Our Weird Political Culture

Are these really, as Frank Rich claims in today's New York Times, "the most perilous times in our history"? Let's review the weekend headlines on the eve of the election.

Discounting all the horserace stories (take your pick: Democrats to win anywhere from 15 to 40 seats in the House, 3 to 5 in the Senate), what do we have? Republican Congressman Bob Ney resigns in Ohio; Saddam Hussein faces death by hanging in Baghdad; and Ted Haggard, the former head of the National Association of Evangelicals, tells his 12,000-member flock that yes, it's true, he's guilty of buying drugs and consorting with male prostitutes. Hardly the stuff of momentous times.

Meanwhile, the Times felt the need to apologize for endorsing all Democrats. "It is frightening to contemplate the new excesses he (Bush) could concoct if he woke up next Wednesday and found his party had maintained its hold on the House and Senate." Yet I didn't read a word in the paper of record about the joint editorial running in a series of military papers this weekend that demanded that Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld resign. The military establishment is deserting the president. His freedom to wreak havoc is over, no matter who is declared "winner" of the mid-terms by the sycophantic press.

The only front page stories that mattered continued the steady drumbeat of bad news out of Iraq, with a heavy focus on what it is doing to the troops. A Times story focused on how the military lied to a family whose son was killed by a fellow soldier, and the Washington Post reported that the National Guard can expect more call-ups and extended stays abroad in the months ahead.

Meanwhile, the leftwing blogosphere is proving it's a not ready-for-prime-time player by preparing the "they cheated, they lied" defense in case the Democrats don't win a major victory. Robo-calling with aggravating messages, ostensibly from Democratic candidates; handing out phony leaflets for judicial candidates, claiming they're Democats when they're in fact Republicans; we'll be hearing about all manner of Republican perfidies after the polls close on Tuesday, especially if things go badly for the Ds.

I care deeply that Karl Rove has dragged the practice of American politics into the gutter. Yet somehow I don't feel compelled to add my voice to the cacophony.

The latest polls show a late Republican surge (completely expected, given their financial advantages and monopolization of the airwaves). The most likely outcome of this election is that not much will change, even if one or both Houses change hands. The war in Iraq is the source of most of our woes. The overreaching of the Bush administration in pursuing that disastrous policy may make these feel like the most perilous of times. But this campaign has basically proven that there is no longer public support for those policies.

No matter what happens on Tuesday, we're going to see a distinct if minor shift in the key of government that will put the realists once again in command of U.S. foreign policy. The centrists will also be in charge of domestic politics. Imagine a Senate that owes its Democratic majority, should it occur, to Joe Lieberman, Harold Ford and Jim Webb.

The domestic issues that this blog cares about -- health care, retirement security, social inequality, the relative deprivation of the bottom half of the workforce -- will go nowhere in the next Congress, no matter which party is in charge. I hope the right wing is repudiated. But the task that moves front and center for me the minute the votes are counted is making those issues, and not electing Democrats, the centerpiece of our politics. It's time for America to come home.

Posted by gooznews at November 5, 2006 08:06 PM