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Jewish World Review March 9, 2005 / 28 Adar I, 5765 Democrats fall on the ball By Tony Blankley
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Partisan politics in Washington this season are getting
interesting, as a few Democrats are cautiously beginning to challenge their
leadership's strategy of total opposition to major Bush initiatives. It is
dawning on some Democrats that their all-defense strategy may not pair up
well with President Bush's all offense strategy.
President Bush plays politics the way my friends and I used to
play pick-up football when I was a kid. In the huddle, the quarterback would
tell everyone else to go out long. On the snap the quarterback would dance
around in the backfield until one of us five or six receivers got open, at
which point he would complete the pass. With both sides going long all the
time, we often ended up with basketball scores.
The Democrats, on the other hand, when on offense, merely
receive the snap and fall on the ball. When on defense, they put all their
men on the line — trying for a quick sack of the quarterback. If the
quarterback is too agile for them, they are vulnerable to be scored upon —
given their lack of a pass defense.
When two such teams meet, the best score the all-defense
Democrats can hope for is a 0 to 0 tie. The best score the all-offense
Republicans can expect is at least a 56-0 win. So far since 2001, the score
is about 42-0, the president having completed passes on: tax cuts and the
economy, the Afghan War, the Iraq war, the Middle East democracy project,
prescription drugs and class action law suits — among the major items.
In the next couple of months and years the president is going to
throw long on Social Security, bankruptcy reform, Asbestos litigation
reform, judicial appointments, Medicaid reform, Medicare reform and tax
simplification. If he completes all those passes, the final score would be
91-0, and "Daily Show" star Jon Stewart's self-admitted worst fear will be
realized — his daughter will be going to George W. Bush High School in
downtown Manhattan.
Of course, the analogy to football isn't perfect. In politics,
some touchdowns are worth more points than others. If President Bush can
pass Social Security reform, that touchdown would be worth about 200 points
all by itself. And, unlike football, in politics, some wins later are
rescored as losses — such as the temporary win by slaveholders in the Dred
Scott decision. They won the Supreme Court decision in 1857, but lost the
war in 1865.
Currently the big fight is Social Security reform. The official
Congressional Democratic leadership position is that there is no problem
that a modest soak-the-rich tax increase couldn't fix. Well, as the current
unfunded liability of Social Security is $3.7 trillion, we know with
precision the minimum level of tax increase needed to fill that void — $3.7
trillion. That would be the largest tax increase since … well, since tax
increases were invented by the pharaohs at the dawn of civilization. And we
wouldn't even have a bunch of pointy buildings to show for it, because such
a tax increase would slam the breaks on a growing economy, including the
construction industry.
But because the Democratic leadership is intent on denying
President Bush a "victory" on Social Security, they are whipping their
members to not negotiate with the president or congressional Republicans.
Thus, a few weeks ago, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid announced that his
fellow Democratic senators were completely united in refusing to deal on the
issue.
Even when he said it, it wasn't true. Between a half dozen and a
dozen Democratic senators have been meeting and talking seriously about
Social Security legislation in three more or less separate, but related
conversations with Republican Senators Charles Grassley, Lindsey Graham and
Chuck Hagel for several weeks. Keep in mind, Republicans only have to pick
up five Democrats to pass Social Security over a filibuster effort in the
Senate.
Finally, last weekend, Sen. Lieberman, long-reputed to be one of
the Democratic participants in those discussions, put himself on the record
on CNN: "So, at some point we've got to stop criticizing each other and sit
at the table and work out this problem. Every year we wait to come up with
a solution to the Social Security problem [it] costs our children and
grandchildren and great grandchildren $600 billion more."
The next morning, the New York Times — which on Social Security
seems to be the house organ for Senator Harry Reid's maximum obstruction
operation — ran a long article about Joe Lieberman on the theme of "the
difficulty of trying to be a centrist in an increasingly polarized political
climate."
After using most of the article as a poster board for named and
unnamed left-wing cranks to say rude things about poor old Joe, the article
did admit in one sentence that: Polls show that more than two-thirds of
Connecticut Democrats approve of his performance, and so do more than
two-thirds of Connecticut Republicans." Apparently, it is not that difficult
to be a centrist Democrat.
I rather hope that not too many more Democratic senators come to
their senses and work for genuine reform. No point in re-electing more
Democrats than is necessary. So to the 36 obstructing Democrats: Keep it up,
and have a nice post-Senate life.
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