Mr. Willis should be depressed!
In honor of Oliver Willis, I’ll use a football analogy here. Do you remember back in Super Bowl XVIII, when the Oakland Los Angeles Raiders had Mr Willis’ favorite team, the Washington Redskins, pinned deep near their own end zone at the end of the first half? Starting at their own five yard line, with just seven seconds left in the half, and trailing 14-3, Joe Theismann attempted a screen pass; the Raiders were ready for it, and it was intercepted by Jack Squirek and run in for a Raider touchdown.
The congressional Democrats just threw a screen pass to Jack Squirek! 
Mr. Willis has complained about the lack of willingness of the Democrats to debate big issues, about which I wrote here.
Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House Majority Leader, put it best: “When you’re going in circles like the Democrats, it just seems like you’re going in a new direction.”
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Democrats Outline a Platform for the Fall
By KATE ZERNIKE, The New York Times
Published: June 17, 2006
WASHINGTON, June 16 — Declaring their party “ready for this election,” Democratic leaders in Congress on Friday announced the platform they hope to use to regain the majority in November.
Their plan, presented at a news conference, included promises to:
- They noted that Congress had not increased the minimum wage, now at $5.15, since 1997, a fact that Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader, declared “immoral.” Their proposal to raise it to $7.25, they said, would benefit seven million workers. They rejected the argument that such a raise would shrink the economy, noting that jobs increased after the last raise.
The Democratic leaders also pledged a 25 percent reduction in oil use by 2020, largely by developing fuel alternatives in the United States. “We want to send our energy money to the Midwest, not the Middle East,” Ms. Pelosi said.
Amid all of the calls for the Democrats to take bold action, to present themselves as ready for leadership, they came up with mush. Raise the minimum wage? The plain fact is that economic realities have superceded the minimum wage in most places; very few people make $5.15 an hour any more. The traditional minimum wage employers, such as convenience stores and fast-food franchises, are all well into the $6.50 to $7.00 an hour range, to start, because they just can’t get anybody to come to work for less than that. A bunch of Republicans will make the standard complaint that raising the minimum wage will fuel inflation, a complaint which would be justified if the minimum wage were really propping up the floor on wages, but in a time of an “economic minimum wage,” which is where we are today, it wouldn’t make any but the most minor of differences.
Make college tuition tax deductible? That won’t be controversial.
Eliminate subsidies for oil and gas companies? Oh, now that’s a bold move!
Increase stem-cell research? That is a controversial issue, when it comes to embryonic stem cells (it isn’t with adult stem cells), but it’s hardly a major one.
The only “bold” step I see is restore a pay-as-you-go policy for federal budgets. A whole bunch of Republicans will be for that — if it means cutting government spending. The trouble is that, for the Democrats, what it really means is raising taxes. All that I’ve seen is the brief story in The New York Times (and its brevity, just a few hundred words, tells you just how important a story the editors of the Times believe this is), and haven’t seen the Democrats’ actual proposal. Do they call for real tax increases, or just the “tax the rich” populism that attracts their followers but doesn’t really make much sense or generate that much revenue? The Republicans will crucify them on any tax increase proposal!
But the real laugher isn’t what they included; it is what they omitted. How on God’s earth could Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, those inspiring towers of progressive leadership, have come up with those six pathertic issues, and not proposed one damned thing when it comes to Iraq, the war against Islamic fascism and illegal immigration, the three most important and visible issues of the day?
Don’t mistake me; I want the Democrats to lose — again! But I’ll bet that even Mr. Willis will agree with me for filing this under Freedom from Reality.
Yorkshire:
See - Freedom from Reality has been a useful catagory
But there is nothing new here. Promise the non tax paying proles everything, deliver nothing but tax increases. Cynical - Yes. It’s the libs M.O. for years. Look at MD for the extreme in Democrats now.
18 June 2006, 11:47 amCommon Sense Political Thought » Blog Archives » Can the Democrats run honestly?:
[...] One of the immediate causes of Gordo’s ire was the absolutely stunning (for its timidity) proposal of Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid on which Democrats would/could/should run in 2006. Other liberal bloggers, from Oliver Willis to Kos, have been pushing, hard, for a further left Democratic platform, for the party to unite behind ideological goals which they believe are truer to the party’s nature and people. [...]
21 June 2006, 10:10 pmWhy Republicans Will Maintain Or Increase Their Control This Fall - Oliver Willis:
[...] On January 20, 2009, George Bush will leave office, and everybody knows it. Screwing up their campaign for just two years prior to that to being nothing but “We hate George Bush” isn’t exactly the kind of thing that gives people a reason to vote for Democrats, just against Republicans. June 18, 2006 8:06 AM Common Sense Political Thought said: [...]
11 November 2007, 8:27 am