But by the same token, it's difficult, if not impossible, to use those important, nebulous and often boring topics as leverage to swing your party back into power.

They follow the path of less resistance.

This is exactly how Republicans fell out of favor in the late nineties.

Ummm... Didn't the Repubs come to control both the Congress and the WH immediately after this purported fall from favor? I'm not sure that your example actually argues against the Dems following the same failed strategy.

"Our "politics" became obsessive about bringing a few odious personalities before the bar of justice and we neglected real policy questions."

What's fascinating to me is that the Democrats seem completely incapable of seeing any resemblance between themselves today and 1990s Republicans. Bring up the similarities, and they'll sputter angrily, "That was completely different... Halliburton!!! Abu Ghraib!!! PLASTIC TURKEY!!!!"

Never realizing that the above one-word condemnations not only are not slam-dunks that will make people say "Why yes! Now I'm convinced! We must impeach Bushitler!", they actually make the average voter scratch her head and say "The Halli-what, now?"

Just as sputtering "Rose Law Firm! Whitewater! SOCKS THE CAT PAYOLA!!!!" didn't convince many of the unconverted.

And I'm just talking *tactics*, by the way. Even assuming (for the sake of argument) the entirety of the Democratic Chimpy McHitlerburton worldview as true, the problem is, consistently harping on it just plain isn't working. The average voter doesn't believe in this worldview, and increasing the volume and stridency of the shrieking doesn't help much.

Didn't the Repubs come to control both the Congress and the WH immediately after this purported fall from favor? I'm not sure that your example actually argues against the Dems following the same failed strategy.

Bush didn't pursue this failed strategy. You couldn't get him to comment on Clinton.

For a few months now, I've tried to figure out whether The Note is conservative or liberal leaning. I don't think today's post from The Note is from a trio of frustrated liberal reporters, Ace. While I think they attempt to be unbiased, more often than not, the writers direct their sarcasm- and disdain- at liberals, IMO, simply because they disagree strongly with them, not out of frustration.

CAFTA and Serbia are complex matters

The whole Balkan fiasco was Islam against Christianity. After a hundred years of Moslem trouble, the Christians finally killed or expelled 90% of the Moslem Menace from their lands. Bill Clinton, needing something to divert attention away from the gathering story that he'd sold nuclear secrets to the Chicoms, decided it was time to stop this "ethnic cleansing" and started our involvement there. He put back the Moslems and both have been in a state of permanent siege ever since, and someday it will blow wide open again. And perhaps the next time it'll be the Moslems who win.

Ummm... Didn't the Repubs come to control both the Congress and the WH immediately after this purported fall from favor?

Apparently you missed the meetings, vonK. Republicans are still out of favor. They only came to control both the Congress and the White House only by controlling their buddies (via a powerful cabal of Rove, Zionist Joos and Freemasons) on the Supreme Court to steal the election from the Dems.

72 Titos, uh-uh-uh-uh-UH-uh. Milosevic was a nasty little "national communist," Saddam on a budget. We intervened in an idiotic way, but the KLA was about as "Moslem Menace"-y as the Washington Generals.

Yeah, there's a lot going on in the Balkans, but not much of it is religion-based (at least not pre-9/11, and I'm not sure how different it is now.)

P.J. O'Rourke had a good line on the ex-Yugoslavia wars, something like "It's a fight between the Croats, who don't go to Sunday Mass, versus the Serbs, who don't go to Orthodox services, versus the Bosnians, who don't go to the mosque."

Even now I get so steamed that Bill Clinton's intervention there was brought on by the fact that the WSJ had almost caught up with him over the Chicom scandal, that the details elude me. However, I do remember that 90% of the Moslems had been killed or expelled, and if we had not intervened the other 10% would be gone and there'd be relative peace there now. Sometimes the world should stand by and let war happen if it is the only way to settle endless grievences that have gone for decades or centuries. Sometimes it is best for all concerned (especially us) if we: just give war a chance.

PS - His "accidental" bombing of the Chinese embassy there to confuse the world about his involvement with the Chicoms was as dirty, low down, and cynical a trick as I've ever seen. And the fact that it all worked still gets me steamed!

Here's one piece of geopolitical brilliance the Clinton Administration did pull off during the Balkan cluster-fox: rather than denouncing the UN arms embargo and using their superior diplomatic skills to get it repealed -- or starting a "covert" US program to arm the Bosnians, they instead let the Iranians run the guns into Bosnia -- along with Revolutionary Guardsmen to organize and recruit jihadis.

BTW 72 Whatevers, Clinton wasn't picking the individual targets in Belgrade ala LBJ.

The Serbians never got anywhere near to 90% of Muslims "cleansed" from either Bosnia or Kosovo.

I'm not saying the Muslims were 100% blameless, but the Serbs (and if any Serb apologists are around, have away) were way outta line.