DUDE, WHERE'S MY CAUSE?:

Dazed and confused (Thomas Lifson, February 18th, 2005, American Thinker)

I find myself stunned by the magnitude of the quick victory President Bush has won on tort reform, with the new bill, now awaiting his signature federalizing most class action lawsuits. [...]

The end came quickly because the old means of obstructionism no longer work very well. Short of a Senate filibuster, the Democrats are unable to prevent legislation attacking obviously self-serving interest groups from passing both chambers of Congress. Who among them is going to stand-up for the right of law firms to earn millions or billions in cash, while sending discount coupons or checks for 33 cents (which need a 37 cent stamp to be applied-for) to the supposed “beneficiaries” of their legal action?

The meme of an obstructionist, special interest-protecting Democratic Party is fully established in the public mind. Democrats are on the defensive against it. The MSM’s ability to bottle-up coverage of embarrassing positions is shattered. Defending the outrageous can be no longer accomplished in private. The old order of battle, in which GOP forces could always be outflanked by a combination of stealth- and publicity-reliant forces of the left is gone, replaced by robust Congressional majorities and battalions of nimble fact-checking bloggers feeding information to the heavy artillery of Fox News Channel, talk radio hosts, and those members of the MSM unwilling to look foolish by studiously ignoring stories which are being talked about at the water coolers, diners, bars, and family get-togethers of America.

Not-so-slowly, but surely, Karl Rove's vision of a vanquished Democratic Party is being realized. The Democrats, meanwhile, do not seem to know what has hit them. Like stoners searching for their cars, they are dazed and confused by the realities of Twenty-First Century politics.

The stories today about Democratic reaction to President Bush saying we should look at lifting the cap on SS taxes are especially poignant--party leaders are afraid to say anything about the proposal because it "could be a trick."

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 18, 2005 4:20 PM