Must Read of the Day
Pulling no punches, Karl Rove serves up a critique of the most unpopular Congress in history. From their fear and loathing of the military to their childish antics to please their MoveOn.Org masters, he scores on each shot:
"The list of Congress's failures grows each month. No energy bill. No action on health care. No action on the mortgage crisis. No immigration reform. No progress on renewing No Child Left Behind. Precious little action on judges and not enough on reducing trade barriers. Congress has not done its work. And these failures will have consequences."
Actually, I think "No immigration reform" is a good thing, but it's a small quibble. Please go read the whole article. I'm bookmarking this one.
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» Democrats Incapable of Leading from Wake up America-Incompetent Democrats
Karl Rove has just brilliantly laid out every weakness in the Democratic party that can and should be used against them in the 2008 elections. Read More
This from the guy who lost the republican majority in both houses? Uh-huh. Puleez.
Yeah, cause if anyone is going to provide objective analysis, it's Karl Rove.
"Must read of the day"? Only if you want to feel less demoralized as a republican thanks to Rove's rallying/chearleading. Because that's all this is, meaningless partisan cheerleading.
Every one of those "failures" listed is due to Republican obstructionism. Who, then, is responsible for Congress "not doing its work", eh?
I do not recognize any of these points as "failures". The plain truth of the matter is whenever congress gets busy, they only do much more serious damage than the problems they address. Congressional legislation has become nothing but new oppurtunities to subvert and manipulate the system.
If we were really smart we would take their gavels and their voting buttons away from them and set them all to the task of pounding sand with a leather shoe to keep them occupied and unable to cause further harm.
Armed with only sand and leather I still think they'd find some way to cause harm. The best you could hope for is that it would be to each other. :)
Ida, you give Rove way too much credit. It takes a superhuman level of myopia to ignore both facts and common sense to award one person with responsibility for every success and failure of the Republican party.
Every one? Cite, please, how Republican obstructionism forced the Dems to delay work on important business in favor of political statement bills such as S-chip. How did Republican obstructionism keep the Dems from confirming judges? How did the GOP make Murtha the king of pork? Please explain how this "obstructionism" forced the Dems to launch 400 investigations - the overwhelming majority of which are simply political attacks?
ME,
Thanks for making my point for me. You discredit the entire article due to your personal dislike for Karl Rove, not because of any substantive refutation of his arguments. It's all about "us vs. them" politics and facts don't matter, eh?
If Karl Rove announced that the sun rose, I suppose you'd have a really dark day.
There are TWO parties in Congress. One party, The Democrats, consistently gets 25% higher approval ratings http://www.gallup.com/poll/1600/Congress-Public.aspx .
(Link fixed - LB)
And the president is polling higher than the Dems in Congress. When Congress' rating is only 11%, can you really call it an "approval" rating?
Maybe folks are (marginally) less unhappy with the Dems because their ineptitude is preventing much of their unpopular agenda from being passed.
While the Dems do enjoy support on the war issue, most Americans:
-Don't necessarily want socialized medicine.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/4708/Healthcare-System.aspx
-Want parental notification on abortion and want partial birth abortion outlawed.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/1576/Abortion.aspx
http://www.pollingreport.com/abortion.htm
-When the question is honestly asked, folks side with Bush on S-Chip. For example, "As you may know, the Democrats want to allow a family of four earning about $62,000 to qualify for the program. President Bush wants most of the increases to go to families earning less than $41,000. Whose side do you favor?" Bush, 52% Dems, 40%
http://www.pollingreport.com/health3.htm
-Think taxes are too high, don't want more.
http://www.pollingreport.com/budget.htm
http://www.gallup.com/poll/1714/Taxes.aspx
-Think gays should not be allowed to marry.
http://www.pollingreport.com/civil.htm
The polls show an odd kind of dual personality among the public where in general they may favor Democrats, but on lots of specific issues believe the Democrats are wrong. I guess hatred for Bush doesn't completely block common sense.
That said, polls can easily be manipulated through question framing, and results are prone to cherry-picking. I watch polls out of curiosity, but usually won't post about them or rely on them. But since you quoted one... :)