Posted on 02/03/2006 3:41:40 PM PST by Kaslin
It’s now official: The Democrats who infest our nation’s capitol are no longer a political party. As of Tuesday night, when California Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey snuck the insufferably vapid Cindy Sheehan into the House Chamber in order to cause a scene during the President’s State of the Union message, the Democrats at the national level must now officially be classified as nothing more than a protest group.
The fact is that today, the Democrats at the national level no longer meet even the minimal standards of behavior and organization that define what it means to be a political party.
Political parties stand for a defined set of ideas and policy goals. They have a legislative agenda, and they engage in positive efforts to enact it into law. A political party is organized around the goal of and an overarching strategy for enacting this agenda. A political party wins elections and governs.
Protest groups have no respect for this nation’s institutions and traditions, no concern for public decorum, hold no love for the democratic process that has made this nation great, or for the consequences that accrue from the results of elections. Their only goals are negative ones: to oppose, to tear down, to obstruct, to object, to cause disruption and chaos.
Ask yourself, which set of attributes best defines the current state of the Democrats in Washington?
The Democrats have not had anything resembling a defined legislative agenda at any point during this century. Their leaders, recognizing this deficiency as one of the reasons why they suffered another horrible showing at the polls in the 2004 elections, have promised to deliver such an agenda for more than a year now, a promise that remains empty and unfulfilled. New York Sen. Chuck Schumer promised again on Wednesday that he and his cohorts would unveil a detailed legislative agenda “soon”, but no one really believes they will actually do so. It has in fact been so long since the Democrats made any effort to enact legislation into law that one wonders if they even remember how.
Obviously, a group that has no legislative agenda, no defined set of ideas or policy goals, must be organized around some other focal point, and that is certainly true of the Democrats. Since 2001, that focal point has been the demonization of and fomenting hatred for the President of the United States of America.
The Democrats’ only agenda in congress for the last six years has been one of obstruction, delay, and opposition. There is no overarching strategy to speak of, only the deployment of tactics and stunts designed not to enact their own agenda, but to obstruct and delay the enactment of the GOP’s agenda. Things like the overuse and abuse of the Senate filibuster tactic, the demonization and defamation of the President’s judicial nominees, the deployment of procedural maneuvers designed to run out the clock on major pieces of legislation.
Sadly, like their fellow protest movements out on the Capitol Mall and on the streets of our major cities, the Democrats have chosen to extend their tactics to the undermining of the U.S. war effort in Iraq, even to the point of defaming the troops who are in harm’s way protecting our freedoms. From Dick Durbin’s shameful comparison of U.S. soldiers at Gitmo to the minions of Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot, to John “Cut and Run” Murtha’s repeated calls for retreat and surrender, to John Kerry’s equation of U.S. military personnel in Iraq to the terrorist scum they fight against every day, the rhetorical excess these protest leaders are willing to employ knows no bounds.
On Tuesday, the Democrat tactics degenerated into bringing their protest movement into the House chambers in the person of Cindy Sheehan. Ms. Sheehan, of course, was freshly home from her trip to Venezuela, where she exchanged lip locks with socialista dictator Hugo Chavez, and promised him she would do everything in her power to overthrow the duly elected government of the United States, nominally her home country.
Ms. Sheehan claimed she was just there to sit quietly and listen to the speech, hoping that her t-shirt proclaiming the number of U.S. fatalities in Iraq and asking “how many more must die?” would attract the attention of the television cameras there to cover the event. Anyone who is dumb enough to believe that this poor mindless tool of leftist protest groups was going to sit there quietly is truly beyond all help. Luckily, Ms. Sheehan was spotted by Capitol Hill Police and arrested before the President made his entrance into the chamber. Naturally, Ms. Sheehan plans to sue the police for what she claims was their “brutal” treatment of her, despite photographs clearly showing that she was treated quite delicately.
Being a mindless pea-brained leftist, Ms. Sheehan also claims her right to free speech was violated by her arrest. This is such a groundless claim that it hardly deserves comment. Ms. Sheehan and her leftist friends have every right to say anything they wish, wear any t-shirt they wish, and shout any stupid slogan they wish. But there is a time and place for everything, and the House Chamber during any president’s State of the Union address is not the place for such behavior. The State of the Union address is one of the institutions of this country, and while the opposition party has never been required to agree with what the presidents have had to say over the years, there is a tradition of appropriate behavior and decorum which surrounds the event.
Representative Woolsey and the Democrat congressional leadership no doubt understood that, but because the Democrats have now degenerated into nothing more than a protest group, they no longer have any respect for the institutions of this country, and see no reason to observe appropriate behavior and traditions that surround them. Thus it is that Ms. Sheehan, a mindless tool of the leftist protest movement, is the perfect embodiment of today’s Washington Democrats.
Shortly after he retired from the Senate, Former Democratic Senator Zell Miller wrote a book titled “A National Party No More”. In this book, Miller accurately chronicled the Democrat Party’s slide from a national majority political party into a regional party that only represents certain areas along the East and West coasts. Now would be a perfect time for Sen. Miller to write a sequel to his book, and title it “A Political Party No More”.
Problem is.... almost half the nation is democrat... and votes that way.
[Political parties stand for a defined set of ideas and policy goals. They have a legislative agenda, and they engage in positive efforts to enact it into law. A political party is organized around the goal of and an overarching strategy for enacting this agenda.]
But the Democrats DO have an agenda: Republicans are evil and must be stopped at all costs.
BRAVO!
I like it.
Someone mentioned here the other day that Cindy Sheehan is like the poor retarded kid everyone grew up with who would always do the silly things that other kids would put him up to just so the other kids would like him.
the Democrats at the national level must now officially be classified as nothing more than a protest groupWell said.
She sure seems that way
Oh, that's a perfect description. Just reading it gave me a pang of guilt for the foolish things we used to get our local retarded kid to do just so we could laugh and he could feel popular. That's Cindy Sheehan to a T.
That is because half the nation is stuck on stupid
The author escapes me, but the quote applies: "Every movement degerates to a business, and ends up as a racket."
The democrats have a 'better way' they just don't say anything about that better way. If they had a geniune plan, they atleast they could be called leaders.
BUT the solution to YOUR problem is that just over half the nation knows better and votes for the alternative to a demonRAT.
bttt
Item: Democrats - A Political Party No More
I forgot to copy the whole title.
Thanks in advance
Once their numbers in the House and Senate fall below 40%, it will be over, even with the RINOs.
More like half the voting population which is about 1/4 the nation.Even so, I can't believe there are that many stupid people out there.
Good stuff.. just gave up my year old tagline.
The only plan they have is their hate for this president and the administration. It will bring them even more down then they already are
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