The Democrats are Punks Revisited
Charles Pierce’s post on The American Prospect and Greg Saunders blog “Don’t Vote Democrat” on Huffington Post are right on the money.
The Democratic Party allowed some so-called “maverick” Republicans to co-opt the torture issue, and we wind up with Bush getting exactly what he wants: the ability to torture and amnesty for his own human rights offenses.
As Pierce says:
… the Democratic Party was nowhere in this debate. It contributed nothing. On the question of whether or not the United States will reconfigure itself as a nation which tortures its purported enemies and then grants itself absolution through adjectives — “Aggressive interrogation techniques” — the Democratic Party had…no opinion. On the issue of allowing a demonstrably incompetent president as many of the de facto powers of a despot that you could wedge into a bill without having the Constitution spontaneously combust in the Archives, well, the Democratic Party was more pissed off at Hugo Chavez.
Saunders has the right idea about what our response should be:
Since the Democrats don’t seem to be interested in convincing the public to vote for them, then here’s a better idea : This November vote against every incumbent on the ballot. Whether they’re part of the Republican, Democrat, or Connecticut for Lieberman parties, throw out the whole damn lot of them. If the choice is between a party that openly supports the destruction of habeas corpus or a party that’s too timid to take a stand in favor of basic human decency, then I’d rather just roll the dice and try to start over with a clean slate. Continue reading