Captain Future's Log

Watching A Car Wreck Is Not An Agenda

Chris Bowers at My DD writes that no President has recovered from poll numbers like those Bush is getting (including two new ones over the weekend and Monday.) T. Goddard's Political Wire had an item about research from James Carville and Stan Greenberg which shows an opening for Democrats because of Bushcorps fall from grace.

An opening, yes, but who is going to go through it? And how? And even, why?

So far it seems Democrats have watched Bushcorps self-destruct. Tom Gilroy warns that Bushcorps isn't going to simply roll over and be dead. He reminds everyone that they are" a gang of fanatics who stole two elections in a row, invaded a country they knew couldn’t defend itself, and gave a male hustler White House security clearance." And they will continue their usually successful tactics of character assassination and Newspeak redefinition.

Sure enough, Bush is out on the hustings naming Democrats like Kerry and Harry Reid as traitors giving aid and comfort to the enemy with their criticisms of the king in wartime. It worked before. (See the New York Times editorial excerpted below for the truth.)

In the meantime, their demonic work goes on in Congress and through the Executive branch, with hoped-for help apparently coming from the courts, especially the Supreme Court in the future. As Gilroy writes, "As long as Democrats and their well-fed punditocracy measure Bush, et al with a yardstick of morality, popularity or ethics, they will never recapture the majority, and here’s why; Bush, et al aren’t driven by morality, popularity, or ethics. They’re driven by money."

But since you've read the Captain's log on privatization, you knew that.

Now that there's an opening, it becomes especially clear that the Democrats don't seem to have anybody ready to go through it, at least in terms of 2008 presidential candidates. Though John Kerry is more eloquent and forthright now, he is regarded as damaged goods, and the party would be nervous about returning to him, mostly because of a few evidences of bad judgment in who he depended on to run his campaign, and their advice (especially about his early concession.) Al Gore is liberated and becoming of all things a passionate orator, but has no organization or intention of running, and there seem to be too many hopefuls out there to allow him to play catch-up.

In the meantime, those named as hopefuls are a pretty undistinquished lot, mostly middle of the road milksops with all the eloquence, intellect and charisma of an electric shaver, or veterans of Washington politics who have run before and lost. Hillary Clinton has amassed the most money and has the best known name, but she's not getting much emotional commitment with her stand on the war.

In the meantime, John McCain is perfectly positioned to be a very strong Republican candidate. He's well known, well liked, and he's distancing himself from Bushcorps on key issues so he'll be one of the few clean Republicans when more of the whole sordid story is told. He's positioned to lead a reform movement within the Republican party and to bring independents to him. Right now the Democrats don't appear to have anyone with his stature who is as good a candidate. And as we all learned twice in this decade, no Democrat is going to win a close election. That's what the Supreme Court and computer voting machines are for.

So 2008 is not necessarily the Promised Land, though fortunately there's a lot of time yet. But Democrats shouldn't be waiting around, or jockeying for position in the presidential sweepstakes. Their job is to retake Congress next year, and that's what they need to be focusing on.

Democrats should be articulating a solid set of principles, positions and policies, right now.

Fortunately for them, Captain Future is on the job. The emphasis here is going to be on the future, and on what needs to be done. It'll mean resisting the temptation to highlight even the most stupendous of Bushcorps outrages, at least outside the context of what needs to be done. It will probably take more time as well.

But you haven't really been keeping up with everything written and reproduced on this site anyway, have you? Maybe less is more. We may see.