Democrat's Lament
>Are Democrats really so lame?
Republicans are on the ropes, but yet another mainstream media star says it's Democrats who are in trouble, thanks to Bush-hating bloggers and billionaires. Here we go again.
By Joan Walsh, www.salon.com
Washington is already bickering over the administration's September progress report on the Iraq quagmire, which will almost certainly be bad news for Bush and the GOP politicians whose fortunes are sinking with his.
Of course, you know what that means: It's time for another book about those crazy, doomed, dysfunctional Democrats!
That's not an entirely fair way to set up Matt Bai's heralded anatomy of Democratic disarray in the Bush years: "The Argument: Billionaires, Bloggers and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics," released Monday. A book can have bad timing and still be right. John Judis and Ruy Teixeira published "The Emerging Democratic Majority" just before Republicans cruised to a 2002 midterm victory, and it probably didn't help sales. But they were right about the big picture: Women, minorities, urbanites, professionals and new-economy workers were all in fact moving toward the Democrats, helping the party take back Congress in 2006.
Maybe Bai's right, too, and the Democrats will ultimately be undone by two flaws he thinks are fatal: their failure to put together a big, bold social policy for the 21st century, and their "disabling hatred" of George W. Bush.< |
