Battered By Plame Investigation, Bush Forced To Push Through Laws He Favors, Celebrate Successes

Good catch of a sarcastic bit from ABC's The Note, where annoyed liberal reporters pine for a Democratic Party with an agenda greater than "Karl Rove should be in jail.

Not that I expect liberals to listen, but I will repeat: This is exactly how Republicans fell out of favor in the late nineties. Our "politics" became obsessive about bringing a few odious personalities before the bar of justice and we neglected real policy questions.

It's odd. The public, I'd guess, doesn't really know if CAFTA is a good or bad agreement, while they do have gut-level opinions about the Plame matter. Just the same they had gut-level opinions about Clinton but probably weren't certain that bombing Serbia was in America's best interest.

So you might expect them to be more animated about the stuff they understand (because, heck, it's simple) and care less about the stuff they don't know enough about to form a strong opinion. But I don't think they do. While they might know more about Rove and Clinton than CAFTA and Serbia, they also know that CAFTA and Serbia are more important, and they don't trust politicians who seem dedicated to pursuing trivial personal paybacks.

The fact that CAFTA and Serbia are complex matters doesn't mean they don't appreciate politicians "doing something about" those issues, right or wrong; indeed, the whole point of democracy is to vote people into office to work on issues that are too difficult for the average guy, holding a full time job, to fully research and form a coherent opinion on.

Another one of Clinton's lessons the raging reactionaries on the left have forgotten.

posted by Ace at 01:35 PM

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