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"Where are the Democrats?" I hear that question from friends all across the political panorama. Sometimes sadly, sometimes in anger, people ask me what happened to the party of the regular people? Where is the opposition, the backbone, the guts? The terms and tones differ, but the question keeps coming up.
At a press event in the House Cannon Office Building, Friday, December 16th, Democratic House and Senate leaders and key legislators answered the question - or at least started to - by giving full-voiced support to bedrock Progressive Democratic American principles. Our principles.
Leader Nancy Pelosi kicked off the Congressional Democrats End-of-Session Briefing, (covered at C-SPAN) kicking the Republicans for their corruption and mismanagement. She was especially forceful in her comments about the lack of honesty and credibility the White House and Congressional Republicans demonstrate.
House Democratic Whip Stenny Hoyer contradicted his recent "soft on Bush" rhetoric, accusing the White House of ineptitude "and yes corruption." His anger over Republican "corruption" flared as he spoke about how they were playing politics with the Iraq War, and seeking to divide the nation rather than lead Americans. He specified two Republican dirty tricks resolutions on Iraq in as many weeks as the reason for his own reversal.
Senate leaders Harry Reid and Dick Durbin echoed these sentiments. They announced the Senate had successfully filibustered the House version of the attack on the Bill of Rights called the "Patriot Act" and explained how Sen. Frist refused to cooperate or compromise, leaving a bipartisan coalition of Senators no choice but to withhold support for this monstrosity. Then, they recounted just the worst of the unfair, counter-productive, and corrupt Republican policies: huge tax cuts for the wealthy and huge tax-paid give-aways to narrow special interests, ignoring human suffering in the Gulf States after Hurricane Katrina, slashing needed programs for poor and working families, a bloated and misguided Medicare Prescription program which their constituents called a recipe for rip-offs and so on.
The clear consensus from these determined Democrats was this: America can do better, and with Progressive Democratic Leadership America will do better. It was as if these four leaders were reading from the PDA playbook. Considering the warm reception PDAers received from the dozens of lawmakers present, perhaps they are?
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