WEDNESDAY,  JULY 29,  2009

ANOTHER SLIDE DOWN THE POLL (PUN INTENDED) - AT 10:07 P.M. ET:  Results of an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll cannot bring joy to a White House trying to find it anywhere:

WASHINGTON - Despite his public-relations blitz over the past two weeks to promote his plans to reform the nation's health-care system — including holding two town halls on Wednesday — President Barack Obama has lost ground on this issue with the American public, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

Pluralities now say that the president’s health care plan is a bad idea, and that it will result in the quality of their care getting worse. What’s more, just four in 10 approve of his handling on the issue.

The poll also finds that Obama's overall job-approval rating has dropped to 53 percent. And it shows a public that has grown increasingly concerned about the federal government's spending as the administration defends its $787 billion economic stimulus and supports a $1 trillion-plus health-care bill.

COMMENT:  Some members of the anointed pundit class sneered with disbelief as Rasmussen was reporting a decline in the president's approval rating.  But NBC/Wall Street Journal now has Obama's approval in Rasmussen territory.

No one - except maybe Chris Matthews - can continue to pretend that all is well with president and public.  It isn't, and autumn promises to bring even more problems - especially with Iran, North Korea, and possible final action on health care "reform."

July 29, 2009   Permalink

HIS KIND OF TOWN - AT 5:58 P.M. ET:  There has been action in the president's home town of Chicago: 

CHICAGO (CBS) — At least 15 people were shot and wounded in Chicago overnight, seven of them in a single incident on the city's West Side.

In that incident, police were called to the scene of a shooting at Walnut Street and Homan Boulevard at 10:43 p.m.

Seven people were shot, according to Fire Media Affairs Dir. Larry Langford, who said six people were initially hospitalized in critical condition and one person, an adult man, was taken in stable condition after suffering a graze wound.

COMMENT:  And what is the president concerned with?  An arrest in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in which no one was hurt, and which seems entirely proper.

Wonder if the president will have a beer with some of the gang bangers back home.  Rev. Wright could arrange the party.

July 29, 2009   Permalink

PENTAGON TO FIGHT THE FLU - AT 5:35 P.M. ET:  The Department of Defense is mobilizing to fight a possible outbreak of swine flu.

The Pentagon is preparing to make troops available if necessary to help the Federal Emergency Management Agency tackle a potential outbreak of the H1N1 virus this fall, FOX News has confirmed.

This comes as a government panel recommends certain groups be placed at the front of the line for swine flu vaccinations this fall, including pregnant women, health care workers and children six months and older...

...Defense Secretary Robert Gates is preparing to sign an order authorizing the military to set up five regional teams to deal with the potential outbreak of H1N1 influenza if FEMA requests help.

A senior U.S. defense official told FOX News that the plan calls for military task forces to work in conjunction with the FEMA.

COMMENT:  Can you imagine, can you just imagine, if President Bush had ordered this?  Can you imagine the reaction on the left: 

The head militarist BUSH (!!)  is planning a takeover.  Resist.  Don't let fascist soldiers in your home.  And who is behind it?  CHENEY (!!!!!).

Code Pink would turn completely red. 

July 29, 2009   Permalink

THIS IS SICK - AT 5:16 P.M. ET:  The Gates arrest nonsense continues, but please read the opening paragraphs of this New York Times story, and see if you don't agree that there's something very sick here:

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Lucia Whalen, whose 911 call led to the arrest of the Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. at his home, made her first public comments Wednesday, saying at no time did she ever mention race to the responding police officer.

Ms. Whalen’s statements contradict the police report filed by Sgt. James Crowley, who said Ms. Whalen told him outside Mr. Gates’s home that she had seen “what appeared to be two black males with backpacks” on the porch of the yellow single-family house.

Ms. Whalen said that the only words she exchanged with Sergeant Crowley in person were, “I was the 911 caller.” She said that he responded, “Stay right there.”

Ms. Whalen, 40, her voice cracking, said she was deeply hurt by the reaction to the incident on July 16. She said she and her family had been the target of threats, which led her to speak out.

“When I was called a racist, I was the target of scorn and ridicule because of things I never said,” she told the reporters gathered in a park here at midday. She added, “The criticism hurt me as a person but also hurt the community of Cambridge.”

