In a remarkable article in today's San Francisco Chronicle, our Congressional Democrats are revealed to be stunned and shocked that Bush and his compatriots in Congress are "trying to screw them":
Congress "is the only business in the world where your colleagues wake up in the morning and try to figure out how to screw over their colleagues," said Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena. It's as if workers in a winery went to work each morning trying "to figure out how to mess up the next batch of Chardonnay that's coming out."
What is stunning is that the Congressional Dems neither anticipated this nor have adjusted their strategies to it; in fact amazingly their strategies were predicated on cooperation from Bush and his Republican Party in Congress.
Here's the money quote from the Chronicle article:
Bewildered Democrats have concluded that Republicans simply want them to fail.
What's our Congressional leadership's response to this growing realization? According to the Chronicle article by Carolyn Lochhead, Pelosi and Reid have already begun backing down, writing the White House this month asking for negotiations to "split the difference" with Bush on the spending bills, of course the White House refused. Why did they refuse? Well, Lochhead reports that
James Horney, director of fiscal policy for the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said, "My impression is that the White House decided quite a while ago that it was in the president's political interest to have a confrontation with Congress over budget issues."
In other words, many people including those of us who read newspapers could have anticipated long ago that Bush would dig in his heels and be uncooperative, no matter how insane such a strategy seemed. But not our Congressional Dem leadership, somehow they expected more cooperation. And in a mark of their failed strategy, they disarmed themselves unilaterally by taking Congressional weapons of strength off the table, such as impeachment. What remains is with Bush being able to veto legislation and budgets with Congress not having enough override votes, the uncreative and uninspired Dem leadership sees no alternatives but either the dreaded government shutdown, which they have also ruled out, or to cave in to Bush's demands. Lochhead reports:
Asked last week whether there would be a government shutdown, Pelosi replied, "No. Absolutely not."
Pelosi and Reid fear impeachment and the government shutdown as potential backfires, but have no other sensible strategies to replace them with. Thus, they are easily outmaneuvered by Bush and backed into frankly, a very silly corner. Lochhead again reports that:
Thompson said nobody has a clear idea how the budget impasse will end.
For now, he said, the Democratic strategy is: "We win in November (2008), and we fix all the problems."
I don't fault Rep. Thompson, in fact he represents the district next to mine and I like him. He has been pretty good on issues like the war and constitutional rights. But his words echo and illustrate the sad reality of the inept political strategies of the Congressional leadership.
Their half time game plan adjustment strategy to the failure to score any touchdowns appears to continue to be to hold steady, close their eyes, grit their teeth and ignore whatever happens until November 2008. And the Dems sadly act as if they have a broken clutch gear shift stuck in place that they are simply unable to change, and the only response is to whine over it.
These failed strategies we all know about. What we may not know until today, is simply how gigantic a miscalculation our Congressional leaders made in assessing their opponents, and that they are finally realizing what a majority of rank and file Democratic Party voters and likely a majority of the country figured out years ago, that they are not dealing with Bob Dole's Republican Party any more. Rep. David Obey speaks to the reality they are dealing with:
Openly frustrated, Obey said the public sent two messages to Washington in the last election - one calling for a new policy in Iraq, the other for a new set of budget priorities at home.
The president's "return message to the American people is, 'I don't care what message you thought you were delivering last November, I'm the Great Decider. We're going to decide things my way, and it's my way or the highway.' And he's behaved that way... And the American public is not happy with either stance, and they expect us to try to do something besides sit like potted palms."
To Obey's credit, he is not content to be sitting like a potted palm until Nov. '08.
Whatever deals Pelosi may have cut, if any, with Bush upon winning a Congressional majority have proven thus far to be raw ones based on gigantic miscalculations.
There's much more to be stated about this article. And much has been diaried or front paged at Daily Kos or the Netroots regarding the ineptitude of our Congressional strategists. But what is truly stunning is that our Congressional Dems are now beginning to realize the strategy is a failure because they have suddenly discovered, to their shock, that their Republican Congressional colleauges don't care about government services and win-win compromises and smiley faces but are mean, nasty, conniving schemers who will thwart their every move in order to assist the Bush Administration that is composed of mean, non-compromising, ruthless operatives. What a surprise. One hopes it will cause the Dem leadership to re-think their approach, instead of continuing to dream of November '08, when the Great Pumpkin comes to give gifts to Democratic children.