Arianna's thoughts along with this from Molly Ivins and one has to wonder if the democrats deserve to exist as a party.
"The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush's tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich.
The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.
The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF? "
Arianna Huffington
Dems Pick Kaine for State of Union Response; What the Hell Are They Thinking?
Jan. 19 -- So the Democrats have chosen Virginia Governor Tim Kaine to
deliver the party's response to President Bush's State of the Union speech.
Chalk up another one for the What the Hell Are They Thinking? file.
On the same day that Osama Bin Laden's chilling warnings make it Red Alert
clear that Bush's obsession with Iraq has not made us safer here at home --
and, indeed, has caused us to take our eye off the real enemy -- the Dems
decide that the charge against Bush shouldn't be led by someone who can
forcefully articulate why the GOP is not the party that can best keep us
safe, but by someone whose only claim to fame is that he carried a red
state. Talk about clueless.
The Democrats don't seem to know what the Republicans do know: that the GOP
is losing ground on its core issue of national security. That's why Bush is
planning to shift his State of the Union focus away from Iraq and onto an
attack on rising health care costs. And the re-emergence of the architect of
9/11 -- promising to bring further death and destruction to our door, and
touting Iraq's help as an al-Qaeda recruiting tool -- can only further
weaken Bush's national security standing.
So why don't the Democrats have the guts to aggressively go after Bush on
the issue?
I know I've said this before and before, but the Democrats will never become
the majority party until they can prove to the American people that they
have a better plan for keeping us safe. And that means having someone like
Jack Murtha give the State of the Union response -- someone with the
authority to make the point that, on every level, Iraq is the wrong
priority. And that the hundreds of billions already spent on Iraq (and the
countless billions to come) would be better spent shoring up our ports,
roadways, railways, securing our nuclear installations and chemical plants,
and properly supporting our first responders.
Don't ask me why, but I actually watched Kaine's inaugural address on
C-SPAN, and I was stunned to hear him dare compare the cause of Virginians
like Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson to our cause in Iraq: "They stood
here at a time, just as today, when Virginians serving freedom's cause
sacrificed their lives so that democracy could prevail over tyranny."
Iraq as a war to ensure that democracy can prevail over tyranny is George
Bush's talking point. God help us if it's also the talking point of the man
the Democrats have chosen to respond to him after the State of the Union.
And during Kaine's run for Governor, he adopted another Bush talking point
-- that it would send "a horrible message" to "cut and run" in Iraq. Could
that be any further from Murtha's message that Iraq has become a civil war
-- a civil war being inflamed by our continuing presence?
Maybe you are thinking -- at least those of you who have a life and missed
his inaugural speech on C-SPAN -- that Kaine is a charismatic speaker who
will really wow the American people. Well, he ain't. In fact, he scored so
low on the scintillating speaker meter, that today's Note suggests Democrats
make it a priority to get the Guv a speech tutor before the State of the
Union.
I've got a better idea. Why don't the Democrats reconsider their choice and
pick someone more able than Kaine to make the national security argument?
They don't even have to make a big deal out of the switch. Kaine can simply
come down with a really, really bad cold that night. Cough, cough... and
Murtha is waiting in the wings.
The Friday before the 2004 election, bin Laden re-emerged from another
protracted silence and released another tape, dominating the news. But
instead of aggressively making the point that his reappearance proved that
Bush had failed to make America safer, Democratic strategists flinched and
had Kerry focus on the economy instead. And we all remember how well that
turned out.
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