COMMENT:  I don't think the reporter who wrote this story understood its implications.  Consider:  What if this woman did describe seeing two black men?  What's wrong with that?  You give the police as full a description as possible.  Race is part of that description, as painful as it may be to use the words or hear them.  When a relative of mine was mugged in Washington, D.C. some years ago, she gave an African-American police officer a full description, including the race of the assailant.  The officer wasn't in any way offended. 

And consider this as well:  The woman reports that her family has been the target of threats.  Yet, the reporter allows the subject to drop.  Who is making these threats?  Why aren't the police involved?  Are they threats of physical violence?  Why isn't that a major part of the story? 

This is degenerating into a kind of social sickness.  Cambridge announces itself as an enlightened, progressive community.  It is not.  It strikes me as a community based on the fear of saying or doing anything that is not politically acceptable. 

By the way, Ms. Whelan works for Harvard Magazine.  I wonder how far she'll be allowed to go now. 

July 29, 2009   Permalink

THE POLLS AND MS. CLINTON - AT 9:59 A.M. ET:  We've noted here before the probability, give or take, that Hillary Clinton reads public opinion polls.  She and her husband have been rumored to take a passing interest in same.  So surely she's reading this morning's Rasmussen daily tracker, which continues to chronicle President Obama's woes.  Not only have Obama's numbers declined, they continue mediocre.  Nothing the White House has done has improved them.  Last week's presidential news conference, with the president pronouncing on a local arrest in Cambridge, Massachusetts, probably made things worse.

Rasmussen this morning has 49% approving of presidential performance,50% disapproving.  Some 29% strongly approve, but 39% strongly disapprove.

Now, about Ms. Clinton:  The New York Daily News reports:

Hillary Clinton says running for office isn't on her "radar," but she still has an eight-person political team and sports two overflowing campaign war chests. Clinton is adamant she's not running for anything, telling ABC News on Sunday, "I'm out of politics."

Right.  And I'm out of blogging, and breathing.  Hillary Clinton saying she's out of politics is like Bernie Madoff saying, "The check is in the mail."  She maintains a major political operation, and you can be sure she's ready to take over if her close, personal friend, Barack whatever-his-name-is, should tank completely in the polls and decide another presidential race might be too strenuous.

I wouldn't be shocked at a Clinton resignation next year.  You know, something like, "I want to spend more time away from the family."  Stand by.

July 29, 2009   Permalink

GUTTING THE MILITARY - AT 8:53 A.M. ET:  The late, and legendarily theatrical Republican leader, Senator Everett M. Dirksen of Illinois, used to say, "A billion here, a billion there.  Soon you're talking about real money."  With all the huge checks written by the Obamans recently, we forget that some in government have been asked to cut their budgets.  And, of course, with this crowd, that means the military.  Congressional Quarterly reports:

The military will need to come up with $60 billion in savings over the next five years to pay for new priorities to be set by the Defense secretary, a top Pentagon official said Tuesday.

The order from Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is based on an assumption that there will be no real growth in defense budgets over the next five years, a radical departure for a department whose budgets have increased more than 80 percent since 2001...

...One of the driving factors so far in the evaluation is the prospect that defense budgets largely will be static in fiscal 2011 through fiscal 2015, said David Ochmanek, deputy assistant secretary of defense for force transformation and resources.

Michael Goldfarb, at The Weekly Standard, comments:

Zero growth for our troops. Zero growth for the defense of our country. And all the while, ballooning deficits to pay for health care, stimulus spending, car companies, and a $20 million dollar vacation home on Martha's Vineyard. Republicans are busy fending off ObamaCare (and having some success), but I suspect that when the dust settles on all Obama's domestic initiatives, and assuming there is at least some marginal economic recovery over the next 18 months, this gutting of our nation's military may well be the most fertile ground for Republicans in the midterm election -- and in 2012.

COMMENT:  And you can be sure that liberals in Congress, led by the California and Massachusetts delegations, would like to cut further. 

Obama ran from the center, and is governing from the left.  Public opinion polls show that Americans are starting to notice.  But only skillful political work can translate public unease into results at the polls.  Republicans have a historic tendency to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  The 2010 midterm elections are 15 months away.

July 29, 2009   Permalink

MORE FROM IRAN - AT 8:14 A.M. ET:  Iran has been out of the headlines, probably to the great relief of the we-talk-to-everybody administration.  But the ugliness continues, as reported by The New York Times:

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Some prisoners say they watched fellow detainees being beaten to death by guards in overcrowded, stinking holding pens. Others say they had their fingernails ripped off or were forced to lick filthy toilet bowls.

