Honest Opposition

My mother always told me that if I wanted to criticize something I had to offer a positive alternative. I guess my mother was smarter than the mothers of those who oppose our president. All they seem to be able to do is tear things down. When they offer alternatives, they do not offer serious alternatives. They offer that we should turn over the Iraq situation to the UN, as if the UN hadn't already abandoned the country, as if G.W. hasn't already done everything in his power to get them to go along.

But the biggest dishonesty of the left is their failure to accept the plain honest fact that we are already in Iraq. They might have opposed our move into Iraq, but they will have to get over that now. "Working with world leaders to abolish war" (Dennis Kucinich) is a fine idea, but utterly dishonest. If elected, Kucinich would be the only world leader who has expressed an intention to abolish war. But, while Kucinich is in deep denial about reality, he is not alone. "Turn over operations to NGOs and the UN" (Wesley Clark) would run afoul of the fact that that they have already cut and run. And the best one is the almost unanimous agreement of the nine dwarves in the debates that, whatever else we do, we have to get these American companies in Iraq off of the gravy train. Alternative please? French and German companies perhaps?

The reason these democrats offer no solutions is because they believe that their credulous constituency seeks none, and needs none. The democrat party has shown an almost imperial propensity to ignore the issues of their constituency. And who can say that they are wrong? The blacks, to whom they offer nothing, grant an almost unanimous voting bloc to the democrats. The republicans, who give high office and endless deference to members of the black race, get almost no votes (10% in 2000) at all from that group. The trial lawyers, who finance the democrats almost single-handedly, get (and demand) nothing more than a total lack of tort reform, No action is demanded for all of that money. At least in that case, no action is a good thing. The seniors, offerred an entirely new entitlement for medicare drug benefits, are about to experience a filibuster from the democrats, attempting to block the first attempt to expand this entitlement in almost thirty years. But no serious observer believes that this stand against their interests will cost the left any senior votes.

But now we are involved in a world war. Our very way of life and even our survival is at stake. And the democrats? Have they offerred anything at all besides empty criticism of the Bush approach? Ok, they hate Bush. They really really wish that we had never disturbed Saddam Hussein and had stayed home. They can't believe that Bush ignored France and Germany on this one. But he did. Now what? These are men who actually wish to be put in charge of operations. One would think that they, or at least one of them, would offer a plan that reflects some simulacrum of reality. But if they have, I haven't seen it.

I believe them when they indicate the depth of their enmity towards G.W.Bush. I don't understand it, but I believe it. But until and unless they offer some semblence of a plan for moving forward, they are not electable. It is utterly dishonest. My mother always knew how to detect honesty. And, as a democratic pol for fifty years, at the age of eighty nine, even she will be voting for G.W. next November. Again.