Listen Up, DC Dems!

Paging Sergeant Joe Friday, Paging Sergeant Friday. Please Report to the Democrats on Capitol Hill. They Need You Badly.

Submitted by BuzzFlash on Sat, 06/02/2007 - 6:21am.
Editorials


The Democrats on Capitol Hill sure do need Sergeant Joe Friday to help them out.
You see, the D.C. Dems, especially now that that they are "investigating" the Bush Administration, keep tripping over dead bodies – and doing their damn best to convince themselves that they just stumbled over a rug, not a corpse.

It’s amazing how many contortions the Dems go through in order to avoid actually holding the Bush Administration accountable for high crimes and misdemeanors.

Just look at the multiple legal, ethical, and perjury violations of America’s Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales. He’s like one of the dead bodies that the Dems keep coming across – and then they claim that they won’t rush to judgement about whether or not the cadaver with multiple bullet wounds in its back was a victim of foul play. When the Democrats uncover a Bush Administration crime through an investigation, their response is to call for another investigation "to get to the bottom of this."

After a fireworks display of smoking guns took place, the best the Dems could muster with Gonzales was politely suggesting that he resign. Excuse me, Sergeant Joe Friday didn’t close a case by telling a murderer that he should consider driving himself to jail, if he felt like it, but otherwise Friday would leave him to continue killing people. You know, sort of a voluntary punishment concept.

While the Dems on the Hill fear to actually hold the Bush Administration accountable by taking away its powers through legislation or impeachment, the Republicans are back to character assassination (think the FOX discussion of the Edwards haircut that never ends) and undertaking its fourth election under Bush involving broad voter suppression.

Meanwhile, even tough "expletive deleted" spewing Dems like Rahm Emanuel keep thinking that capitulating to the Republicans and being non-confrontational on key votes is good for politics.

Say what? Emanuel may be a ruthless and unforgiving taskmaster when it comes to national campaign strategy, but he comes off as a wimp when confronting Bush and the Republicans in Congress. After the Dem Congressional capitulation to Bush on the war – a man with poll numbers as low as the temperature in North Dakota in January – Emanuel boasted, "I view this as the beginning of the end of the president's policy on Iraq."

Did anyone tell Rahm this was supposed to be the beginning of saving the lives or our troops by starting to withdraw them after four years of a ruinous war?

Emanuel is known as an enforcer who blows off kneecaps if Dems running for office don’t follow his instructions. He takes no prisoners behind the scenes.

But when it comes to actually holding the Bush Administration accountable, he’s suddenly a "Mr. See No Evil." His DLC roots of an imagined American "center" kick in, and he’s afraid of taking on the criminal (and we don’t mean that metaphorically) actions and policies of the Bush Administration.

We have noted many a time on BuzzFlash.com that the Republicans win (aside from their illegal voter suppression efforts) because they give the appearance of strength, while actually enacting policies that endanger the national security of the United States.

The Dems on the Hill are actually still scared off by Bush’s "appearance of strength," even when the majority of American voters aren’t buying George's hollow John Wayne imitation anymore.
At a time when the war in Iraq is probably the number one threat to our national security (rather than reducing the threat as Bush and Cheney claim), Americans want to see a political party emerge that shows some backbone and strength. Because national security is a real issue, not an abstract one.

But if the best the Democrats can do is go down on bended knee to a tin horn cowboy like Bush, the Dems continue to look weak. If they can’t battle a President as compromised by corruption, failure, lies, scandal, and radical ideology as Bush, how can they be expected to take on the phantom enemy abroad?

In the age of television coverage of politics as news analysis that focuses on caricatures of character, you can’t win elections by appearing to cave in all the time. It’s that simple. Form becomes content. And if the form is throwing in the towel when you hold a full house and the other side has nothing but a bunch of mismatched low number cards, you are rightfully perceived as a pushover.

Which brings us back to the ongoing investigations that the Dems say will eventually erode the Bush Administration. Right now, Alberto Gonzales is still Attorney General. We are still in Iraq. Bush is still appointing radical nominees to key administration posts. The national debt is still climbing to record levels. Political plans are being put into place to keep minorities, again, from voting in 2008. Republican donors are still being rewarded with hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer contracts. Cheney and his Neo-Con pals are still trying to stir up a war with Iran. And, among other unforgivable violations of the public trust, Rove is still engaged in his criminal political strategizing as the de facto domestic policy president of the United States and Svengali of dirty tricks and illegal use of the Department of Justice and voter suppression initiatives.

And the Dems keep investigating, tripping over dead bodies, and then responding by calling for more investigations. It appears no breaking of the law or act of corruption is enough for the Dems to start holding the Administration accountable by taking steps to remove the appropriate parties from office and to embark on a course of standing up against Administration actions that harm the interests of the American people – particularly in the area of protecting our nation.

It’s time to bring in Sergeant Joe Friday and start closing the cases against the Bush Administration. Because if the Dems don’t start showing that they are tough in dealing with a party that is imploding and on the ropes, the voters are going to continue to view them as timid and weak – and appropriately so.

Jack Webb, where are you?
Dead, we hear.

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....And The Truth Shall Set Us Free