TASTES GREAT/LESS FILLING:

GOP: Covering the Spread: Republicans should be losing big. Here's why they aren't. (THOMAS J. BRAY, October 15, 2002, Wall Street Journal)

The reason voters appear reluctant to punish the GOP, one suspects, is not just a rally-round-the-president effect. The first Iraq war didn't help the first President Bush, who also had weather a severe economic malaise.

More likely, what has stuck in voters' minds is the way the Democrats conducted the Iraq debate. They came away seeming hollow; the debate underlining their cynicism and mean-spiritedness. Democrats, in other words, are in danger of becoming what they accuse their opponents of. Because the media suffer from almost total myopia on this point--preferring always and everywhere to attach the words cynical and mean-spirited only to the "right wing"--they may be missing an important political phenomenon.

It's not just a matter of the Democrats having been on the wrong side. I persist in believing that there are some good arguments against going abroad in search of monsters to slay. But the Democrats utterly failed to confront these issues honestly. Instead, they caviled, whined, played for time and tried to arrange things so that they can start yelling "I told you so" as soon as something goes wrong--even while trying to insulate themselves from having their fingerprints on the decision for war or peace. [...]

You might love what Mr. Bush and the Republicans are doing. You might even suspect that politics are involved in some of the timing. You might reserve the right to exercise a massive backlash if things don't work out as planned. But at least Mr. Bush and the Republicans appear to be serious folks conducting a serious strategy in defense of serious American interests. In calling the bluff of both the United Nations and Congress, Mr. Bush once again reminded the country that he is not just an accidental president, and that Republicans are capable of acting like adults--something one can't say with certainty about the other party.

Though we're less sanguine than Mr. Bray about Republican prospects in November, the fundamental point here seems both true and bad for democracy. Bill Clinton's New Democrat Party is doing the nation and especially its own supporters a real disservice by always trying to portray itself as GOP Lite.
Posted by Orrin Judd at October 15, 2002 10:46 AM