4.13.2005
Will Democrats Seize the Opening? (WashingtonPost.com)
By David Ignatius
Wednesday, April 13, 2005; Page A17
The Republican Party, seemingly intent on squandering its 2004 election gains, is handing the Democrats a golden opportunity to restore their credentials as a governing party. To seize the moment, the Democrats must do what the Republicans have been avoiding -- which is to get serious about the nation's economic problems.
The Republicans lately have exhibited many of the unpleasant traits that got the Democrats in trouble over the past generation. With their attempts to impose political solutions to private moral issues, they come across as meddlesome busybodies who want to run other people's lives. Americans didn't like self-righteous scolding when it came from liberals, and they don't like it now from conservatives.
Life as the governing party has been as corrosive for the GOP as it was for the Democrats during their era of dominance. That's the real import of the Tom DeLay case; it's not that the House majority leader is uniquely unethical but that his lapses are so reminiscent of what the Democratic grandees did back when they ruled Capitol Hill. Reading the recent headlines about lobbyists run amok, you can't help but remember the bad old days of Lyndon Johnson, Bobby Baker, Wilbur Mills and Jim Wright. Even those Democratic oligarchs would have quailed at DeLay's attempt to pack the House ethics committee with pliant cronies.
(More ... Will Democrats Seize the Opening? (washingtonpost.com)) ¶ 21:58
Wednesday, April 13, 2005; Page A17
The Republican Party, seemingly intent on squandering its 2004 election gains, is handing the Democrats a golden opportunity to restore their credentials as a governing party. To seize the moment, the Democrats must do what the Republicans have been avoiding -- which is to get serious about the nation's economic problems.
The Republicans lately have exhibited many of the unpleasant traits that got the Democrats in trouble over the past generation. With their attempts to impose political solutions to private moral issues, they come across as meddlesome busybodies who want to run other people's lives. Americans didn't like self-righteous scolding when it came from liberals, and they don't like it now from conservatives.
Life as the governing party has been as corrosive for the GOP as it was for the Democrats during their era of dominance. That's the real import of the Tom DeLay case; it's not that the House majority leader is uniquely unethical but that his lapses are so reminiscent of what the Democratic grandees did back when they ruled Capitol Hill. Reading the recent headlines about lobbyists run amok, you can't help but remember the bad old days of Lyndon Johnson, Bobby Baker, Wilbur Mills and Jim Wright. Even those Democratic oligarchs would have quailed at DeLay's attempt to pack the House ethics committee with pliant cronies.
(More ... Will Democrats Seize the Opening? (washingtonpost.com)) ¶ 21:58
