Will The Dems Pounce or Snore in 2004?
by ICD
 

The lid has been pried off Bush's nest of lies.

This was inevitable. It was only a matter of time, before Bush's lies would catch up to him.

Whether we're talking about the Cakewalk-In-Iraq (turned Vietnam quagmire):
or whether we're talking about Bush breaking his post-9/11 promise to "increase AmeriCorps by 50%", or whether we’re talking about the Bush Administration doctoring a key EPA report...this essay could easily degenerate into an endless litany of examples...

Across the board, Bush is exposed as feeble. And his partisans are at a loss to defend him. So they retreat to Behind Closed Doors hearings, instead of public scrutiny. Revisionist rhetorical scrambling, rather than standing their untenable ground.

Yet I don’t expect victory over His Fraudulence in 2004.
Why not?

It's the Democrats.

Going into the Texas/Iraq War-- too many leading Democrats jockeyed for position by basing their stance on Politics, not Principle. Democrats feared Republicans would call them "soft" on Terror and Iraq. So: many Democrats acted as accomplices to Bush's lies and crimes. And subsequently those Democrats are now compromised in their ability to prosecute Bush.

I understand Political Necessity. I understand you have to choose your battles. But that means knowing more than when to take a pass. It also means knowing when to take a stand. By not vigorously opposing Bush's war-- many prominent Democrats fumbled at crunch time.

I am curious as to whether those Dems will now make an astute recovery, or whether they will continue to fumble.

It's entirely possible the Dems are resting against the ropes, like Muhammad Ali's rope-a-dope technique-- saving their energies for the Final Round. Fine. But it's equally possible that the Dems have gotten too cozy against those ropes, and have fallen dead asleep.

Have any of you heard an entire Nader campaign speech? Or a even whole Sharpton speech? Those guys have one thing in common. They are so marginalized, that they don't have any personal stake in maintaining the prevailing lies. They can go for broke-- and unleash the truth with impunity-- knowing it can only aid their cause. Knowing that they are not party to any profitable lies which would receive collateral damage.

I've heard both Nader and Sharpton deliver speeches that were dense with 40 straight minutes of reciting damning facts, before moving on to 20 minutes of the alternative they each propose. In 2000, even Gore tried this route when he was desperate. (When he wasn't desperate, Gore tried to run out the clock and win on incumbency. This made the 2000 race a contest to see who could offer the Least to the American people.) But Gore's occasional (desperate) ex-po-zays of Bush lies-- suffered from being obscure (although valid.) Why obscure? Because the big easy issues against Bush were also too damning of Clinton Democrats. So Gore had to settle for the marginal disputes. The little stuff.

In 2004, Bush offers a unique opportunity to contenders. Bush is SO BAD that the 40 minutes of straight honest criticism that he begs for-- need not be an obscure digression into fine points and niggling details. The perfect criticism of Bush would be 40 minutes of simple 2 sentence couplets: "Bush said THIS. But Bush did THAT." Punishing in their relentless rhythm.

Will the Dems pick a candidate who is already a big fish within the small pond of their party-- at worst Lieberman-- too complacent and complicit to zap Bush. Or will the Dems make room for some hungry contender from the edge of the party power base? One whose best years are still ahead of him. One who knows when to take a stand on principle.

Or will it be on the Greens again, to inject life and soul into another dreary Insider campaign?