Missed Opportunity?

[berni_mccoy]

Why aren't the Democratic Party leaders screaming bloody murder about the GOP's invalid involvement in the Shiavo case. The fact that the GOP feels they should tell everyone how to live ought to be headlined on every news paper/website for the next several weeks. This is a unique opportunity where the GOP has litterally fallen all over themselves and we are pretty much letting them get away with it.

[rockymountaindem]

1. You see all the derision being heaped on the courts over this case?

We'd be getting all of it, as the Republicans surely hoped we would, if were were screaming at the top of our lungs about this case. It would be spun as "Democrats want to *kill* Terri". The Dem. leadership has done the right thing staying out of the public eye on this one.

[unblock]

2. something about not owning the microphone....

just because you don't see democrats being quoted in the the msm doesn't mean they aren't out there saying it somewhere.

[Maraya1969]

3. It seems to me this is one of the Democrat's biggest problems.

To think about the money that was spent trying to hang President Clinton yet Bush and his cronies seem to get away with anything.

What do we have to do? Write to them and tell them they had better start screaming?

[SouthernDem2004]

4. Why? Because they were involved also. Remember the bill Bush signed.

[berni_mccoy]

5. Don't get me started on that...

Since we are out of power anyway, perhaps this is the time to perform a 'spring cleaning' of the party. Get rid of all the DINO's and republican wannabees.

[davidwhite0570]

6. we didn't miss anything, we are letting the repugs

hang themselves......

[wiggs]

7. democratic leaders are part of the problem

They've not positioned themselves well on ANY issue the last 4 years, that I can think of. I do blame the media for their complicity, but note that democratic leaders (on the whole) don't go out on a limb at all to challenge this group.

Except for media bias, this administration should have been the easiest to knock off ever...so many issues for the democrats to choose from: Environmental rape (only 7% of the public want weaker environmental laws), WMD, Chalabi, My Pet Goat, marginalization of science, deficits, lying to Congress, Plame, Medicare lies and bribing, fake news, idiot statements, 9 billion missing in Iraq, unauthorized transfer of money to Iraq, 40% of presidence in vacation, August 2001 PDB, concentration of wealth, Abu Ghraib, arrogant foreign policy, energy task force, enron, Ohio fraud and Blackwell, halliburton, etc.

HOW MUCH MORE AMMUNITION DO OUR DEMOCRATIC LEADERS NEED???

So my conclusion is that it's not a matter of a lack of ability to capitalize on the mistakes of the worst administration ever, it is a LACK OF WILL. They are on the receiving end of concentration of wealth, corporatism, and lobbying gifts. They have a very nice arrangement going....half of them pretending to look after the country while allowing the other half to pillage public treasures for the benefit of them all...at our expense.

I excuse Byrd, Dean, Gore, and Kennedy from the indictment above.

I regret that I have turned into a cynic, but one day we'll look back and see that it was obvious that a few people successfully pursued a governmental coup'd'tat and that those who could have stopped it sat on their hands.

[Al-CIAda]

9. A few additions if I may...

"August 2001 PDB" x 52 , 3.4 TRILLION 'missing' from Pentagon Budget, 9/11 War Games, PNAC cabal, 'Yellowcake", moble labs, mushroom clouds, etc.., Plans to invade and carve up Iraq for the oil co's. & Patriot Act documents formed BEFORE 9/11, NO ONE Fired for 9/11 -in fact, promoted.

*Excuse Cynthia McKinney too.

[wiggs]

10. By all means, keep going...

We can't forget Bush Bandar...Bush showing top secret war plans to foreigners.

Don't want to leave out someone helping the Bin Laden family leave the US two days after 9/11.

Underfunding NCLB has been an outrage

Bulge under jacket attributed to bad tailor instead of communication device

Harkin insider trading could have meant criminal charges

AWOL, of course

Mission Accomplished

Plastic turkey

Afraid of horses...can't ride a bike

Smearing of Paul O'Neill and Richard Clarke, former administration insiders who tried to warn us

...who knows how many obscene outrages we could list if we gave it some real thought. Read RFK Jr.s Crimes Against Nature. There's enough in there for dozens of posts.

[wiggs]

8. Article in The Nation starts to ask same question

From Truthout, today, pertaining to democratic leadership or lack thereof. I like the new website being planned, discussed at the end.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/032805L.shtml

Democrats: MIA
The Nation | Editorial

11 April 2005 Issue

After giving George W. Bush far too easy a ride in his first term, the Democratic leadership in Congress promised that the second term was going to be different. "This is not a dictatorship," announced Senate minority leader Harry Reid. The new head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Illinois Representative Rahm Emanuel, declared, "The President neither has the mandate he thinks he has nor a majority to make policy." But three months of watching the Democrats' stumbling, often incoherent responses to Administration appointments and initiatives shows clearly that the party is making the same mistakes that cost it so dearly in the 2002 and 2004 elections.

It's easy simply to blame the GOP majorities in the Senate and House when bad legislation passes those chambers. But too frequently it has been Democratic disorder rather than Republican treachery that has made possible the Bush White House's legislative victories. That's what happened with the mid-March Senate vote on a budget amendment that would have protected the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Seven Republican senators voted to protect ANWR from oil drilling. Had the Democratic caucus simply held firm in support of the amendment, it would have won by a 52-to-48 margin. But three Democrats--Daniel Akaka and Daniel Inouye of Hawaii and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana--broke ranks to back the Administration. All three had their excuses, and if this had been the only bill on which Democrats failed to hold together, it might not be a cause for serious concern. But this is hardly an isolated example of Democrats doing the bidding of the President and the special interests that support him.

snip, and continues:

In 2002 and 2003 the Democrats tried the strategy of giving the President blank checks for the invasion and occupation of Iraq and then criticizing how the President spent them. That strategy cost the Democrats any chance to frame the debate about the war and ultimately cost them at the polls. But while some individual Democrats, like California Representative Henry Waxman, have come to recognize the folly of such an approach, the party as a whole continues to cede too much ground to the President--on Iraq and on most other issues.

Perhaps being shamed publicly, and being pressured by the grassroots, will help Congressional Democrats get their act together. Toward that end, we've initiated a biweekly "Minority/Majority" feature that identifies--by name--Democrats who give succor to the GOP. (It also praises those who've helped the cause of Democrats becoming the majority party again.) If Democrats don't define themselves as an effective opposition soon, they could end up being an ineffective one for a long time to come.

end excerpt

[cry baby]

11. Better that we stand on the sidelines and watch the repubs

blow it. We should make a little noise, but not much, and Barney Frank has been doing a great job. I'm satisfied with how the Dems have handled themselves here.