Damn Dirty Democrats
Once the party of hope and idealism, the Democrats are now the party of dirty tricks.
by Jonathan V. Last
11/04/2002 12:00:00 AM
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-In Iowa, Tom Harkin spent autumn in Tape-gate. As the Washington Post explained, "Harkin's campaign provided a digital recorder to a former Harkin aide to take to a Sept. 3 strategy session of the Ganske campaign, to which the former aide had been invited. The campaign then leaked a copy of the recording to an Iowa reporter. Harkin's campaign staff first denied any involvement, then admitted to it. Harkin dumped his campaign manager and fired a young, low-level aide, whom the campaign said was solely responsible for getting the former Harkin aide, Brian Conley, to record the session."
-And then, of course, there was the Wellstone affair last week (see the above now-famous photo). At the memorial service Democrats whipped the crowd into a partisan fervor, chanted "We Will Win," and generally had a rollicking good time while the 20,000 attendees booed Wellstone's Republican colleagues who had come to pay their respects.
The Democrats haven't just become Nixon, they've become the exaggerated liberal nightmare version of Nixon: Today Democrats are what they believe Nixon was.
The change didn't happen overnight. For a couple years now--since 1992ish, to be more exact--Democrats have been showing signs of a desperate, win-at-any-cost mentality. It started with Clinton's women and then his fund-raising and impeachment. It carried over to Gore's challenge to the 2000 election and Tom Daschle's unprecedented obstruction of George W. Bush's judicial nominees.
(As a side note, last Friday on Blanquita Cullum and Janet Donovan's radio show, "The Beltway Broads," I asked Orrin Hatch if there was any weight to the charge that Republicans had been just as bad with Clinton's nominees. The straight-laced Mormon said those arguments are "pure B.S." Also, he interestingly noted that "we may get one or two [Supreme Court] nominees before the end of the year.")
None of this has been lost on the public. And the angry chants and rabid cheering from the Wellstone "memorial" may have provided the Democrats with a new defining moment. Once the party of JFK and FDR, the Democrats are now the party of dirty tricks.
Jonathan V. Last is online editor of Weekly Standard.
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