Thoughts on Boxer and Kerry Voting Against Condi
Barbara Boxer and John Kerry were the only two members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to vote against sending Condi Rice's name to the Senate floor for what will be a coronation. Boxer is understandable -- after her tantrum yesterday she couldn't very well vote for Rice, and, besides, she's up for reelection in 2010 in California, where her opponent for her Senate seat could easily be Republican Condi Rice!
The Kerry vote is more interesting, particularly when coupled with his off-the-chart, nut-job, paranoid Democratic Underground/ MoveOn MLK Day comments.
Consider the following pattern:
(1) Relatively Liberal Democrat runs for national office.
(2) RLD makes noises like a centrist, particularly on foreign policy.
(3) RLD loses, in part because George W. Bush successfully paints him as a liberal in centrist clothing.
(4) RLD returns to private life or, in this case, the Senate, and reverts, not just to the relative liberalism of his past, but to the lunatic fringe liberalism of his party’s most extreme elements.
Sound like anyone? Gore post-2000 and Kerry post-2004 are peas in a pod. What they both should show the American public, now and forever, is that even supposedly centrist Democrats (Gore was a charter member of the DLC if I remember correctly) are really extreme liberals when they reach the point in their life when they either won’t be running for anything ever again (Gore) or else won’t be running for anything outside of Massachusetts (Kerry). When they have nothing left to lose, they have nothing left to lie about.
Kerry (and Gore) are now being true to themselves, which is attractive from a human standpoint, and should make them both more consistent in their public positions (Kerry in particular). But it won’t move their party any closer to regaining majority status anytime in the near future.
The Kerry vote is more interesting, particularly when coupled with his off-the-chart, nut-job, paranoid Democratic Underground/ MoveOn MLK Day comments.
Consider the following pattern:
(1) Relatively Liberal Democrat runs for national office.
(2) RLD makes noises like a centrist, particularly on foreign policy.
(3) RLD loses, in part because George W. Bush successfully paints him as a liberal in centrist clothing.
(4) RLD returns to private life or, in this case, the Senate, and reverts, not just to the relative liberalism of his past, but to the lunatic fringe liberalism of his party’s most extreme elements.
Sound like anyone? Gore post-2000 and Kerry post-2004 are peas in a pod. What they both should show the American public, now and forever, is that even supposedly centrist Democrats (Gore was a charter member of the DLC if I remember correctly) are really extreme liberals when they reach the point in their life when they either won’t be running for anything ever again (Gore) or else won’t be running for anything outside of Massachusetts (Kerry). When they have nothing left to lose, they have nothing left to lie about.
Kerry (and Gore) are now being true to themselves, which is attractive from a human standpoint, and should make them both more consistent in their public positions (Kerry in particular). But it won’t move their party any closer to regaining majority status anytime in the near future.
posted by PDB at 10:30 AM
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