Democrats need to go on offensive
Adrianna Huffington - column
Wednesday, May 28th, 2003
"I a little bit disagree with Chairman Roberts on that."
That was Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the senior Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, sorta not taking exception to committee chairman Pat Roberts' assertion that we've turned the corner on keeping the peace in Iraq.
But it could just as easily serve as the motto for the whole Democratic Party. They are so paralyzed by the fear of doing or saying the wrong thing that they've rendered themselves utterly impotent when it comes to mounting any kind of challenge to President Bush on the two most important issues of the day: tax cuts and Iraq.
Exhibit A comes from Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, who, when asked on "Meet the Press" why the Democrats didn't offer a bold alternative to the Bush tax cut plan, including the repeal of the 2001 cuts and a guaranteed balanced budget, timorously explained: "Well, we - you got to take it one step at a time."
Is this an AA meeting?
Bush doesn't take it one step at a time. He's comfortable leading in leaps and bounds. And he's taking us along with him - straight over a cliff. We're facing $1 trillion of new debt, incurred by a President with the worst economic record since Herbert Hoover, and the best the leader of the opposition party can muster is a cliché?
Daschle issued an equally uncertain call when it came to the war. First, he helped draft the Senate's resolution on the use of force. Then, he blasted the President for failing "so miserably at diplomacy that we're now forced to war." When that comment, made the day before the war started, unleashed a torrent of criticism, instead of simply attacking back, Daschle hemmed and hawed, saying that he "probably would have avoided making the statement" if he'd known we were on the brink of war.
But word of the impending invasion was all over the media when Daschle opened fire on Bush.
It is precisely this kind of vacillation that has made possible the triumph of the fanatics in the White House. Democrats are wringing their hands over the "tactical genius" of Karl Rove, and the "brilliant political stagecraft" of his TV experts. Such is the Democrats' fragility that the mere smoke and mirrors of posing the President in profile at Mount Rushmore has them quaking in their boots.
The Democratic National Committee's Terry McAuliffe needs to stop worrying about Bush's "Top Gun" landing and start worrying about finding a presidential candidate who isn't afraid to take decisive stands on the party's core issues. If the Democrats can't compete on style, they should at least give it a shot on substance.
After all, the problem isn't that Democrats are on the wrong side of the issues. It's that they are afraid to make an issue of being on the right side - not to mention smack dab in the middle of the mainstream.
The majority of the American people are with the Democrats, which makes the party's inability to offer an alternative to the White House juggernaut all the more disgraceful.
Democrats have to give up their broken play-it-safe politics and offer an unambiguous alternative to Bush. They seem to have forgotten that sometimes the best defense is a good offense. It's time to stop taking things "one step at a time" and start throwing deep.
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