Yes, Republicans are experiencing great difficulties right now, but the good news -- politically speaking -- is that Democrats are in even worse shape. While they can feast on their anti-Bush cuisine between elections, they're eventually going to have to come up with a menu of their own.
Today, they not only have no menu; they don't even have recipes for basic dishes. Their problem is not that they have too many cooks in the kitchen, but none. All of their chefs are in the Republicans' kitchen, and they don't know how to return to their own.
Their negativity alone is not going to get them back into the White House or majority status in Congress. Eventually -- by all rights, it already ought to be too late -- they're going to have to come up with an agenda.
But so far they can't be bothered. They're busy -- doing the people's work in slandering President Bush and nobly ferreting out the "culture of corruption." Their self-appointed function is to undo, rather than do.
Democrats promised to produce their legislative agenda by November 2005, to give voters a full year before the 2006 elections to absorb their proposals. One wonders what they were doing the rest of 2005, or since 2001, for that matter.
But one need not wonder. The answer is that they excused themselves from developing an agenda because Bush-bashing was a far safer, easier and more satisfying pastime. One can only imagine the irresistible temptations they face to delay the unveiling of their sure-to-be earth-shattering blueprint. Once they do, they won't be able to focus the nation's attention as sharply on the evils and incompetence of President Bush. The release of their plan, in fact, will be an annoying distraction. But worse, it will require them to stand behind and defend something of their own.
As it turned out, November 2005 came and went. Dem honchos decided it was too early to release the plan. Too early? Too early for what? Surely not too early for a nation they have been telling us is in dire trouble. No, too early to allow them to best capitalize on the plan's publication.