The accounts of prison abuse in Iran’s postelection crackdown — relayed by relatives and on opposition Web sites — have set off growing outrage among Iranians, including some prominent conservatives. More bruised corpses have been returned to families in recent days, and some hospital officials have told human rights workers that they have seen evidence that well over 100 protesters have died since the vote.

Our friend Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi and her Iran Press News have been keeping us up to date on the continuing horror that is Iran under the mullahs.  They've even banned mourning ceremonies:

TEHRAN — Iran has denied the opposition a permit for a ceremony to mourn people slain in protests over last month's presidential election, the interior ministry said on Tuesday.

"No permit has been issued for gathering and marching for any individuals or different political groups," Mahmoud Abbaszadeh Meshkini, the ministry's political director, told the Fars news agency.

He said the ministry had received "a note signed by two presidential candidates, who were not favoured by the majority of voters, to hold a memorial service for those killed in post-election events."

COMMENT:  What a farce.  We wonder if President Obama will take any note of this.  But Iran isn't an ally, so why criticize?

July 29, 2009   Permalink

THE IMPACT OF EFFECTIVE OPPOSITION - AT 7:47 A.M. ET:  The GOP and moderate Democrats have made some effective points in opposing the current health "reform" legislation before Congress.  The opposition is leading to what appears to be corrective action.  We'll see when the print comes out.  From The Washington Post: 

An emerging consensus among a bipartisan group of senators is poised to shift the dynamic in the congressional debate over health-care reform and could lead to a final product that sheds many of the priorities that President Obama has emphasized and that have drawn GOP attacks.

And...

Assuming the fragile committee coalition holds, the legislation it produces would scramble the reform landscape by introducing policy ideas that have their origins in the political center. The bill is bound to disappoint liberals. But with prominent GOP backing, it also could prove more difficult for Republicans to reject out of hand -- the approach they have taken to the House bill and a second Senate version, written by the health committee.

And...

GOP negotiators rejected from the outset the kind of government-run insurance plan that Obama and most Democrats are pushing for in an attempt to inject the health-insurance market with pricing competition. Instead, the committee would create coverage cooperatives modeled after rural electricity providers.

Naturally, President Obama injected himself and demonstrated why his leadership abilities are under growing attack:

Obama has encouraged the finance panel's effort, praising it as the potential foundation for the bipartisan outcome he is seeking. But he flashed his discontent with the process during a question-and-answer session sponsored by AARP. "Sometimes I get a little frustrated, because this is one of those situations where it's so obvious that the system we have isn't working well for too many people, and that we could be doing better," Obama said Tuesday.

You do better, Mr. President, by coming up with good, workable ideas, not simply by complaining.  This is what happens when a man has spent most of his political career running for office, not performing the work of an office.

Maybe something good will come of this, but we're relieved that Congress wasn't stampeded by its liberal wing and by the very liberal White House.  The thoughtful opponents of the proposed legislation have had public opinion behind them, which shows what an aroused public can do.

July 29, 2009   Permalink

OUR HELPFUL NEW FRIENDS, THE RUSSIANS - AT 7:27 A.M. ET:  From the Jerusalem Post:

For the first time, Russia and Iran will hold a joint naval maneuver in the Caspian Sea, The Iranian Mehr News Agency reported Wednesday.

A senior official in the Iranian ports authority was quoted by the report as saying that the maneuver would increase the coordination between the two countries and focus on search and rescue operations and the prevention of pollution.

COMMENT:  Although the report is officially unconfirmed, it seems unlikely that a state-controlled Iranian agency would report on Russian/Iranian plans based on rumors.  As far as search and rescue and pollution control, try to contain your laughter. 

Compare this, please, with the endless spoutings from the Obama administration to the effect that, unless Iran shows some cooperation in ending its quest for nukes, we will go to the next level - and ask for greater UN sanctions.  Wow.

Russia has veto power in the UN.  So does China.  Both have been opposed to stronger sanctions. 

We have no policy toward Iran that works in the real world.  Maybe that is intentional, maybe not.  The president has vaguely given Iran until, oh, the end of the year or so to show real progress.  What then?

