Calling All Wingnuts

Digby has a great piece up about conventional wisdom and gutless democrats and journalists inside the beltway.

The conventional wisdom in DC has now ossified into a reflexive notion that Democrats must do nothing. Ever. They must hold back and say nothing when the Republicans are on top and they must hold back and say nothing when they are on the ropes.

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Clinton had an approval rating in the 50’s. The country was in the midst of the greatest expansion in history. The entire world looked to us to lead them through the post cold war world. Yet Republicans insisted on impeaching him for lying about a sexual indiscretion That’s a personal vendetta.

This president is in the low 30’s. Most Americans hardly feel the good news in the economy because the benefits have been rigged to go to those who make more than $250,0000 a year. He’s made a fetish out of abusing his power with a non-stop assault on the contitution, international law and civilized norms. He has asserted a principle of executive authority that says he does not have to abide by the law. And it’s extreme to think this deserves a mild rebuke from the body that writes those laws in the first place?

And I shouldn’t have to point out that since the Republicans impeached president Clinton, among other things, they have increased their majority in the congress, won two presidential elections, enacted every wet dream tax cut they ever had, rolled back every regulation they ever hated and installed two right wing ideologues on the court. And that doesn’t even begin to cover it.

Yes, the Republicans have certainly paid a steep price for impeachment, haven’t they?

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If the Democrats lose in November, I’m sure she’ll find plenty of reasons to blame Democrats, but it won’t occur to her that the reason people didn’t vote for the D’s was because the party listened to people like her and campaigned like a herd of neutered animals instead of listening to their hearts, their minds, their constituents and their leaders who were prepared to take a stand for what we believe in. No, they’ll blame the “extremists” who want a safety net and a sane terrorism policy — and leaders who defend the constitution. It couldn’t possibly be that their tired, stale reflexive passivity is to blame when half the base fails to turn out because they just. have. no. hope.

Jane picks up the baton and adds some interesting context:

Can someone explain to me how forcing the Republicans torallyy around an unpopular President just as they’re trying to distance themselves from him is going to hurt the Democrats?

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Not only is Russ Feingold rallying a disspirited base frustrated with lack of leadership on the part of big Senate Democrats, this is a full-on disaster for the GOP in November.

So let me add my fears.

What happens if, by some fortuitous confluence of events, the spineless democratic party does manage to retake, oh, let’s say for argument’s sake, both the House and the Senate…  despite cowering before Republicans all election season?

Let’s assume that the corruption, incompetence and deriliction of duty that so characterizes today’s Republican party finally hits home in the living rooms across the country.  Fed up, the few that do turn out to vote are so swept up with anti republican, anti-incumbent fervor that every close race breaks to the Democrats…

Do you see where I’m going?

All of a sudden, there will be a legitimization of the DC consultant/pundit class…  all of these dunderheads that encouraged Democrats to hunker down in their foxholes while the enemy was out of ammo, out of leadership and out of room to manuever…  the same idiot-class of DC lemmings will surely stake a claim to wisdom and sagery…. 

that, my friends, will absolutely kill me… 

Please God, show me the way!  I don’t want to see Bob Shrum, Susan Estrich and Evan Beyh spouting forth with their condascending tut-tutting for the next two years… 

I don’t want to live under a republican Congress for the next two years.

The latter would be worse than the former, but if we turn the ‘08 presidential campaign over to the usual suspects…  which would naturally follow if we win in ’06… well…  I fear it’ll be McCain/Guliani in a landslide…