'The Democrats!'Beloved Series Nears End of Run
Wall Street Journal ^ | November 28, 2003 | Danniel Henninger
WONDER LAND By DANIEL HENNINGER
'The Democrats!' Beloved Series Nears End of Run
There is a school of thought in the newspaper business that this is the least read day of the year. If there is any truth in that, then it's the perfect day to ponder the nine men and women running for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Working and living in New York City, one bumps into highly verbal Democrats at every turn whose endearing first impulse is to let you, and everyone nearby, know how very, very much they despise George Bush. As one announced to the other club members around a table the evening after the president's address in London: "Listen up, everyone, we have a Bush supporter here tonight!"
Less inhalating for Democrats, however, than the glue of animosity appears to be the prospect of having to discuss the party's nine pins, who've been careening toward the presidential nomination for almost the whole year. The number of nonprofessional Democrats I've encountered who are willing to offer analysis of these nine obsessives is close to zero.
The kind of Democrats who wonder how the members of their party suddenly came to be known as "progressives" don't seem to believe this is happening to them, that some magical event will save them from this calamity. They'll awaken one morning to a clear sky, and all this weirdness will have gone away because across the top of every morning paper it will say: "Hillary's Hat's in the Ring." But in fact Hillary appears to have excused herself from this political dreamworld and isn't likely to lead the light brigade in 2004.
That leaves these nine, who routinely spread themselves as one before the American people, a kind of cat-o'-nine-tails for their party.
They were on view again this week for a "debate" in Iowa, a few beamed into the lineup as heads inside a TV on a pedestal, though without Joe Lieberman who said he'd been "blackballed" by some of the other candidates. As an old high-school debate judge, it appeared to me that the only thing resembling an authentic debate took place in a remarkable exchange between Al Sharpton and Tom Brokaw over the Tawana Brawley case, for which Mr. Brokaw sought an apology. Instead, Mr. Sharpton deftly dumped the entire history of the Confederacy, lynching and racism down upon the startled head of Mr. Brokaw who finally said "we'll try to leave it at that," only to get punched around some more for venturing into Mr. Sharpton's neighborhood.
It is getting more difficult by the debate to resist Rev. Sharpton's ineffable charms, as when months ago, he summed up the evening as "seven politicians, an officer, a lady and me, a gentleman."
In fact, with the reality of a nonpseudo-event just around the bend with January's Iowa caucuses, I am beginning to feel the sense of loss that comes when a long-running TV series approaches its end. When "M*A*S*H" subsided, it meant there would never be another new night with Radar, and when these debates end, it means there will be no more Dennis Kucinich. I will miss him.
Seriously. On this evening, Mr. Kucinich announced, in one breath, that he was for universal, government health care and "free" college tuition, and in another that we should "cancel" Nafta and "get out" of Iraq. A friend called the next morning to express the hope that these debates were not being broadcast outside the United States.
There were as well many closely harmonized choral pieces on Medicare and Iraq, but my favorite song was "Negotiate With North Korea." Howard Dean, the middle tenor: "I think the offer that the president of North Korea has on the table has real promise." Mr. Gephardt, after noting from the upper registers that Kim Jong Il "is half nuts anyway," said President Bush "should go and get a negotiation going and get to the bottom of this." And Mr. Kerry, the basso profundo, urged "greater cooperation with North Korea."
But the big news this week is that after months of out-of-town tryouts, the cast has decided to drop what was expected to be one of the production's showstoppers: "The Miserable U.S. Economy." No one told Mr. Brokaw, who announced early on that "we're going to get to the economy as well," but we never did, unless one includes Dick Gephardt's thought that, "We had a holistic set of ideas to get the economy to grow."
Within days of the debate, it emerged that in the third quarter the economy grew 8.2% and that corporate profits (a phenomenon routinely attacked by this group) were up 30%, the highest year-over-year growth in 19 years.
The Bush Medicare bill? 9-0 against. The Bush Iraq policy? 9-0 against. The way George Bush walks to the helicopter? 9-0 against. Wesley Clark, the former Supreme Allied Commander Europe, suggested that Mr. Bush's policies allowed 9/11 to happen.
What is anyone supposed to make of this performance? During the Clinton presidency, Republicans found areas of policy with which to agree, such as Nafta or welfare reform. This nonet's implacable, totalist rejection of every waking moment in the Bush presidency approaches parody -- politics as video game, relentlessly splattering imaginary enemies.
The standard explanation is that the party's primary voters live in the political wilderness, are happy there and will throw a tantrum if not pandered to. Well, everyone panders in politics -- but out in view of the whole country for 10 straight months?
Republicans could care less. But serious Democrats, claiming fealty to the more robust legacy of FDR, Harry Truman and LBJ, must cringe at the infantilizing of their party. They may hope that all this will be forgotten next year. But the whole whacky cast has been performing on television for months. Nobody forgets a good show.
Updated November 28, 2003
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