The Black Republican

This entry could very well have been added under "What we've read" but it's just too juicy. Under the title "National Unity Dies", the deputy editor of the Wall Street Journal puts the Democratic Party on a spit and proceeds to roast it.

The Kerry campaign so far hasn't elevated much above the tenor or level at which the Democratic presidential contenders politicked for nearly a year. Then as now, Mr. Kerry suggests there is nothing in the Bush presidency - not one moment, utterance or act since George Bush took the oath of office - that does not deserve to be opposed and reversed.

This total, rejectionist stance is relatively new in American politics. The conventional explanation is that the Democrats' constituencies demand it, but that's been true for 25 years. The deeper reason is younger than that. It flows directly from Democratic anger over the outcome of the Florida legal challenge in 2000. For Democrats it remains the fire that can never be extinguished. They are set against the Bush presidency in its totality--its policies, its personalities, its existence. Like Irish nationalists, Democrats harbor Florida as the event they will never forgive, and it has had the effect of turning American politics into a kind of Northern Ireland.