Two Severe Dumps on the Dems – The Democratic Party has just been subjected to severe criticism from two important sources that, in one case, nearly always supports it and, in the other, is known for his usually serene, non-judgmental manner.
David Broder, perhaps the dean of political columnists, accuses the Dems of putting “Politics Over Principle,” the title of his column in Sunday’s Washington Post:
The Democratic leaders in Congress, in both the House and Senate, largely have abandoned principle and long-term strategy for the short-term tactics they think will help them in this November’s election.
Tom Daschle’s desire to hold the one-vote margin in the Senate and Dick Gephardt’s hope to pick up the six additional seats that would switch control of the House are driving decisions — even on large and consequential matters.
Similarly, in a long editorial entitled “Bystanders,” the editors of The New Republic — which endorsed Gore and which virtually always supports Democrats — wrote that
[i]t has been a long time since this journal felt so despondent about the Democratic Party. The United States is today engaged in perhaps the most important foreign policy debate in a generation…. And yet with the possible exception of Joe Lieberman, the leaders of the Democratic Party have nothing serious to say.
…. No one today can honestly say he or she is a Democrat because of what the party believes about the greatest threat facing the United States. The Democrats are a party of bystanders, a party without a position on the issue that matters most.
With friends like these….
