The Shifting Ground
Are the Democrats unable to deal with the shifting ground beneath their feet? So says the Weekly Standard’s Matthew Continetti:
At some level, the Democrats’ confusion is understandable. They haven’t adjusted to new political realities, like President Bush’s knack for upending traditional political categories.When Congress voted to authorize war in Iraq, Bush turned normally circumspect Republicans into progressive reformers of the Middle East, with a Kennedy-like readiness to “pay any price, bear any burden . . . to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” Democrats were left arguing normally conservative positions like prudence, process, and geopolitical stability. When Congress voted to create the Department of Homeland Security, Bush converted the same Republicans who’d voted eight years earlier to dismantle three government departments into advocates of a massive government reorganization and expansion. And when Congress supported Bush’s $87 billion for Iraq, frugal conservatives backed massive foreign aid, while notoriously splurge-happy Democrats became deficit hawks.
Some Democrats, like Lieberman and Gephardt, have kept their balance amid the new political categories. Others seem dangerously stuck between Iraq and a hard place.
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