Right now, I can't imagine very many better positions for the Democratic Party heading into 2006 than the one that exists right now. With the collapse of Bush's stated 2005 agenda, his failure to make permanent the PATRIOT Act, his government's failures to tend to victims of Katrina, spying on his own citizens with the powerful tools intended to defend Americans and many many more, the time is right for the Democrats to begin the ideological and operational preparation for a full turnover of the Congress of the United States. I say this with no hesitation, because with almost any other leaders, it would already be unabashedly true.
But what leaders do we as Democrats currently possess? Thank God that Harry Reid has stepped out of the shadows and into the limelight of Senate leadership with exceptional skill. However, the same cannot be said of Steny Hoyer, and I believe the time has come for the Democratic Caucus to exchange Minority Whips and not wait for another 2004 in 2006 to convince us.
Simply put, considering the Democratic position in this the 109th Congress, we must expect and demand as close to total political efficacy as is possible in order to stop the bleeding inflicted by 2004. And on the issues that matter, Steny Hoyer has either been ineffective, shortsighted, or just plain wrong.
With the Bankruptcy Bill, Steny Hoyer led 72 other Democrats in a cowardly retreat in fealty to the banks, from which he pockets over $225K per cycle.
Further, Rep. Hoyer has colluded with the increasingly out of touch Rahm Emanuel and stabbed his own Hispanic caucus members in the back by lobbying Dems in important 2006 districts to vote for immigration curbs without having the stones to vote for them themselves. The Sun-Times reports,
Friday, the House approved an immigration bill by Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) that most Democrats regarded as anti-immigrant and needlessly punitive. It is unlikely to survive in the Senate. The measure was approved 239-182, with 36 Democrats voting with the GOP majority.
"As painful as it is for me to come to this conclusion, after careful examination of all of the events last Friday I have come to the conclusion that indeed the chair of the DCCC either asked, encouraged or cajoled people to vote for the Sensenbrenner bill," Gutierrez told me.
"And that is the conclusion I have come to. And that is what I believed happened. And I think that as Democrats we have to stand courageously for what we believe in and not look for what is expedient," he said.
The Hill, a newspaper covering Congress, ran a story Tuesday about how members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and their allies were "furious" that Emanuel and Democratic Whip Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) were lobbying incumbents who were GOP targets next year to vote "yes" on Sensenbrenner.
Emanuel and Hoyer voted no.
This in itself is pathetic enough. How dare Hoyer stab Hispanics in the back like this while bowing to a 2002 strategy of appeasing the President? It's as if the last 4 years haven't happened, and principles do not matter in this our most crucial year yet. Yet the worst is yet to come.
I'll let the hated yet often accurate New Republic do the talking for me:
That was hardly a surprise. Even the Democrats at the microphones couldn't agree. Standing beside Pelosi was her deputy, the garrulous silver-haired Democratic whip, Steny Hoyer of Maryland. Only the week before, Pelosi and Hoyer had delivered starkly divergent responses to Pennsylvania Democrat John Murtha's dramatic pre-Thanksgiving call for a rapid withdrawal from Iraq. Within days, Pelosi had endorsed Murtha's plan, while Hoyer released a statement warning of a national security "disaster" if U.S. troops exited too quickly. A just-published Washington Post story about how moderates like Hoyer were unhappy with Pelosi had everyone on edge. At a breakfast that very morning, Roll Call would later report, Hoyer had exchanged tense words with one of Pelosi's top confidantes, George Miller of California. Murtha, meanwhile, was making his irritation with Hoyer known to other members.
This kind of dissention and willful disorganization speaks to something horribly wrong either with the relationship, as TNR claims, between Pelosi and Hoyer that has the potential to undo our chances in 2006, or it is simply one in a long line of spineless, fuck-the-grassroots efforts from Hoyer that sidelined a courageous man like John Murtha at his hour of greatest need. Either Steny Hoyer must adjust his attitude now, or he must be replaced immediately. He serves at the pleasure of his caucus, and they have a responsibility to stand up and take notice, lest yet another golden election cycle pass them by.
