Democrats Losing It

Back in the 2000s leadership Democrats encouraged their rank and file in a lot of smash mouth partisanship. It worked, up to a point, in delegitimizing President Bush and setting up their 2006 capture of Congress and 2008 capture of the presidency.

But the smash-mouth tactics doesn't work so good when your guy is in the White House. That's because while vigorous opposition is a necessary safety valve for the loyal opposition, vigorous attacks on the opposition are another matter. It makes you look like fascist thugs.

Thus, for Cenk Uygur to complain about the president's treatment by Speaker Boehner over his upcoming address to a joint session of Congress is foolish and ignorant.

President Obama has now changed the day of his address to Congress to accommodate the Republicans. They were having a GOP presidential debate on the original date he picked. So, Boehner told him to move his speech. He is the president for Christ's sake. Of course, they should have accommodated him, not the other way around. But as usual, President Obama bowed.

Er, well, no. The president doesn't have the power to order up a joint session of Congress. Congress gets to decide that. That's the whole point of a divided government and a separation of powers.

Then there are the cute "theocracy" attacks on the Republicans. This is a recurring tactic of Democrats; they must think it works a treat. They take the statements of Republican politicians that their religious beliefs inform their politics and inflate them into a secret plan to legislate morality. This is actually part of the whole "Democrats are pro-science" and "Republicans are anti-science" meme. It shows an astonishing ignorance in Democrats for not realizing that their progressive beliefs are in fact religious and not scientific. Everybody brings their religious beliefs to politics; it's just that Democrats bring their secular religious beliefs in socialism and progressivism and statism to the table.

Here is the Washington Post's liberal Chris Cillizza acting dumb about the whole issue.

But here is my prediction. All the smash-mouth tactics being ginned up by the Obama guys are going to fail. The American people don't care about church-state issues this year. They don't care about Speaker Boehner playing footsie with the president. They just want someone to fix this lousy economy. And because President Obama is the president they figure that he's to blame.