To describe the current incarnation of the Democratic Party as little more than an incoherent rabble is to state the obvious. They are profoundly unserious and somehow manage to make Republicans look good by default.
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For evidence one needs to only look at last week's House vote on the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Rep. John Murtha, long a deep skeptic of the Iraq War, said it was time for the U.S. to withdraw its forces -- a call that was widely applauded on the left. When the matter was put to an actual vote, however, all save for 3 Congressmen demurred. Apparently they aren't big fans of their own ideas. Given their lack of success at the ballot box who can blame them?
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The funny thing is, calling for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq is one of the few ideas they have offered up in recent times. The cupboard is bare when it comes to policy. But don't take my word for it, listen to Howard Dean:
Russert: But there's no Democratic plan on Social Security. There's no Democratic plan on the deficit problem. There's no specifics. They say, "Well, we want a strong Social Security. We want to reduce the deficit. We want health care for everyone," but there's no plan how to pay for it.
Dean: Right now it's not our job to give out specifics.
Instead, Democrats have defined themselves through their reflexive opposition to the Bush Administration. Whatever Bush and the GOP are for, they are against. Now, on one level this is perfectly acceptable. As an opposition party with a differing ideology there would seem to be little reason for them to support anything being pushed by their opponents.
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Well, that would make sense if Bush was a traditional Republican, pushing for smaller government and a limited foreign policy agenda. But, as has already been widely noted, Bush is no such right-winger. Indeed, the man has gone to pains to separate himself from the traditional mold by marketing himself as "compassionate conservative." Given that Bush has embraced many traditional Democratic causes such as expansion of the federal role in education and a new medicare entitlement, opposing such moves by the left means eschewing some of their long-held beliefs.
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Where this is most glaring, however, is foreign policy. For decades Democrats such as Jimmy Carter have spoken of the need for a human-rights driven foreign policy while many on the right took the position that we should mind our own business on such matters. But now that Bush has placed the GOP on a firm course towards the promotion of freedom, democracy and human rights, Democrats have elected for an opposite tact. Indeed, as Lawrence F. Kaplan notes, in their fervor to oppose Bush they have even embraced realist guru Brent Scowcroft, proponent of a foreign policy school they once so firmly criticized.
The war in Iraq has generated, among other things, a new tradition in the media. Every time former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft criticizes the war--and he has done so on nearly a dozen occasions--the press advertises his latest gripe as evidence of a split in conservative ranks. Not surprisingly, then, his latest fusillade, delivered a few weeks ago in a New Yorker article by Jeffrey Goldberg, was once more touted as breaking news. It wasn't. Far more telling was the chorus of leading Democrats, liberal columnists, and left-leaning bloggers--that is, voices that once could be counted on to condemn Scowcroft as the second-rate Kissinger he is--who emerged to applaud the octogenarian devotee of realpolitik for his candor. Which brings us to a second tradition produced by the war: liberals against liberalism.
Lest there be any confusion about the inclinations of the former general with whom so many "progressive" voices have found common cause, his approach to foreign policy resembles that of a man who, on seeing an elderly woman being bludgeoned on the sidewalk, crosses to the other side of the street. This is the man, after all, who toasted the architects of the Tiananmen Square massacre not six months after they perpetrated it. Who found it "painful to watch Yeltsin rip the Soviet Union brick by brick away from Gorbachev." Who counseled sitting on the sidelines as Saddam Hussein massacred the very Shia his administration had encouraged to rise up. Who says that "some people really don't want to be free." And who rightly calls himself "a cynic about human nature."
(To get more of a feel for Scowcroft, also read this)
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So I'm left with two possible conclusions. One is that the the left has been driven so completely insane by Bush Derangement Syndrome that they are willing to toss any principles out the window in the larger effort to advance the cause of Bush-hating. Another possibility is that they just aren't serious about what they profess to believe in. Take Iraq for instance. There was a time and place when Democrats actually used to complain about the U.S. not being tough enough on Iraq (do a google search for "Saddam Hussein Reagan"). They noted his acquisition of chemical weapons. They noted the massive human rights violations in the country. And then when it came time to doing something about it they screamed like hell.
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I think the answer is both, they are neither principled nor serious.
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