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As President Bush gave the second inaugural address of his career, you could see something besides mourning in the eyes of Democrats everywhere. Confusion is what it looked like, and rightly so. The question echoes from blue coast to bluer coast: What has reduced post-election Democrats to such ineffectual pussyfooters?
True, there have been muffled objections -- to the certification of Bush's reelection, and to the impending confirmations of cabinet hopefuls Alberto Gonzales and Condoleeza Rice. Sen. Barbara Boxer, along with a few Congressional Democrats, challenged the Ohio election results earlier this month. And during Gonzales' hearings, Sen. Patrick Leahy described administration policies as "tantamount to torture." Later, Sen. John Kerry and Boxer both voted against Rice's confirmation, while Sen. Joe Biden gave her an impressive dressing down.
But these Democrats weren't making history. They were making footnotes to it.
And their paltry efforts might well have backfired: The New York Times bemoaned the "delicate rinse cycle" that Rice endured at her hearings. According to WashingtonPost.com, Gonzales received a similar love pat: "For all their talk of challenging Bush," Dan Balz wrote, "Senate Democrats are unlikely to mount serious opposition to...Gonzales, in spite of his role in shaping legal policies on torture and interrogation methods." As for the Jan. 6 certification debate -- which, upon completion, left the matter perfectly unaltered -- Salon.com called it a "meaningless protest," pointing to the dearth of significant Democratic opposition to the electoral tally, and the image of Vice President Dick Cheney and Sen. Rick Santorum "slumped in a couple of chairs on the edge of the Senate floor, talking and laughing" during the debate.
Deciphering the current Democratic posture -- if rolling over is a posture -- has become half a nation's pastime. One explanation suggests that the minority party leaders are clinging to some quaint sense of principle, one that precludes the taking off of gloves. Exhibit A: Biden promising Rice his support before criticizing her failures as national security advisor.
Another rationalization of the party's public weakness speculates that Congressional Democrats are keeping their powder dry for inevitable Supreme Court nominations…
Republicans, no doubt, stand ready with accusations of partisanship and obstructionism. But as a growing number of Democrats around the country have begun to observe, the accusations are likely to come no matter how hard Democrats choose to fight. And what's more, those accusations reveal a hint of weakness now and then. House Republican leader Tom DeLay, responding to Boxer's certification protest, called it a "failed strategy of spite, obstruction and conspiracy theorists" dominated by the "X- Files wing of the party." Perhaps distracted by his own scandal, DeLay forgot the main point of "The X-Files": The conspiracy theorists were almost always right.
True, there have been muffled objections -- to the certification of Bush's reelection, and to the impending confirmations of cabinet hopefuls Alberto Gonzales and Condoleeza Rice. Sen. Barbara Boxer, along with a few Congressional Democrats, challenged the Ohio election results earlier this month. And during Gonzales' hearings, Sen. Patrick Leahy described administration policies as "tantamount to torture." Later, Sen. John Kerry and Boxer both voted against Rice's confirmation, while Sen. Joe Biden gave her an impressive dressing down.
But these Democrats weren't making history. They were making footnotes to it.
And their paltry efforts might well have backfired: The New York Times bemoaned the "delicate rinse cycle" that Rice endured at her hearings. According to WashingtonPost.com, Gonzales received a similar love pat: "For all their talk of challenging Bush," Dan Balz wrote, "Senate Democrats are unlikely to mount serious opposition to...Gonzales, in spite of his role in shaping legal policies on torture and interrogation methods." As for the Jan. 6 certification debate -- which, upon completion, left the matter perfectly unaltered -- Salon.com called it a "meaningless protest," pointing to the dearth of significant Democratic opposition to the electoral tally, and the image of Vice President Dick Cheney and Sen. Rick Santorum "slumped in a couple of chairs on the edge of the Senate floor, talking and laughing" during the debate.
Deciphering the current Democratic posture -- if rolling over is a posture -- has become half a nation's pastime. One explanation suggests that the minority party leaders are clinging to some quaint sense of principle, one that precludes the taking off of gloves. Exhibit A: Biden promising Rice his support before criticizing her failures as national security advisor.
Another rationalization of the party's public weakness speculates that Congressional Democrats are keeping their powder dry for inevitable Supreme Court nominations…
Republicans, no doubt, stand ready with accusations of partisanship and obstructionism. But as a growing number of Democrats around the country have begun to observe, the accusations are likely to come no matter how hard Democrats choose to fight. And what's more, those accusations reveal a hint of weakness now and then. House Republican leader Tom DeLay, responding to Boxer's certification protest, called it a "failed strategy of spite, obstruction and conspiracy theorists" dominated by the "X- Files wing of the party." Perhaps distracted by his own scandal, DeLay forgot the main point of "The X-Files": The conspiracy theorists were almost always right.