kos just posted this bit, in regards to the Democrats rolling over for Mukasey:
That's pretty much it: Sound the alarm. Talk tough. Capitulate.
It's why they look as weak as they do, and it's patently transparent. I just wish I understood what they hoped to gain from it. It sure as heck ain't negotiating leverage.
You can hear Kos' frustration and confusion. In fact, whenever the Democratic Party behaves this way, Kossacks shower the site with frustrated comments and diaries.
And then it occurred to me that this is a phenomenon I've seen elsewhere.
I watch a fair bit of football. I'm not an expert on it; but like many other football fans, I am driven up the wall when my team overemploys the prevent defense. Known as the "bend but not break" defense, this allows the offense to easily gain some yardage and field position, in exchange for preventing a huge play. A team in the lead might go into the prevent defense, hoping to run out the clock before its opponent can score enough to overcome the lead.
The reason that the Democrats are capitulation is that they are running their own version of the prevent defense. They control Congress. They could stop much more of the Republicans' activities than they have. But the Democrats are more career oriented than they are movement oriented. So they sit back a little. They're on the field, but they are showing a capitulation formation, that allows a little torture here, a couple of subpoenas ignored there. And as much as that drives us nuts, the Democrats might really have the right idea. Bend, but not break, and the country will give them the Presidency.
Except for three things:
- This isn't a game. In life, field position matters. Torture affects people. Fallout from ignored subpoenas affects people. War in Iraq affects people. Paying for that war might affect even more people.
- The 2008 Presidential elections are not the end of the "game". The Democrats don't get to go to DisneyWorld and carry around the Lombardi Trophy for all time. This "game" keeps going. And the damage the Republicans do in the meantime is not wiped out with a whistle.
- People hate the prevent defense. It's weak. Right wing media can be incredibly dishonest. But it's brutally not so when it labels the Democrats as being weak.
"If the Democrats can't stand up to Fox News, how can they stand up to Osama bin Ladin"
I don't believe that the Democrats are weak on national security. But it's easier to create that frame when they appear weak on everything else.
The Democrats weren't elected for their capitulation defense. And if the American People can't blame the defensive coordinator, they'll take it out on the "players" when it comes to the offseason.
The fundamental disconnect here is in the matter of perspective. Too many Democrats are doing just enough to get by. That's why we don't get them, and they don't get us. They see the Democratic Party as a job. We see it as a movement.