Merry Democratsmas
With
all the gifts the Republicans have been giving Democrats lately, I think we should
change Christmas to Democratsmas. I know: there’s been a big hue and cry about
taking Christ out of Christmas, and here I am replacing him with Democrats.
That’s probably heretical to some. Others might say the energy and time spent
by the Christian Right boycotting stores with generic holiday messages is
heretical.
Instead
of censoring holiday expressions, shouldn’t the Christian Right be fighting the
poverty that has risen in leaps and bounds since President Bush took office?
Or, as one ex-Congressman put it, shouldn’t it be working toward putting Christ
back into war planning? Maybe someone took what’s right out of the Christian
Right.
That
brings us back to Democratsmas. New revelations about deceitful war planning
are among the great bounty of gifts the Republicans have showered on the
largely ungrateful Dems. Gifts like the indictments of key Republicans,
investigations into a dozen Abramoff cronies, and record-low presidential
approval ratings. Gifts like Katrina evacuees, on the eve of the holidays —
excuse me, on the eve of Christmas — sweating the housing subsidies that a stingy Administration and
Republican-controlled Congress seek to end.
But
do Democratic leaders use these to their advantage? Do they unwrap these goodies
and hold them up for the all the world to see? Do they build a coherent case
against the Republicans? No.
For
months leading up to Democratsmas, Dems have been acting like greedy children,
tearing open one gift after another and tossing them in a heap. And they whine
and complain like spoiled brats.
“Get
out of Iraqnow or I’ll hold my breath ’til I turn
blue,” they say. And, “I didn’t want to vote for the war; they tricked me.”
Yes,
they’re right; we have to get out (though I’d argue for a gradual withdrawal.)
And Congress was tricked. It did not have at least two crucial bits of
information that Bush had in the buildup to the war, according to recent
reports. One was the early discrediting of our source on the so-called mobile
biological weapons labs and the other was a report, presented to Bush 10 days
after 9/11, which showed Saddam was not involved in the attacks.
But,
really. If the Dems would just stop throwing tantrums and look around the room,
they’d see that we were all tricked.
And we’re mad about it. Dems are too busy backpedaling and impatiently
demanding an early withdrawal from Iraq to hear the carolers.
This
season Americans are gathered around the hearth, singing as one, according to
recent polls, like never before. Our carols ring out across the land: We like
Bush less now than we did Clinton at this same time in his tenure. We think the
country is seriously off-track. We want Congress to ask more questions about
the president’s policy in Iraq. And, crucially, if an election were held today,
polls show, more of us would vote for a Democrat — any Democrat — than a
Republican. But the Democrats are throwing these advantages away.
If
Santa’s elves worked an extra month, they couldn’t make the pile of toys
Democrats have been handed: The rampant culture of ethics violations. The
no-bid contracts for hurricane and Iraq rebuilding. The disappearance of
billions of Iraq reconstruction dollars. The president’s recent portrayal of 11
Iraqi battalions (which was later discounted as optimistic to the point of
magical thinking).
To
help Democrats make the most of Democratsmas this year, I’ve reworded a popular
Christmas carol. Democrats everywhere: clip and save!
The
12 Days of Democratsmas
On the twelfth
day of Democratsmas the Republicans gave to me:
Twelve
Republicans under investigation,
Eleven Iraqi
battalions cowering,
Tens of
thousands of Katrina evacuees still not settled,
9/11 Report
recommendations being ignored,
$8 billion in Iraq gone missing,
Seven (or so)
secret sites a-torturing,
Six
Abramoff-bilked Indian tribes hurting,
Five golden
presidential vacation weeks,
45 million
uninsured Americans,
Three top
indicted Republicans,
Two thousand,
one hundred thirty-plus dead American soldiers,
And a
Constitution under siege.
Once
upon a time, a Democratic president handed the Republicans a smallish gift, a
little blue dress stained with a whisper of gossip. Just a rag, really. Did the
Republicans fuss and kvetch? No. They took that little dress and put on a show,
the likes of which this country had never seen. They mounted a five-year,
Broadway-style, big-budget spectacle. Hypnotized, the voters turned against a
popular president who had led us through a time of economic growth and
prosperity.
Face
it, what the Republicans had on Clinton is nothing
compared to what we have against them now. Democrats! Grow up, bundle up, and
head out into the cold, singing your song loud and clear.
This article appears in Dec 14-20, 2005.
