Reality Check: Democratic Shift
It is generally recognized that today's Democratic Party leadership is attached to the far left. It seems beholden to the election votes expected from the blame America first crowd, (the Michael Moore wing of the Party, if you will), the Sixties holdover peaceniks, the Pro-Abortion crowd, radical environmentalists, fringe cultural groups such as gays and lesbians, and others still who remain attached to failed utopian concepts and socialist dream states. And one almost universal trait of all of these peoples is a disregard for decorum. It, the lack of decorum, didn't begin with the Clinton Presidency era spin agents who adopted a debate strategy of talking over their counterparts on television, but those bullies of discourse perfected an unfortunate tone previously seen on the 1960's college campus anti-war protests, Greenpeace maritime interventions, women's lib debacles, and so on among the liberal agenda factions.
Two examples this week make me wonder if the tired act of, bitch, bitch, and bitch even louder but never offer a workable alternative, haven’t finally worn thin within the Democratic population.
The first example is that of "Sheets" Byrd, as Rush Limbaugh calls Senator Robert Byrd, the former Ku Klux Klan member, of West Virginia. Byrd, who has as much poor-character baggage to carry as does even Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, (aka, the swimmer), and neither has fully owned up to their past, nevertheless Byrd has taken a huge leap off the liberal freight train by not only endorsing Samuel Alito for the Supreme Court, but by also chastising his fellow Democrats for their unconscionable behavior during the Senate confirmation hearing on Judge Alito's nomination.
The skeptical view on Byrd’s motivations will follow.
The second example is that of Democratic mouthpiece Bob Beckel who appeared this week in replacement for the absent Alan Colmes on Fox News evening show, Hannity and Colmes. Beckel, who has for years been as vociferous, is his defense of the ridiculous, otherwise known as liberal policy positions, as has been even the Deliverance inbred James Carville, now is taking a tough stand on Iran and even put together two hours of television over two nights where he appeared to be capable of formulating his own thoughts. Progress even if only an act.
Beckel's take on Iran is that we must move to prevent that member of the "Axis of Evil" from building the bomb, and you know which bomb I mean. He is taking a strong position, he says, we must act even if it means military action, to eliminate Iran's ability to crash the Nuclear party. Bravo.
Ann Coulter, a guest on tonight's version of the H & C show due in great part to the additional notoriety she, a blonde babe by the way, has received since John (I served in Vietnam, though I refuse to let you see the service records of that experience) Kerry's recent Senate floor tirade against Judge Alito in which he cited Coulter's support for Alito as proof that Alito is unfit to serve on the highest court, she had the perfect retort to Beckel's new-found display of testosterone. Coulter replied, and I liberally paraphrase, that she is willing to accept Beckel as an ally in the Iran matter, but, she warned, if we go there and we don't find any nukes don't start saying Bush lied and Mullahs died. Her reference is a fair assumption of the Democratic response if Iran is not making the bomb given the number of Democrats who now proclaim President Bush a liar for believing their claims during the previous Democratic administration of existent Iraqi WMD hordes.
But, putting aside the possibility that Byrd's words are motivated by his impending re-election bid, and the Beckel may still be the policy stooge we have always known him to be but now masquerading as a patriot and hawk; it is refreshing to hear a Democrat speak in tones discordant with those of the extreme leftist elements of their Party. And, even if both cases prove to be more Machiavellian than Zell Millerian (Zell Miller is the old school Dem who spoke so forcefully at the Republican National Convention in 2004), these two examples are evidence that some Democrats understand that their old and failed ways no longer play with the American public.
