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Democrats' Dans Macabré John L. Perry Democratic politicians' reaction to President Bush's State of the Union address couldn't have benefited Republicans more if Karl Rove had orchestrated it himself. Who knows? Maybe he did. Ever since George W. Bush first began running for president under Rove's astute tutelage, the Democratic Party has done just about everything humanly possible to help Bush get elected and succeed once in the White House. The cockeyed political strategizing and artless antics of Al Gore and John Kerry, along with a flock of other hopeless Democratic losers, is, upon reflection, possibly the most self-destructive exhibition of dumb-bunny politics since Republicans thought they could defeat Franklin D. Roosevelt by bad-mouthing him and playing reactionary defense. The puerile behavior of Democratic members of Congress at Bush's fifth State of the Union address really sums up the abyss into which their party has lurched itself– with Rove's patient goosing. What Did She Expect?
Indeed, the Democratic over-the-horizon left couldn't even wait for the president to begin his address to disport itself. One of California's lefty-loony sympathizers, Rep. Lynn Woolsey, handed out to pathetic Cindy Sheehan, on the pledge of good behavior, the lone visitor's pass to which a member of the House of Representatives is entitled. It was like pressing a bottle of rot-gut into the paw of a San Francisco street bum and saying, "Now, promise you'll drink responsibly." Cindy's timing was, as usual, a little off, and 15 minutes too early she whipped off her hooded jacket, exposing her anti-war T-shirt, tried to drape a protest flag over the balcony rail and began braying her hard-line Marxist diatribe. Out she was marched in handcuffs, an unconvincing victim of police-state brutality.
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The president arrived, shaking hands all around – including of course with some of the camera-addicted Democratic lawgivers who have called him every dirty name in the book between howling for his impeachment. In light of what followed, the Democrats in the House chamber would have come off better had they behaved themselves and let incendiary Cindy keep right on doing her over-the-cuckoo's-nest worst.
Reflexes of Self-Destruction Poor Democrats, the president had them coming and going. The television lens revealed it all. Whenever Bush made a point – and he received 58 standing ovations by appreciative Republican senators and representatives – the Democratic side of the aisle sat on their hands, scowling for all the world like resentful funeral attendees who had been left out of the will. One can only wonder if they had the smarts to suspect the funeral might be their own, politically. What were they possibly thinking? There stood the president of the United States, saying all those things that had to have registered well with the overwhelming majority of Americans, and there sat the grumpy Democrats, aligning themselves on the losing side every time. They even outdid themselves when they leaped to their feet, applauding like crazy, when Bush reminded the country that Congress had rejected his attempt last year to save Social Security for the old folks.
This may have been the first time in American history that a major political party has had the stupidity to stand up in witness of its disdain for the elderly. Whatever happened to good, old "honor thy father and mother"? Hatred at Any Price What this illustrated was a political party gone so far off its trolley that it cannot wait to commit suicide publicly in order to gratify its hate lust for the opposition. It was reactionary politics at its rawest. There was a time when Republicans were regarded as the party of reaction. No longer. The leftist fanatics who have now hijacked the Democratic Party have stolen that canard all for themselves. There have to be, there must be, surely there are Democrats out there who have not lost their senses, who have not surrendered their decency, who have not cast aside all civility. They have a duty – not just to what's left of their historic party, but to the nation, which really does need a functioning two-party system – to do what it takes to rescue the Democratic Party from the kidnappers. What an opportunity is now presented to decent Democrats. It is rare indeed that one of the two great political parties has virtually destroyed itself, leaving the door wide open to rescue and reform by honorable men and women. Last Chance If Democrats of good will and sanity want to provide alternative programs, here is their big chance. Recent elections have shown they get nowhere attacking the character, hurling outright falsehoods and throwing temper tantrums. They are going to have to find a clear and worthy alternative course, articulate it without rancor and field candidates who care more for America than they do for self-aggrandizement. Will it happen? No, not until the far left has destroyed what remains of the party it has infected with a death virus. There is too much money behind the promoters of the left-over Marxist agenda, too many Democrats willing to take that money in order (they think) to stay in office, even while this is the quack medicine that is killing them politically. Just as the door is now wide open to Democrats to make a new beginning, it is also wide open to Republicans to forge a party with a base consistent with Republican values and broad enough to welcome all of the center-right within the nation's mainstream. It can be done. Bush has shown them the way, and his party would do well to listen as well as applaud. Dancing the Last Dance Will it happen? Probably, but nothing is for certain. In their death throes, the Democrats who have been so haughty and disrespectful may yet be able to squeeze out an electoral victory here and there. But what the world saw at the 2006 State of the Union address was the beginning of the Democrats' dance of death. It is noteworthy that the dictionary describes such a dans macabré as "tending to produce horror in a beholder." For Democrats, Republicans and Independents alike it was, indeed, a horror to behold. Like death, not everything about rebirth is always pretty. John L. Perry, a prize-winning newspaper editor and writer who served on White House staffs of two presidents, is a regular columnist for NewsMax.com. Read John Perry's columns here.
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