...Same As The Old Douche Bags.


Oh, Joy! Oh, Bliss! The Democrats have taken control of both the House and the Senate! The Liberal revolution is upon us and America will be transformed. In the first months of 2007 we will see the sowing of political seeds which will blossom with the flowers of legalized gay marriage, the abolition of the death penalty, solid confirmation that it's a woman's right to choose, and free and open spliff smoking. What a glorious day!

Of course that's a load of shit. In fact the Democrats were elected to both arms of Congress not as a result of the American people moving to the Left but rather the Left moving over to the American people as well as the horrible state of affairs in Iraq and the discovery of rampant Republican corruption. These three factors have virtually nothing to do with positions held by the Liberal base of the Democratic party on social issues. Despite the new faces that will appear on The Hill in January America remains a socially conservative, Christian influenced country. Little has changed.

The Democrats learned a lot from 2004. John Kerry is very smart but he's not politicaly savy and he comes off as being boring as shit. He's the guy you want to avoid at a party lest you get stuck in a conversation about senate reform that's going to make you want to kill yourself. But beyond that, he's a flaming liberal. Or at least he was painted that way by Karl Rove's hit squad. He wasn't firm on issues. He made one choice and then upon further reflection changed his mind and made another. Whereas George W said he was invading Iraq and he stuck to it no matter what happened. Americans dug that back in 2004. That firm resolve made them feel safe. On top of all this, the rest of the high profile Democrats like Howard Dean were spewing East Coast, Liberal acid all over TV talk shows which alienated Mid-Western and Southern Americans. By election day the Evangelical Christians felt that the Democrats were not only ungodly but thought they were smarter than everyone else.

Rahm Emmanuel and Chuck Shumer, the fellas in charge getting back the House and Senate for the Democrats, made sure that nothing of the sort happened in 2006. They made a point of recruiting candidates that were socially conservative but against the administrations handling of the war in Iraq. In fact they tried like hell to get as many war veterans as possible. The truth of the matter is that the win in November was due to folks like Senators-elect Webb, Tester, and Casey, and the hawk-cum-dove Jack Murtha, all of whom oppose Gay Marriage and are anti-abortion. We really didn't see much of San Francisco Liberal Nanci Pelosi or Howard Dean. They limited John Kerry's face time with the public but he still managed to find a way to fuck it up, botching a joke that made it seem like he thought the troops in Iraq were stupid. So is this a Liberal revolution? No. This is the Democratic party widening it's tent poles to include moderates and conservatives. Are these newly elected Democrats going to alter political life in this country dramatically? No.

The apparent corruption by certain Republicans was another factor in getting the Democrats elected. There was a sense that they lost the trust of the American people. That while they came to Washington to clean things up and bring morality back to politics after Clinton left his DNA all over the Oval Office, the perception was that they proved to be no better. Kick backs and financial schemes as orchestrated by Jack Abrahmoff revealed a network of corruption. Were the tax payers paying for a senator's vacation trips? How did a representative afford three houses and a Rolls Royce? That's to say nothing of the sexual scandals that came to light. Rep. Mark Foley of Florida was hitting on young page boys. How could the party of family values house a gay man? Who else was gay in the party? It was enough to keep the socially conservative Republican base at home on election day.

So now we have a new group of folks. Are they any different. I maintain that they are not. Jack Abrahmoff's influence is vast. Already Nevada's Democratic Sen. Harry Reid has been implicated in Abrahmoff's corruption scandal. Does it go farther? I bet it does. The truth is that by virtue of being in the power position all these years the Republicans were the ones who attracted the horrible combination of both the shady, lobbyist go-betweens and the spotlight. The corruption follows the power. It's not interested in a weak Democratic Representative. Allow me to play Nostradamus and declare with certainty that the Democrats will show similar signs of political corruption in the coming years.

But without question the main issue in the election was the war in Iraq. There's no question that folks were ready for a change. The arrogance of the Bush administration had taken it's toll. An absolutely criminal failure to listen to anyone save those who would bolster their preconcieved notions caught up with them. But their Iraq policy embodied this dysfunction more than anything else. And so, the electorate sent a message to the administration. The policy isn't working. It needs to change. Problem is, the Democrats as a party have no viable alternative. They can't officially declare (as Jack Murtha did) that they want to cut and run because that would make them "weak on terror." So the moderates in the party (or those like Hillary who need to move to the center to protect a presidential bid) call for "redeployment" or "a new strategy" without getting into specifics. At the same time, the Left-leaners of the party like Russ Feingold who advocate complete withdrawal asap are silenced because the party's new, moderate face lift doesn't allow for "weakness". Just like George W., the Democrats have no idea what to do about Iraq. Again, the faces will change but little else will change as a result of the Democrats taking control of Congress.

Perhaps the greatest thing about the results of November 2006 was that it made George W Bush eat shit. He got owned for a change. He and his insulated cabal were forced to admit that they fucked up. Rumsfeld had to eat it, too. And that feels good, no question. But it doesn't mean that the alternative is going to do any better. Might they listen a little more clearly to opposing views? Probably. Will they increase the minimum wage? Probably. But in order to achieve this victory and in order to avoid alienating the voters in the lead up to the 2008 Presidential campaigns, the Democrats will alter very little. They will run and hide from burning social issues that divide the country. A Liberal revolution it is not.

s.