July 29, 2009   Permalink

TUESDAY,  JULY 28,  2009

QUOTES OF THE DAY - AT 9:38 P.M. ET:  From Harry Stein in the Manhattan Institute's City Journal, on President Obama's "teachable moment":

This time, more than ever, we’re learning other lessons. One of them: for all the talk from his starry-eyed acolytes, in the media and elsewhere, about Obama’s being “post-racial,” the president clings to the discredited and deeply damaging view of America as fundamentally racist, seeing his fellow blacks as perpetual victims justifiably suspicious of cops and other establishment authority figures. So when it comes to race, it’s facts be damned.

And...

Perhaps the most telling media moment during the Gates brouhaha was the observation by an NPR anchor—only slight paraphrasing here—that opinion was divided over whether the police were to blame or there was fault on both sides.

Very insightful.  It was beyond the NPR guy's comprehension that some people might think there was a third possibility - that only Professor Gates was to blame.  Ideas like that would not be acceptable at National Public Radio.  Would you want this guy on a jury?

July 28, 2009    Permalink

PAWLENTY MOVING - AT 9:09 P.M. ET:  There's been a heavy focus on former Governor Sarah Palin, but watch Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota.  Skillful and appealing, he's making his move for 2012:

In a twin boost to his growing national political profile, Gov. Tim Pawlenty got a new bully pulpit Monday and issued a joint report on health care with a U.S. Republican House leader.

Pawlenty, who has already crammed his schedule full of national appearances, was elected vice-chairman of the Republican Governors Association, a post he can use to boost the campaigns of 39 GOP candidates in elections this year and next.

The visibility of the position also allows him to burnish his own credentials as a next-generation Republican leader -- and possibly help him position himself for a presidential run in 2012.

Pawlenty has decided not to run for reelection next year, clearing his schedule for a presidential run in 2012.  Along with Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, and possibly Mike Huckabee, he has to be considered in the front rank of contenders.  Nationally, he would be a fresh face.

The 2012 election is many, many political lifetimes from now.  Anything we say in July of 2009 is pure speculation.  But it appears that we can count Pawlenty in.

July 28, 2009   Permalink

UTTERLY DISGRACEFUL - AT 6:31 P.M. ET: 

OCOTAL, Nicaragua (AP) - The U.S. government said Tuesday it has revoked the diplomatic visas of four Honduran officials, stepping up pressure on coup-installed leaders who insist they can resist international demands to restore the ousted president.

Coup-installed leader?  When, precisely, was there a coup?  The army did not act until ordered to do so by proper constitutional authority.  This is either lazy journalism, or slanted journalism, but there's no third possibility.

The U.S. State Department did not name the four, but a Honduran official said they included the Supreme Court magistrate who ordered the arrest of ousted President Manuel Zelda and the president of Honduras' Congress.

Last time I looked, the ousted president's name was Zelaya, not Zelda.  Zelda is my aunt.  Is this great journalism, or what?

The State Department is also reviewing the visas of all officials serving under interim President Roberto Micheletti, department spokesman Ian Kelly said.

Micheletti's Deputy Foreign Minister Marta Lorena Alvarado said Supreme Court Justice Tomas Arita and Congressional President Jose Alfredo Saavedro were among those whose visas removed.

Arita signed the order for Zelaya's arrest several days before soldiers whisked him out of the country on June 28.

Hey, they got the president's name right.

COMMENT:  This is an outrage.  We are openly siding with Castro, Ortega and Hugo Chavez, who are allies of this former president, Zelaya, who was ousted by legal action of the Honduran government. 

It took days for the president of the United States to finally drag himself to a microphone to support the pro-democracy demonstrators in Iran, who were being beaten and killed by the mullahs.  He explained the delay by saying that he didn't want to "meddle" in Iranian affairs.  And here we are, diving into Honduras to support a hard leftist, an ally of our enemies.

Tells you where the president's heart lies, doesn't it? 

You may recall that Obama ran as a centrist.  Remember?

July 28, 2009  Permalink

WE JUST THOUGHT YOU'D LIKE TO KNOW - AT 12:15 P.M. ET: 

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The chief White House spokesman said a Thursday meeting of the president, a Harvard University scholar and the policeman who arrested him will be ''about having a beer and de-escalation.''

Robert Gibbs said Tuesday that the session, weather permitting, is planned for 6 p.m. at a picnic table outside the Oval Office. ''The president wants to continue to take down the temperature a bit,'' Gibbs said.

