What are the Democrats supposed to do? Well, they have begun by electing Nancy Pelosi as their in-house leader. She has everywhere been classified as a member of the left wing of her party, and she smiles bravely and a little condescendingly when she hears this said of her at interviews. (Is it true, Ms. Pelosi, that your hero as a girl was Leon Trotsky? If such a question were asked, she would laugh, and temporize.)

What does she think of the Democrats now prepared to vote for the Homeland Security Bill? Didn't she oppose it? "Well, yes, that's part of the legislative process. Political initiatives move from stage to stage. And there are compromises, and that sort of thing."

But much time has been spent, though not much thought given, to the question of where the Democratic Party is going. It has to go somewhere. It can't too easily move to the right, because to the right is the GOP. It follows that it should move left -- or perhaps dissolve, making way for a fresh party. Wedded to what? Compulsory abortions?

Some of what has been written about the implications of last Election Day is raillery, a matter of having fun with the returns and with the media, baby sitters of American liberalism. Still, some of those who speak out make concrete proposals. One such was the Democratic senator from Georgia, Zell Miller. Hear what he proposes (in The Wall Street Journal), if you want to look at the awful depths of Democratic vacuity, A.D. 2002.

Sen. Miller's first suggestion is: "Why couldn't our party push for a national lottery with the proceeds going to help pay the cost of college for deserving students in America?"

Put that down as the Fifth Freedom. If Sen. Miller goes on that subject with a speech in the Senate, he should back it up with references given to the absence of available help for deserving students in America. And then lotteries, of course, are a form of regressive financing. It's poor people who end up suffering most from lottery sales. Perhaps the GOP could steal this proposal, in pursuit of its war on the poor?

Sen. Miller goes on: "Why couldn't our party push to restructure the sacrosanct Head Start program into a universal pre-kindergarten program, with more emphasis on learning instead of just day care?" Anybody want to run for president on that plank?