[squidly]

We are virtuous and pure, they are devious and corrupt. Seems like the writer could have just summed it up with that sentence and spared the reader the torture of reading all that.

[martin_fierro]

Oh, right. Dems are regular sweethearts.

[alwaysconservative]

And while George Bush may well be the most conservative president in American history, he is more popular than, say, his conciliatory father was for most of his presidency. Maybe voters like politicians who know what they stand for even if they don't agree with what they stand for. (Or maybe they just like George Bush.)

I love it when they scratch their heads and can't come up with the real reasons they are losing! What? They can't call us Nazis and have anybody believe them anymore? They can't stifle free speech and delude themselves that they stand for the will of the people? They can't lie and get away with it anymore because of the internet? Awwww, shucks anyway!

[hemogoblin]

Time for one of these, I think

[Cicero]

Only the New York Times could imagine that the party that supports abortion and sexual perversion as the two most important and nonnegotiable planks in its political agenda is as nice as motherhood and as sweet as apple pie.

"Hi, mom! I just voted for partial birth abortion!"

[tet68]

Why are the Democrats so much more willing than the Republicans to make political sacrifices in the name of procedural fairness or of good government?

Lala land, I read no further.

[sweetliberty]

Are these the faces of "nice" people?

.

[Tall_Texan]

They can't be any more delusional. Let's get a few things straight:

The reason Ted Kennedy is willing to stand with the president on things like the education bill and prescription drugs for medicare is because they are LIBERAL BIG GOVERNMENT bills.

If you were to compare Democrats *handing* a win like this to Bush, you'd have to compare it to Republicans *handing* Clinton a win on welfare reform, a bill that the left felt horribly about.

As for Democrats being nice guys and allowing the military vote to count in Florida in 2004, well, gee, I guess the military *ought* to have their votes count shouldn't they? After all, when Democrats bleat that convicts and illegals and nameless dimpled chads should have the right to vote, you'd think our men and women overseas could possibly be afforded the same right. And they think this should count in the Democrats' favor?

Then, as to obstructing judges, the difference here is that the Republican *have* a majority of the Senate with which to get these nominees passed. That's not the same thing as when Republicans were the majority party and blocked Clinton nominees. The Democrats are trying to exercise the rights of the majority, while not holding a majority. Therein lies the difference.

I truly wish the Republicans were as mean, nasty and devious as the moral midgets at the New York Times would have you believe. If they did, maybe we could have some conservative measures accomplished rather than liberal measures. It's beyond time they stood up and bared their teeth instead of being the Rodney King battered spouses they act like most of the time.

[ozzymandus]

New York Times magazine?? What's that? Wasn't there a newspaper with that name that went bust after repeatedly being caught lying?

[boris]

"Why are the Democrats so much more willing than the Republicans to make political sacrifices in the name of procedural fairness or of good government? Maybe Democrats are just nicer, but a more philosophical view is that liberals are committed to, are in fact bedeviled by, ideals about process that do not much preoccupy conservatives, at least contemporary ones. Liberals put their faith in such content-neutral principles as free speech, due process, participatory democracy. Is that too lofty? Then maybe we should say that today's liberals, unlike today's conservatives, don't believe in any particular set of ends ardently enough to blind themselves to the means they are using to achieve them."

In other words they are committed to the notion that the ends justify the means.

Also they are masters of incrementalism. They will take a 'baby step' offered up by feckless Republicans trying to win the approval of the press. This then becomes the status quo for the next outrage. In small steps our liberty is lost. Notice that Dem disasters are never reversed; only expanded/extended. A prime example is the Legal Services Corp., a pseudo-governmental organ which should have been defunded long ago. NEA. DOE (education). Etc.

--Boris

[sweetliberty]

"the Democrats have never sought to discredit Bush's presidency"

Say what??? Are these people living on the same planet? Don't they get the same news as we do? Don't they see the rhetoric constanly questioning Bush's legitimacy?? What unholy cretins these RATs are!

[alnick]

the Democrats have never sought to discredit Bush's presidency.

I'm absolutely speechless.

[sweetliberty]

"the bench is, of course, increasingly Republican and conservative."

When did this happen?

"Liberals put their faith in such content-neutral principles as free speech, due process, participatory democracy"

Liberals themselves are content neutral...all fluff, no substance.

"George Bush may well be the most conservative president in American history"

Open borders, CFR, the biggest and most substance free education bill to date, and now Hillary Care lite. Now I can't help but wonder on just what they're basing this outrageously absurd supposition.

"There are Democrats who would like the party to get down off its moral pedestal and start fighting dirty"

If they get down any lower they will come out in China.

"Democrats are the ones you want to bring home to mother"

If I brought home a democrat my daddy would disown me.

Mr. Traub needs a serious adjustment in his his meds. He has had a complete break with reality.

[ladyinred]

Sometimes I find myself expecting Rod Serling to step out of his grave and just start saying, "Next stop, the Twilight Zone."

[WOSG]

Boy what a biased article!

"The Democrats have, in effect, agreed to hand to Bush precisely the kind of politically precious legislative victory on health care that the Republicans went to any lengths to deny to Clinton back in 1994."

More like ... The President has decided to pass a Liberal Government-expanding program that the Republicans in Congress in the mid-1990s resisted. Bush is delivering piece-meal health-care coverage expansion, a Democratic party plank, in bits and pieces.

For Bush and Republicans, this is less a victory than a co-option. On the other side, Democrats are acting very hypocritically by refusing to compromise on issues they would be willing to compromise with a President Clinton, but are not hypocritical enough to vote for programs they have promoted for years.

So we have the spectacle of a Goverment-expansion being voted favorably by Republicans and *opposed* by House Democrats on a near party-line vote.

In fact, it was only because Clinton wanted health-care as an 'issue' that he didnt push more earlier. That, and the ineffectual way Clinton managed some legislative proposals, even popular items managed to get lost in the shuffle.

It may be that Bush is just a little bit too good, for the good of Conservative Republicans. He gets things done, and is ending gridlock on issues that have been gridlocked for years.

[WOSG]

Ruthlessness is just not in the party's DNA.

Proof positive this man is lying.

[harpu]

"Could it be that the Democrats are constitutionally incapable of acting as single-mindedly" NO...however, it could be that the democrats are just plain "eat up with the dumbass!"

[Morgan's Raider]

You fergot the "Bullshit Alert".

[ladyinred]

(Why are the Democrats so much more willing than the Republicans to make political sacrifices in the name of procedural fairness or of good government?)

WHAT the ----? Is this for real?

[Fawnn]

This piece is another example of the liberal agenda of repeating a lie enough times so it begins to sound like and become accepted as the truth. ("It's all about sex." "We want every vote to count." Etc.) Thank goodness -- and all that is nice about Republicans, most people are wising up and not swallowing this BS anymore!