COMMENT:  This truly symbolizes the adolescent character of the Obama administration.  The president should have apologized for his outrageous remarks condemning the Cambridge police for having acted "stupidly," and then gotten out of the case entirely.

This "picnic" just trivializes the whole situation, but is indicative of the Obama belief that all problems can be solved by just a little talking, a little beer drinking, some negotiation, and treating all sides as morally equal.  Certainly is working in his foreign policy, isn't it?

Please remember that Gates plans to make money on the case by filming a documentary, and that the police officer still faces an investigation in a town known for its leftist bias.

July 28, 2009   Permalink 

MESSAGE FROM OBAMA:  DON'T YOU DARE SUCCEED - AT 9:46 A.M. ET:   Incredible.  Unbelievable.  But this is the liberal mentality at work:  If you don't at first fail, try, try again. 

To some liberals, success is suspect, unless of course it's their own success at becoming fabulously wealthy through Hollywood accounting or Wall Street gimmicks.  Now we find that the New York Police Department, the symbol of crime-fighting victories in the last decade and a half, and the department that has done more to fight terror than any other police unit, is being denied federal funds.  Why?  Because it's too successful.  In the immortal words of Captain Queeg, "I kid you not."  The Politico has the madness:

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose police force has reportedly been denied due to insufficient crime and budgetary problems, released a blunt statement:

"The decision to deny New York City funding from the COPS grant program is disappointing, to put it mildly. To punish our police department because they have driven down crime with fewer resources shows the backwards incentive system that is sometimes at work in Washington. Denying that funding because New Yorkers have already dug into their pockets to maintain our City’s sound fiscal stewardship and pay for our exceptional policing doesn’t make sense. Lastly, the attacks on New York City were attacks on the nation and we should be receiving strong federal support for the NYPD to fight terrorism in the nation’s largest city."

Well said.  And New York's already legendary police commissioner, Ray Kelly, added his two cents. It would have been four cents, except for budgetary restraints:

"After two successful terrorist attacks at the heart of the nation’s financial center, there should be substantial and continuing federal support for the NYPD in its counterterrorism and conventional crime fighting missions. We shouldn’t be penalized for succeeding on both counts, and mainly on our own dime, over the last seven and a half years."

COMMENT:  Can you believe that?  Do well and get punished.  Now, question:  Do you really want the Obama administration handling 1) health care, 2) education, or 3) relations with our most loyal overseas allies?

Hands please. Up high.  I count...no hands.  Good.  I knew our readers were intelligent.

July 28, 2009   Permalink

TERROR THREAT IN GERMANY - AT 9:25 A.M. ET:  With all that's happening in the United States, it's easy to be distracted from the wars going on around the world, and the war on terror.  Since the Obama administration doesn't use "war on terror," apparently because it's too Bushian, maybe we can employ another phrase like, "vigorous disagreement with those representing an alternative, sometimes upsetting philosophy."  That should satisfy the Harvard Crimson. 

Germany is openly admitting that it's a major target.  Why?  There are three reasons.  First, Germany has a national parliamentary election on September 27th, and a terror attack might be launched to try to change the outcome.  Al Qaeda and similar groups recall with great fondness how a terror attack in Spain led to the expulsion of a pro-American government and the installation of a socialist government hostile to Washington.

Second, Germany is the weak link in the Afghan chain.  After the U.S. and Britain, Germany has more troops in Afghanistan than any other NATO nation, but the Afghan commitment is strongly unpopular with the German public.  A terror attack might push public opinion over the edge, and lead to a withdrawal of German troops.

Third, Germany is a major trading partner of Iran, and has resisted American requests for increased sanctions on that terror-directing country.  A terror attack in Germany could remind Germans of the consequences of ever succumbing to American pressure.

Spiegel Online, a major German publication, has the stark facts:

A recent routine police operation uncovered a possible terror suspect. The development illustrates just how tense the security situation is in Germany, with the government issuing the clearest warnings yet of a possible attack by Islamist terrorists. How much do the country's security officials know?

Apparently quite a bit...

German security authorities, especially the Interior Ministry, have rarely spoken as often and openly about a supposedly imminent attack as they have this summer. They have both a preventive plan -- what the authorities intend to do prevent this attack -- and an emergency plan that would be implemented if an attack actually does take place.

The government is fluctuating between alarmism and reassurance.

