Politics and Culture

This from Jeffrey Lord:

Follow up:

What Democrats lost with the election of George W. Bush, so furious were they over failed attempts to...ahhh...shall we say "appropriate" votes they did not win in Florida, was the ability to serve as an agent for positive change while Bush was in office. Instead, they spent much volumes of videotape bungling their time in opposition, giving way to an urge to feel good instead of do good. Feeling good specifically meant tossing over the side a legitimate role as the party of the loyal opposition, giving in to Bush Derangement Syndrome and the frothing demands of the American Loony Left. In so doing they finally exhausted the patience of conservatives. The spoiling for a fight attitude, however unhelpful and even destructive it may be in turn for Republicans, will rule the day.

In reality, it is far too early to hand the 2008 election to Hillary or anyone else. But make no mistake, if in fact Hillary Rodham Clinton does in fact emerge as the next president, being tagged "the Chicken Lady" will be the least of her problems.

Based on the treatment she and her party accorded to George W. Bush, it is safe -- very safe -- to say one thing right now.

Jeffrey lists examples of the Democrats' clearly hypocritical, uncharitable, irritating, counterproductive, and nitpicky style of loyal opposition and then assumes that Democrats would be subjected to some political reckoning in a Hillary administration. Lord makes three dubious assumptions:

1. That those Democrat politicians guilty of such behavior have half an ounce of shame and fair play.

2. That Republicans would sink en masse to the depths of the worst Democrat haters (Reid, Schumer, et al.)

3. That anybody besides bloggers, talk radio listeners, and political strategists care about this junk. For the most part, scandals only excite people who already agree with the monger and only then because it either reinforces their hatred or they see attacking opponents with irrelevancies (to their arguments, at least) as a good political strategy. I admit that the Foley thing was effective, but many of the others hurt the libeler's cause by, in the case of Medved, , Coulter, and Rush, allowing the attackers to respond to idiocy with reasoned arguments, and in the case of the Paul Wellstone funeral and the General Petraeus "Betray Us" ad, exposing the attackers' shrillness and lack of honor.