Posted on 04/02/2002 1:06:14 PM PST by cd jones
Deb Weiss: A Dying Breed
Published: 11/16/00 Author: Deb Weiss
As the Gore junta tidies up loose ends down in the Sunshine State, an old question -- at least eight years old -- haunts me anew: where are the honest Democrats?
The Lord, we are told, asked for ten just men.
I'd be willing to settle for one. Just one honest Democrat who'll step forward and say, This is not how American presidencies are won.
Are there even any candidates for the honor?
I'm not talking about ordinary people, of course. Although it's true that a fish rots from the head down, I'm sure there are still some decent souls clustered near the tail-fins.
And there are admirable renegades like Pat Caddell, whose cranky virtues trump their partisan instincts.
As for the Party leaders, though -- well, that's another tale.
Consider New York Senator almost-emeritus Pat Moynihan. This thoughtful and accomplished man was long regarded as the Best Man On Capitol Hill.
He used to be quite a critic of Clintonism, did Senator Moynihan. For every Republican he irritated with his woolgathering, there were a dozen Democrats he outraged with his honesty.
Then -- did he get a call from Sidney Blumenthal? -- he fell abruptly, strangely silent.
Nowadays, he appears side by side with his successor, the First Lady, the junior Senator from New York. A weary introspection has replaced his clean, acerbic anger. He has the soft, sorrowful look of a man who was once quite certain of what it was he believed in, but who now wants only to persuade himself that he has done nothing so very wrong.
Or consider Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey, the war hero, the patriot. In 1996, he observed, famously, that President Clinton was "an unusually good liar."
That took guts. Many fine and decent people -- journalists, critics, politicians, citizens -- had been drawn and quartered by the Clinton smear machine for considerably less.
But in this deranged election, we met a different Senator Kerrey. Decked out in his late-model sneer and his hip-hop baseball cap, he recklessly attacked old friends and dishonored old opponents. Virtually overnight, he discarded a lifetime of edgy principle for the sake of -- what?
What on God's good earth could make a man do that?
Then there's Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone (forgive me for scraping bottom so quickly, but the barrel was nearly empty to begin with), who has spent his years in Washington posturing as a man of honor.
Like all the left, he believes ferociously in his own transcendent virtue: and like all the left, he spouts withered socialist litanies with a coy sense of daring, as if he's just occupied the Dean's office to protest the Establishment, as if cops with truncheons are waiting just beyond the door.
What he doesn't comprehend is that he IS the Establishment -- that every 'progressive' piety dripping from his lips has long since become the establishment line, echoed endlessly by every hack journalist and and 'net billionaire and third-rate professor in the land. (Nowadays, the radical and dangerous act is to disagree with people like the Senator.)
So, where is the revolutionary Mr. Wellstone in all this madness?
Ah yes -- cheerleading the putsch. He's the little one up there in front, next to the conga line from The Nation magazine.
The Democrats have almost certainly already stolen this election.
However, they're not doing nearly as well as they'd planned in the war for the hearts and minds of the American people.
A new poll from Florida reveals growing outrage in that beleaguered state, much of it (despite the best efforts of the Democrats and their media spinmeisters) directed Goreward. National polls show similar, if less passionate, results.
Which is why the backroom strategists -- the Lehanes, the Begalas, the Shrums, the Clintons -- have redoubled their public relations offensive.
On Wednesday evening, just in time to preempt the national newscasts, Presidential Al popped out of this crazy political cake to do a sort of Bizarro LBJ impersonation -- the Y2K version of "Come, let us reason together."
"I propose," he enunciated (very, very slowly, periodically emitting his eerie electronic laugh) "that Governor Bush and I meet personally, one on one, as soon as possible, before the vote count is finished, not to negotiate but to improve the tone of our dialogue in America."
He went on to say that if the Bush team promises to stop interfering with Democratic vote fraud in Florida, he promises not to contest the results.
It was transparently insincere. Even Goreite reporters like MSNBC's Chip Reid were soon dimpling and twinkling at the cleverness of Mr. Gore's Orwellian jape.
Still, the Veep had the slippery confidence of a man who knew that Katie and Dan and Peter and Tom would lavish his gambit with praise ("statesmanlike!"), urging the American people to swallow it whole.
Indeed, by the time "Nightline" bobbed up out of the murk a few hours later, Ted Koppel was already pontificating about how the vice-president's 'proposal' might help "restore civility to Washington."
Unfortunately, that notion carries about as much weight as another Koppel favorite, "restoring democracy to Haiti."
You cannot restore what wasn't there to begin with.
Which is why, perhaps, it's so damned hard to find an honest Democrat.
Moynihan had that soft, sorrowful look of a man who was once quite certain of what it was he believed in, but always allowed his principles to be subservient to his political ambitions. Or to a stiff drink or two.
Virgil Goode (VA)....oops, now an Indy
Old Texas dem rep who voted for impeachment, what's his name?
PA dem, ex-marine, who voted for impeachment - now retired - an Irish Name.
The other two dem Congressman who voted for impeachment.
That's it. Six is all I can count.
I think Gene Taylor voted for impeachment too.
As long as they're a part of the democrap party, they're smeared with the same manure as all the other democraps.
Sadly, sadly true...
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