"Democrats Take A Dive"

[theivoryqueen]

Anyone who watched the Senate proceedings last night was probably left with a sad weight in the pit of the stomach. I certainly admired Kennedy's impassioned speech, and listened with great interest to the other Democratic Senators who stayed to debate. But in the end, the jack-booted jackals won again, and I think this editorial at least partially explains why.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12109-2003Nov24.html

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The Democrats Take a Dive

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Tuesday, November 25, 2003; Page A29


The battle over a Medicare prescription drug benefit proves that Republicans are ruthless and determined and that Democrats are divided and hapless. Republicans have changed the rules in Washington, but some Democrats still pretend to be living in the good old days.

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[Jack Rabbit]

1. I have my problems with Hillary, but . . .

What Democrats failed to understand, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) said in an interview yesterday morning, is that Republicans "are on an ideological march. They have no intention of playing fair. They want what they want when they want it." And they get it.

That's lesson number one, and Daschle hasn't learned it.

Daschle would have made an excellent party leader in the Senate years ago, when the Republican party was dominated by sober conversatives more willing to work with the Democrats to get legislation passed. Today, that approach doesn't work. Daschle is only making it easy for the yuppie fascists who now characterize the GOP.

The Democrats need a leader who will be a lot fiestier than Daschle has been.

[berner59]

2. an ideological march....

Says Hilary...and that won't play fair. How the Dems could hand this victory to Bush is beyond comprehension... I could understand if this was a good bill, but it's not and since it wouldn't go into effect in 2006, then what was the harm in waiting until they could get it right?? And why didn't Kerry or Edwards vote on this?? Are they afraid to have that on their record??

[theivoryqueen]

3. that's what I thought

and I must admit the "respectometer" for Kerry and Edwards lost some ground.

[aquart]

4. You're joking. Edwards and Kerry didn't vote on this?

WTF?

[blm]

5. They were both on the floor filibustering, remember?

Seems to me the villains here are Breaux and Baucus and yet you try to blame Kerry and Edwards?

[sandnsea]

6. I heard Kerry & Lieberman

I could be wrong, I haven't looked at the recorded vote yet. Whoever didn't vote for it, I'm incredibly disappointed. It was important to take a stand on this monstrosity.

[dmr]

7. I'm certain I heard a no vote for Edwards n/t

[The Backlash Cometh]

8. I think the faux Democrats were outed on this issue.

They had it in their power to stop this vote. In the past, they may have screamed at the Republicans over this issue because they knew they couldn't stop it and they could gnash their teeth all they wanted to impress their supporters. But now we see that when it mattered, they let their constituents down.

First, we go after Bush. Then, we vote out the faux Democrats.

[salmonhorse]

9. Bush has supplied Vichy Dem's...

...with all the cover they have ever required to vote in the ways you now see before you. With respect to "the good old days" take note: this is the most momentous era of pay back that has ever occured since when & what-it-were Dem's had done in the house & senate in just these ways for decades; re-publicans are now doing in turn. Don't kid yourself; Dems are steeped in investment bankers ala Feinstein's husband for but one, who no-less than consult on the entire pantheon of stock portfolios: defense, pharmaceutical, HMO, energy, world trade, futures & commodities.

Being 'a democrat' has been afforded the scion of being merely that what is not re-publican. And that whole up/down, in/out, back/forth, salt/pepper = 'raw, raw, raw, raw; sis-boom-bah, be true to your school' notion of body politic is what & has been fueling the nation up to and including today.

It is worse that watching sausage being made. It is akin to watching the slaughter of the innocents. There never were any such animal as 'a liberal'. Only a single being with a bleeding heart. But in a world that nailed the son of God to a cross; that way is as tough as nails. And with Dems such as Sam Nunn and Zell Miller still on the landscape there will no more wiggle room for the bleeding heart. Sorry. But thus is the new world order.

:shrug: