Cowardice, or Business as Usual?

I don’t consider myself naïve, but I confess that I thought the Democrats would make a big difference in Washington after the November elections. Visions of bold Democrats wiping Congressional corridors with Republicans must now go the way of the Tooth Fairy. What we see instead is an exhibition of spineless cowardice.

But wait. . . “Cowardice” implies that because of fear one avoids something he knows he should do. Simply running out of a burning house isn’t cowardice because no duty is being neglected. What do you call a situation in which a political candidate insincerely promises to do certain brave things which he or she has no intention of doing? What of the Democratic candidates who knew throughout their campaign bravado that they were just mouthing words, with no intention of acting?

I say that “cowardice” is an appropriate word, but I think it should be classified as worse than simply running away at the last minute because one is scared. The Democrats’ cowardice is aggravated by untruthfulness, by fraudulent promises about things they had no intention of doing.

They were elected basically for one reason, and they know it: To get the United States out of Iraq. Yet ever since the election they have backed away from that duty.
Their behavior confirms what I have written here before: The federal government is first and foremost a giant, ongoing job fair, and each election is a job-grabbing greased pig chase. The only thing that matters to politicians is getting elected and staying elected. And their dementia worsens once they taste the glory of life in Washington.

Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) said last night on “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” that his fellow Democrats know they were elected to stop the war and yet are doing nothing because they are frightened of being accused of “not supporting the troops” and because they voted for the war in the first place. Ironically, the reason they voted for the war in the first place was fear of being called “wimps” and . . . guess what? . . . being accused later of “not supporting our troops”.

If Democrats automatically sink to the lowest level of brainless Joe Six Pack WWF Patriotism for fear of losing votes, that means that the U.S. is in effect being run by the lowest forms of intelligence in the land. (Hooray for democracy!) If Democrats are more concerned about losing their jobs because Grandma might falsely accuse them of not financing armor for her grandson than they are about ruining their country with a lunatic war, they are proving the truth of every criticism I’ve made.

A “New York Times” article of February 5 prompted me to write this post. Excerpts:

“But while Democratic critics may wish to challenge the administration’s blueprint, political and fiscal constraints will make it hard for them to assert their own priorities.
“In theory, the budget presents the Democrats their first real opportunity to rewrite the administration’s policies, especially on tax cuts, that they have been attacking for six years. But in practice, Democrats know that the only way they can find the revenue to restore the administration’s proposed spending cuts would be to cut back on military spending, delay their stated intentions to balance the budget or rescind the Bush tax cuts in future years. They are not especially eager to do any of these.
“’The long-term budget crisis appears so distant that it’s going to be very hard to get politicians excited about it this year,’ said Robert D. Reischauer, president of the Urban Institute. ‘No one wants to risk popular support by doing something courageous.’”