Atlantic Writer: Democrats Are As Pure As The Driven Snow And Republicans Are Nothing But Ruthless And Opportunistic Thugs

Normally the best thing to do with anyone who writes for the company that employs Linda “Report all lies against the regime” Douglas and Andrew “Show me the afterbirth” Sullivan is to ignore them. Sometimes though one of them writes something so ridiculous it’s necessary to call them out on their BS. This James Fallows post is one such time.

Fallows was responding to Ross Douthat’s contention that conservative anger about the TSA now and not under Bush is part of the ebb and flow of politics…you let things slide when your guy does it but get outraged when ‘they’ do it. Fallows thinks this is unfair to Democrats and liberals and that only Republicans and conservatives are guilty of this particular sin.

Stop laughing, he really seems to think this.

The TSA case, on which Douthat builds his column, is in fact quite a poor illustration -- rather, a good illustration for a different point. There are many instances of the partisan dynamic working in one direction here. That is, conservatives and Republicans who had no problem with strong-arm security measures back in the Bush 43 days but are upset now. Charles Krauthammer is the classic example: forthrightly defending torture as, in limited circumstances, a necessary tool against terrorism, yet now outraged about "touching my junk" as a symbol of the intrusive state.

This is such a delicious example of liberal ‘thinking’. Fallows’ example doesn’t demonstrate Krauthammer’s lack of principles. What that paragraph does is demonstrate that Fallows and many other liberals simply can’t differentiate between how the US government should and is required to treat its own citizens on American soil and how it may deal with non-citizen, enemies outside the jurisdiction of the United States.

Fallows is free to make the case that people in line to get on an airplane and enemy combatants captured in a war with Islamic fundamentalists but he doesn’t get to steal that base and simply say people who don’t agree with him are intellectually inconsistent and opportunistic.

It would be bad enough if Fallows stopped there but he didn’t.

So: it's nice and fair-sounding to say that the party-first principle applies to all sides in today's political debate. Like it would be nice and fair-sounding to say that Democrats and Republicans alike in Congress are contributing to obstructionism and party-bloc voting. Or that Fox News and NPR have equal-and-offsetting political agendas in covering the news. But it looks to me as if we're mostly talking about the way one side operates. Recognizing that is part of facing the reality of today's politics.

Democrats aren’t ‘guilty’ of “party-bloc voting”? Has he checked the Senate roll-calls on the vote for the so-called “stimulus” bill? Or health care reform? Or the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act? Can he find one Democrat who voted against either of Obama’s Supreme Court nominees?

Fallows is right about one thing...for the last two years Democrats haven’t been ‘guilty’ of “obstructionism”. How could they obstruct anything when they control the White House, the Senate and the House?

On the other hand, I do seem to recall a fair bit of Democratic “obstructionism” when George W. Bush was trying to get some judges on various courts of appeal or when Bush wanted to pass the free trade agreement with one of our most important allies in South American, Colombia.

I’m sure if I spent more than 5 minutes thinking about it I could come up with dozens of other examples where Democrats obstructed Bush’s agenda (Social Security reform pops to mind) but in Fallows world, nothing like that ever happened.

I can’t get worked up about the opportunism of politicians, like the proverbial scorpion, it’s their nature. While I enjoy tweaking liberals like Fallows and their rose colored glasses, I don’t get worked up over their idiocy…it is after all just their nature.

Added: I forgot to include this bit of news from today's meeting between Obama and Republican congressional leaders.

Senior admin official tells CNN the President did tell Repubs behind closed doors he failed to reach out enough in 1st 2 yrs

Ah, you see Obama didn't reach out to Republicans for two years for a very simple reason...he didn't need them. They simply didn't matter given the overwhelming numbers Democrats had in both houses. Now however the situation is different and Obama will act differently or at least will give lip service to it when it's politically helpful.

It's almost as if Obama lied about his interest in bi-partisanship and is now acting differently simply out of political expediency. I'm shocked!

I eagerly await Fallows taking Obama to task for this. Or you know, not.

posted by DrewM. at 01:54 PM

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