And...

Of course, the news currently unfolding behind the scenes is far from comforting. A delegation of officials from the Federal Office of Criminal Investigation (BKA), the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany's domestic intelligence agency, and the BND, the country's foreign intelligence agency, recently visited several countries in North Africa. The officials returned convinced that al-Qaida had declared Germany a target for attacks.

COMMENT:  The Obama administration, in another brilliant stroke of foreign policy, has made little effort to firm up our alliance with Germany.  In fact, there have been many reports of friction between President Obama and the generally conservative German chancellor, Angela Merkel.  That lack of support by Washington could wreak havoc with German policy if there's a major terror attack, as Germans look around and weigh the value of their relationship with the United States.

July 28, 2009   Permalink

HEALTH DEAL NEAR? - AT 8:09 A.M. ET:  Supporting our post just below, there's been some apparent progress on health-reform legislation, because the centrists are now being included.  From Fox:

WASHINGTON -- A bipartisan group of senators is closing in on a health care compromise that omits key Democratic priorities but seeks to hold down costs, as lawmakers on both sides of the Capitol labor to deliver sweeping health legislation to President Barack Obama.

After weeks of secretive talks, three Democrats and three Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee were edging closer to a compromise that excludes a requirement many congressional Democrats seek for large businesses to offer coverage to their workers. Nor would there be a provision for a government insurance option, despite Obama's support for such a plan, officials said.

The Finance senators were considering a tax of as much as 35 percent on very high-cost insurance policies, part of an attempt to rein in rapid escalation of costs. Also likely to be included in any deal was creation of a commission charged with slowing the growth of Medicare.

"We're going to get agreement here," Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., the Finance Committee chairman, said Monday. "The group of six really wants to get to 'yes."'

COMMENT:  Conservatives, if they're smart (not always) should already be planning how they can emphasize to the public their role in shaping responsible legislation, instead of letting Obama take all the credit, which he'll surely try to do. 

Indeed, this could be a major conservative moment if the American voter understands what has been achieved, and, yes, what has been prevented by the actions of the moderate and conservative members of Congress.  Americans are listening, especially on health care.  It is not a sin in politics to toot one's horn, if there's something worth tooting about.

July 28, 2009   Permalink

THE AWAKENING MODERATE DEMOCRATS - AT 7:48 A.M. ET:  One of the major stories in these past few weeks has been the flexing of muscles by the Democratic Party's moderate wing - sometimes known as the Blue Dog Democrats.  It is reminiscent of the time, from roughly 1939 through, very roughly, the late sixties, when Congress was controlled by a coalition of northern Republicans and Southern Democrats.  John Whitesides reports for Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With friends like these, President Barack Obama may not need enemies.

Obama's hopes for passing an initial version of healthcare reform by August are dead in the Senate and on life support in the House of Representatives -- and his fellow Democrats played a big role in their demise.

A House group of Democratic fiscal conservatives put the brakes for now on Obama's top domestic priority in a fight over how to curb rising costs, sparking a sharp and highly visible party feud on Friday.

How did this happen?  Just months ago we were assured by much of the pundit class that this was the liberal hour.  Delirious in their joy that the spirit of the late sixties had touched us again, there were visions of any manner of social schemes, flower-decorated designer jeans, and a reining in of military power.

So what happened?  Distinguished political science Professor Steven E. Schier, of Carleton College, co-editor of "The American Elections of 2008," explains it this way:

"A big majority is a diverse majority, and Democrats do not have the ideological homogeneity to just march in lock step with the president."

Schier goes on to say:

"A big majority can be a blessing or a curse -- and in this case it's a curse for Obama," Schier said. "A lot of Democrats are getting nervous about this."

COMMENT:  It was Will Rogers who famously said, "I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat."  The Democratic Party traditionally was raucous and divided.  Then, in the 1960s, as a result of Democratic support for civil rights, the party started faltering in large parts of the South, where Republicans gained strength.  (This was despite the fact that Republican votes in Congress had been critical to the passage of major civil-rights legislation.)  The liberal wing of the Democratic Party became dominant, at least in the image that the party projected.  Now, with a comfortable majority, the old divisions among the Democrats are starting to show again.

This, I believe, is good for the country, and even good for the Democratic Party, whose leaders are learning that there's a world outside Beverly Hills, Manhattan, and Georgetown.

July 28, 2009   Permalink