The Democratic Reaction Richter Scale
Posted By Victor Davis Hanson On January 20, 2010 @ 10:44 am In Uncategorized | 103 Comments
The Democratic statist transformation suffered a sudden earthquake in Massachusetts last night. How can we measure the severity of the upcoming reaction aftershocks?
The subsequent damage will depend on the magnitude of the next round of shaking—a 7 aftershock ensuring rubble, a 1 suggesting that rebuilding can proceed.
So here is our reaction aftershock scale. (I think a 5-6 is the most likely, a 1 very improbable).
7.0 Obama brings in Pelosi and Reid to plot strategies about dealing with a deluded electorate, and so emulates a defiant Jimmy Carter—complaining about a crisis of national confidence while pressing ahead with socialized medicine, cap and trade, amnesty, more spending and greater deficits. When all that is passed, we will all, to use the President's words, "suddenly" appreciate the magnitude of His genius and sacrifice on our behalf. We will hear Obama orate about Lincoln's and FDR's "difficult" first year on their way to historic achievement analogous to Obama's to come. Bottom line: Massachusetts was a warning to hurry up and get the Obama deal done.
6.0 The liberal base, and White House insiders, adopt a bunker mode and start leaking off the record quips about the inadequacy of Democratic losing candidates and meaningless symbolic votes, while trashing Bush/Cheney and Rush Limbaugh. They begin turning on centrists and moderates as sell-outs and turncoats.
5.0 Axelrod, Gibbs, Emanuel et al. start talking about the "middle-class" concern about jobs, lack of health care, and the economy, citing Coakley's defeat as sign of the continual middle-class anger at the Bush debacle and the inability of government to address the people's needs. "Change" takes a long time.
4.0 We start seeing a lot less of Pelosi and Reid—and suddenly an "I'm worried" Jim Webb and Evan Bayh are everywhere. Democrats table Health Care, and seek to tweak a compromise "victory". John Kerry begins talking about a "principled" opposition and a "big-tent" inclusiveness of "all Americans."
3.0 Blue-dog House Democrats (such things now suddenly exist) meet to figure ways of recalibrating their health-care votes, talking tough on spending, and leaking stories about an "out of touch" White House. The networks start interviewing Joe Lieberman. White House memo goes out to drop the use of "tea-bagger".
2.0 Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod announce "long-planned" retirements, while Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi gracefully step aside for new centrist congressional leadership. Robert Gibbs goes the way of Scott McClellan.
1.0 Obama's uses his State of the Union speech to do a Dick Morris triangulation, and now talks of balanced budgets, cutting spending, and fighting a "war on terror," while praising the Bush anti-terrorism protocols, encouraging the "job makers" of the private sector, and announcing that "the era of big government is over."
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