Democrats are too nice

The Washington Post had a bizarre story over the weekend. Apparently Democrats believe that they aren't mean enough and don't know how to play political hardball -- unlike Republicans:

The decision by the abortion rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America to pull an incendiary ad attacking President Bush's nominee to the Supreme Court has produced a fresh round of recriminations within the Democratic Party and a return to a nagging question: Has the opposition lost its nerve?

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..."Republicans don't mind running an ad that's entirely false, but Democrats have never learned, and I'm not sure many of them want to learn, how to play that kind of politics," said Robert Shrum, an adviser to several Democratic presidential campaigns. NARAL had to pull the ad, he said, because "they weren't getting support from any substantial quarter."

Democratic strategist Chris Lehane, who like Shrum favors hardball politics, protested that "we Democrats bring a well-thumbed copy of Marquess of Queensberry Rules while the other side unsheaths their bloody knives, with a predictable outcome." Lehane said the NARAL ad "was great, and exactly the type of offensive that breaks through in the modern age."

Render unto me a freakin' break. Am I the only one who remembers this ad aired during the 2000 election campaign?

"So when Governor George W. Bush refused to support hate-crime legislation, it was like my father was killed all over again."

Or this remark by candidate Al Gore at a black church in Pittsburgh?

"When my opponent, Governor Bush, says he’ll appoint strict constructionists to the Supreme Court, I often think of the strictly constructed meaning that was applied when the Constitution was written -- how some people were considered three-fifths of a human being."

And these are things that were said about Bush before he even took office -- I don't think I need to get into the things that have been said since.

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Democrats certainly have a lot of problems, but being too nice isn't one of them.