Milquetoast and Jelly for Breakfast

Ah Democrats – my favorite subject. We have two choices – one a party of self-interested right wingers infested by maniacal Christian crusaders, the other a party willingly handcuffed and blindfolded. We have to choose between the two. And, Democrat supporters will remind us, we’re always just a little bit better off with the hamstrung party than with the crazed maniacs.

That’s it. Them’s our choices.

The only question that comes to mind is this: Are Democrats really that weak, or are they really not with us. I’ve long suspected the latter. We have a supposedly two-partied system, but both parties draw their support from essentially the same financiers. Wouldn’t it be smart to draw all the honest opposition into a fake party? Isn’t that what Democrats are, essentially? A bunch of fakes?

The latest indication of the leadership creds of Democrats comes from the FISA debate. A Senate Judiciary Committee bill was proposed that would not grant immunity to the telecoms, would hold them open for lawsuit, and expose their activities in cooperating with Bush as he wiretapped us throughout his years in office. The Senate voted to table the bill. That took sixty votes. Not fifty-nine, not sixty-one. To achieve the necessary sixty vote cloture vote, twelve Democrats (who could not be Hillary or Barack) had to defect. So, the following twelve Democrats ‘defected’:

Rockefeller, Pryor, Inouye, McCaskill, Landrieu, Salazar, Nelson (FL), Nelson (NE), Mikulski, Carper, Bayh, and Johnson.

Three are up for reelection, nine not. Only one of the three seats up for election is seriously threatened – Mary Landrieu of Louisiana. Now, answer this question: If they needed thirteen defectors, who among the thirty-six would it have been? Baucus? If they only needed eleven defectors, which one would one of them would have remained cloaked?

And how would Clinton and Obama have voted? We’ll never know, but I think we know.

Of the thirty-six Democrats who voted against tabling, how many are really with us? How many are cloaked? That’s the beauty of this party – beyond Bernie Sanders and Russ Feingold, we never know who to trust.

Here’s a funny: Diane Feinstein is promoting a “compromise” bill that would allow the immunity of the telecoms to be decided behind closed doors by the FISA judges. The predictable result would be immunity, but granted in secret. Why is it that the majority party is the one offering up compromises?

I was listening to radio the other day as a caller, a Democrat, spilled vile and angst over Ralph Nader’s run against Al Gore in 2000. Still angry, still convinced that a Gore presidency would have changed everything. The caller, like so many Democrats, probably wasn’t paying attention during the 1990’s as Bill Clinton and Al Gore governed like Republicans, or that Al Gore himself selected a conservative running mate and ran away from liberal causes.

Nader had a point. But we’re not allowed to make that point. We true liberals are to sit tight as we watch half-assed Republicans lead the Democrat party in complicity with Republican objectives. If we speak up, we are ostracized, demonized, flagellated, roiled and rejected. (How’s that for purple prose?)

I wish there were someone around in 2008 to make Nader’s point again. We don’t have a second party – we have maybe a few who act in genuine opposition to the Republicans, but far too many who merely carry the flag to keep it away from real liberals.

So now we fuss about who is going the be the Democrat nominee. I am eagerly waving my half-staffed flag, appropriate subdued, resigned to being shut out – not by Republicans – but by rightish Democrats and their milquetoasty supporters.

The lesser of evils. Our only choice. And they wonder why we voted for Nader.

We had no choice.

PS Add Ted Kennedy and Tom Harkin to the list of unabashed liberals. I’m sure there are others.