has one party - the GOP - gained so much political steam while deserving it less.

I am now reading that Democrats on Capitol Hill are putting off the global warming issue even though alternative energy could revitalize our whole economy the same way things like the Tennessee Valley Authority with its energy projects did under FDR. And we see that once again we are caving, agreeing to offshore oil drilling (which won't accomplish a thing economically, it's just a drop in the bucket of our dependence on foreign oil). The White House has also caved on nuclear power. Yet nuclear power, even if it were not so dirty and dangerous and a terrorist's dream come true as a target, is also a fool's game because by 2050 all the main uranium deposits still available will be the more minor ones that will require so much energy to extract - FOSSIL FUEL - that it would actually use up less fossil fuel to burn that fossil fuel directly instead of using it to extract uranium from the ground. And yet despite these "collegial" concessions to the GOP the GOP is still playing us for suckers and the few willing to work with us on energy are now backing out with fake excuses.

I am not ashamed to admit it. I do not understand the Democratic Party. I am at a loss to understand a party so clever in building the safety net under FDR, so brave in storming the beaches of Normandy, so great in giving us civil rights legislation and Medicare, so enterprising in landing a man on the Moon, and so incredibly stupid when it comes to saving itself.

What has the GOP given us? Three stock market crashes and a savings and loan scandal. But you don't hear Democrats nailing the SOBs and there is no brimstone, no fire in our bellies. You hear Democrats talking comity and collegiality and inclusiveness and bipartisan crap. Endlessly licking the bloody hand that beats us.