They’ll stand tall on small stuff like judicial nominees or a UN ambassador appointment, but when it’s an issue of substance—funding for the war, a pro-lender bankruptcy bill, or the PATRIOT Act, the Democrats are all compromise or cave-in. Where’s the opposition? ----------------
This focus by Democrats in Congress on judicial appointments and on the appointment of John Bolton as U.N. ambassador is just a pathetic sideshow. In the end all that sound and fury signifies nothing.
The Democratic leadership struts around boasting that it "saved" the filibuster and the right to challenge a likely reactionary appointment to the Supreme Court. That same leadership works mightily to delay the almost certain appointment of Bolton to the UN post. But where were these noble guardians of Democratic values when the White House and its Republican backers in Congress pushed the new bankruptcy bill, which makes it harder for people overcome by debt after losing a job or being hit by a family medical disaster to start over?
Where were they when the oil lobbyists and their White House cronies came in with a plan to open up the ANWR area on the North Slop of Alaska to oil exploration?
Where were they when the latest billion Iraq occupation supplemental funding bill came up for a vote, and with the long-dreaded national “Real ID” bill attached?
All these reactionary measures passed with wide margins, meaning they received broad Democratic support in both houses of Congress.
Increasingly, what we have in Congress is a vestigial opposition party. It’s sort of like the appendix attached to our intestines: most of the time, we don’t even know it’s there--just when it gets inflamed--and in fact, we're better off without it.
Original: Whigged Out: The Democrats Have Become a Vestigial Opposition