FEEBLE IS AS FEEBLE DOESN'T:

New Majority’s Choice: Should G.O.P. Policies Be Reversed? (CARL HULSE, 1/05/07, NY Times)

[M]any Democrats contend that President Bush and the Republican-led Congress that was his partner moved the dial too far to the right in many cases. And they believe it will be the work of Democrats to make a significant course correction.

“I think there are a lot of things the people of America want changed,” said Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, the new chairman of the Judiciary Committee and a tough critic of some Bush policies.

Mr. Leahy and others made clear that the new direction had to begin with American policy in Iraq.

But their domestic legislative agenda suggests that they are picking selected fights rather than going for wholesale change. On the economy, they will move swiftly to increase the minimum wage. On social policy, they will challenge Mr. Bush by calling for expanded stem cell research. They will try to pass legislation increasing college aid for the middle class. All of those issues have the twin advantages of broad popular appeal tied to measurable economic impact on individuals.

But Democrats are in no rush to engage in a fight with Mr. Bush over the ideological centerpiece of his domestic policy, his tax cuts. And they have showed no inclination to wade back into the abortion issue, despite its potency among many of their supporters.

“We have to keep our eye on the average American family and sort of push aside the interest groups left, right and center,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York. “The world has changed, and it demands new solutions, not the old Democrat and Republican nostrums.”

But there is no dispute that Mr. Bush’s legislative and executive record will get a microscopic examination via a renewed emphasis on oversight, a Congressional function Democrats say was all but abandoned in recent years. And the results of those inquiries could determine what policies Democrats try to unravel if they uncover a strong case against them.

“The Bush administration has passed an entire architecture of laws that are going to be reviewed,” said Representative Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio, one of the most liberal members of the House.

Republicans are waiting to see what develops, uncertain if Democrats sincerely want to join hands and produce some consensus on public policy. Or, as one senior Republican asked, will Democrats hostile to the Bush administration be more like the scorpion in the fable with the frog, unable to resist the urge to sting even if they hurt themselves?

Democrats acknowledge that with their minuscule majority in the Senate and one in the House that is not much larger, they lack the political muscle to go too far in reversing Bush policy even if that was their chief goal.

The moonbats will be happy for a short while just being back in the majority and passing little bits of non-controversial legislation, but when Democrats prove unable to do anything meaningful with their newfound "power" how do they prevent the retreat to scorched earth tactics?

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 5, 2007 11:11 AM