Democrats in Congress Feeling the Heat

RealClearPolitics.com ^ | November 13, 2007 | E. J. Dionne

[gpapa]

WASHINGTON -- Democrats in Congress are discovering what it's like to live in the worst of all possible worlds. They are condemned for selling out to President Bush, and for failing to make compromises aimed at getting things done.

Democrats complain that this is unfair and, in some sense, it is. But who said that politics was fair?

Over the short run, Democratic congressional leaders can count on little support from their party's presidential candidates, particularly Barack Obama and John Edwards. Both have decided their best way of going after front-runner Hillary Clinton -- who has been in Washington since her husband's election as president in 1992 -- is to criticize politics-as-usual.

[WashingtonSource]

Schadenfreude.

[padre35]

And this is with a media that is sympatico with the Dhimmis, when was the last time we had weeks on end of “Pain at the pump” OSM stories? In 2006 they were a weekly event.

The proposal to raise gas taxes also didn’t get much press either.

[Just mythoughts]

This election cycle is just plain depressing and most days hard to distinguish left from right. Nancy Reagan making out with Bloomberg... strange bedfellows with little distinction.

[rhombus]

Pelosi and Reid have a point, and they want Bush to get the blame for a budget impasse. But Bush seems to have decided that if he can't raise his own dismal approval ratings, he will drag the Democrats down with him. So far, that is what's happening.

Oh Boo Hoo, cry me a river E. J. Donne.

[Viking2002]

I see ol' Mushmouth is poking his snout out of the mud again.......

[YellowRoseofTx]

The Dims are constantly touting "compromise" is the only way to get things done, but are the most UNcompromising group around. Their idea of compromise is for everyone else to give in to them.

I hear lib callers to talk radio shows every day complaining that we conservatives are divisive without ever considering that they are as much to blame for being divisive as anyone.

[jmaroneps37]

I think the ratmedia should tell the ratHouse an 11% approval rating means they will PICK up seats next year. It will make them feel better and make it easier to kowtow to their anti American base.

[ripley]

“democrats complain that this is unfair...”

their obnoxious heinouses are getting a taste of their own medicine. (only this criticism is justified, not just socialist/leftist pablum designed to obfuscate, degenerate and destroy, not to mentions subvert as is their usual tactic.)

[NeoCaveman]

makes sense for Democratic presidential candidates to distance themselves from the party's Washington wing. A poll released last week by the Pew Research Center found that 54 percent of Americans disapprove of the performance of Democratic congressional leaders, an increase in dissatisfaction of 18 points since February.

Dingy shouldn't have written that (smear) letter.

[finnigan2]

“I hear lib callers to talk radio shows every day complaining that we conservatives are divisive...”

- When conservatives are condemned by liberals as being, “divisive”, it’s code speak for; they won’t agree with us and do what we tell them.

[popdonnelly]

Dionne neglects to mention that the Democrats are in the worst of worlds because they run on lies.

[George W. Bush]

Democrats complain that this is unfair and, in some sense, it is. But who said that politics was fair?

It's not unfair. They campaigned on getting out of Iraq. Since then, they've expanded with the surge and the same kind of funding the GOP Congress had.

Now they whine because the antiwar Left is holding them to account because they clearly have the power of the purse in the House but refuse to use it. Pelosi now pretends that the only way to end the war is to have a 2/3 majority in both houses. That's a lie. Only the House can propose spending. They can, for instance, choose to defund the war in Iraq, providing funds for the withdrawal on a schedule. Then Bush could veto it resulting in him defunding the troops, or he could sign it and abet them in defunding the troops.

If the GOP wants to win in '08, they need to hammer the Dims on this repeatedly to make it clear that the '06 election of Dims was a cynical fraud on their followers.

This is a key issue for '08. And the GOP needs to understand it and use it. The Dims are holding a double-edged sword here and we can use it so that both edges of the sword cut them deep.

[LibLieSlayer]

UNFAIR???? A bunch of lying, anti-GOD, left-wing, moonbat surrender monkeys lie and block progress at every turn for seven years and they are being treated unfairly??? DAMN LIES ALL!

LLS

[babylucas]

Congress’ approval rating is lower than Bush’s. How is it possible for him to drag them down? E.J. is not very smart.

[JSDude1]

It’s just natural law; Democrats can’t escape from reality no matter how much they pretend!..

[LibLieSlayer]

True enough.

LLS

[goldstategop]

The Democrats are being waterboarded simultaneously by Bush and the public. They can't seem to figure a way out of the torture.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[kabar]

E. J. Dionne is an idiot and a Dem operative.

[MNJohnnie]

That what happens when you lie yourself into power like the Democrats did in 2006. You end up pissing off the people you lied to.