Strengthening Constitutional Self-Government

No Left Turns

They Still Can’t Grasp It

After the election last fall, I noted in a several places that liberals still couldn’t get used to the idea of being in the minority, as though the election of 1994 never happened. For evidence I pointed to a New York Times article on the new Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada, in which Sen. Joe Biden, said this: "The idea that people are looking at Harry to sort of be the spokesperson of the Democratic Party, that’s not a role all majority leaders have filled before."

Wait a minute: What did he say? Let’s roll the tape again: “That’s not a role all majority leaders have filled before.” "Majority leader"?? Majority leader? News flash, Joe: Your team hasn’t had a majority for ten years now (excepting those few months brought to you courtesy of Jim Jeffords), and you’re not likely to be in the majority again for a while. Deal with it. And learn to start saying the word "minority," as in "minority party."

Ditto for Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who told the Times in the same article: "If we keep going on this way, we’ll be a minority party." Hello? News flash Dianne: You’re there already. This is rather like Captain Smith, looking at the Titanic’s propellers pointing up at the sky remarking, “if the water keeps coming in at this rate, the ship might be in danger of sinking.”

Comes now the following correction to an item published yesterday in slate.com:

"This article originally and incorrectly identified Harry Reid (D-Nev.) as Majority Leader of the Senate. He is the Minority Leader. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) is the Senate Majority Leader."

Discussions - 17 Comments

How sad.

And then there is Biden’s performance yesterday at the hearing for Roberts’s nomination (didn’t catch any of today’s quesitoning). Snide, rude, disrespectful, disingenuous, and this from someone who is still considering running for president. You can be sure that Roberts’s opening statement (a bit too brief for me) and especially his answers will set the gold standard for how a prospective justice should maneuver his way thru a sneate hearing.

I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I did something similar a week ago in an editorial leading up to the Roberts hearings. We ended up referring to Nancy Pelosi as "House Majority Leader." I mean, duh. My rump is still sore from kicking myself over that one.

Its almost justifiable, considering the number of RINO’s currently in Congress.

Lucas Morel says above: "Snide, rude, disrespectful, disingenuous, and this from someone who is still considering running for president." How then would you describe Dick Cheney’s remark to a US senator last summer to "Go f**k yourself?"
Was he just being polite? Or perhaps if you’re already elected different standards apply?

This is an easy distinction to make, HDT. Lucas rightly points to the smarmy hypocrisy of Biden, et al. (Among other things, Biden attacked Roberts--wrongly--over the Terry Schiavo law, a law that BIDEN VOTED FOR.) Cheney was at least candid and direct. Remember that he said his choice words to Pat Leahy, who was dispensing the usual pap on the Senate floor about "my good friend the vice president," when only the day before he had been doing the "Halliburton conspiracy dance" and calling Cheney a liar. Which is it? Cheney had had enough of such hypocrisy. About time, too.

Not to mention the distinction between something said off-the-record and not intended for public consumption and something done while cameras are rolling and every news agency in then country is in the room recording every word.

I have a hard time believing most Democratic Party politicians can readEnter text to make read, much less understand the difference between majority and minority.

We who oppose the Democrats are fortunate to have such witless drones at the helm of the lunatic left. These old donkeys must have a hard time getting to the toliet in the morning without the help of their entire staff.

Who said they bother to get to the toilet. Based on many of their comments, I am sure they have entered the ’Depends’ period of their lives.
"Politicians are like diapers. They should be changed often, and for the same reason."

The modern Democratic Party simply is not a serious organization. Listen to Biden yesterday "Don’t talk about the Constitution; tell me how you feel." They’re going to remain a minority (whether they acknowledge it or not) until they become serious again.

I’m a Republican, and I’m glad for the gains in the House and Senate and the state governorships and the state houses and senates (well you get the point), but it’s not good for America to only have one serious-minded political party. We need two, and right now we don’t have that.

Do the Democrats have any sense or feel of history?

Are they familiar with the Whig party?

I doubt they do, jesse fan. The Democrats have become the Bourbons of modern American politics: They forget nothing, and they learn nothing.

For them it is always somehow 1968. The spirit of ’68--anti-American, emotively leftist--took over their party decades ago, and they’ve been more or less stuck in that mode ever since. (It goes a long way toward explaining why the reflexive squawk of "It’s Vietnam! It’s a quagmire!" is their take on the GWOT, w/ anti-antiterrorism simply taking the place of the old anti-anticommunism.) Fortunately for our country, the knee-jerk leftism of the Democrats has largely been a losing proposition, despite occasional tactical successes. But the grip of the ’spirit of ’68’ ideology and the interest groups addicted to it is too strong for the party to escape.

The way that Senate Democrats have danced mindlessly to the tune of leftwing interest groups on judicial nominations--despite the evidence of two election cycles showing how much their obstructionism costs with voters--is further evidence of a party in continued retreat from majority status.

Actually, PJC, it’s more like the Spirit of ’72. That’s when the McGovernites took over the Democrat Party. The ’68 convention nominated good ol’ Hubert Humphrey -- the mainstreamers still had enough control to bring that about. Not so by ’72.

I once referred to a stalactite as a stalagmite. What a jerk! Irrefutable proof that all Greeks are stuck in the Helenic period. And arrogant and stupid. I wonder how we get to work every day, and manage to run the country (when we get a chance) without running it into serious debt. What a bunch of buffoons we are!

Luckily, we are now and forever irrelevant, because the Republicans have all the answers. Just look at the long list of successes they can point to! The price of oil, the number of enemies, the economy, the faith that the people have in the leader’s choices, the high moral tone, the growing list of friends across the globe, the growing debt we owe to countries like China and south Koriea and Britain.

Life is good!

At least we can spell "Korea," smarta$$.

Ye$, you are all good $peller$.

Indeed I am...and by the way, the economy is good, the price of oil depends on the world market (duh), and you exaggerate our enemies and underestimate our friends.

When I think how Clinton or Gore would have handled any REAL problems, I just have to laugh. Clinton was supposedly so good for the economy, but no one can actually tell me what he actually DID that make that happen. Just so, it’s not like Al Qaeda didn’t give us fair warning during the Clinton Administration (e.g., the first bombing of the World Trade Center), but he was too busy diddling interns to take much notice. Anything he did accomplish came from having his feet held to the fire by the Republican congress.

And when I need a real laugh, I think of all the "lions" of the Democrat Party, like Ted Kennedy, Michael Moore, and Hillary Clinton. The only thing these people know how to run is their mouths.

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