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SYNDICATED COLUMN: Excuses You Might Believe In

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Ted Rall

Democrats Are More Powerful Than Ever. How Will They Justify Doing Nothing?

The defection of Pennsylvania’s Arlen Specter and the imminent certification of Al Franken as the winner of Minnesota’s election recount has handed Democrats what they always said they lacked in order to pass a progressive agenda: a filibuster-proof majority in the U.S. Senate. Now they face the awful problem of coming up with new excuses for not doing anything.

How will Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and other fake liberals weasel out of making good on their promises for real action on healthcare, the economy and the war? It won’t be easy. They control both houses of Congress and the White House. Obama is about to fill a new vacancy on the Supreme Court. The Times of London writes that “Mr. Obama, by some assessments, has more political leverage than any president since Franklin Roosevelt in 1937″—at the peak of the New Deal, just before he overreached by trying to pack the Supreme Court.

The Republican Party, on the other hand, is suffering a crisis of faith—too much God-cheering and not enough adherence to core values like small government, fiscal conservatism, isolationism and protectionist trade policy. A mere 21 percent of Americans still call themselves Republicans, the lowest number since 1983. Similarly, reports the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, “just 21 percent say they’re confident in the Republicans in Congress ‘to make the right decisions for the country’s future,’ compared with 60 percent who express that confidence in Obama.”

Democrats have never been as powerful. Republicans are weak. Obama won with a decisive, sweeping rejection of the Republican status quo. Harry and Louise, call your agents—socialized medicine is on the way! Not.

Be careful what you wish for—what you say you wish for, anyway. “The left is going to push Obama—now that he’s got a veto-proof majority—to drive an agenda that a smart president would realize is a long-term political disaster,” GOP pollster Rick Wilson tells ABC. “Long-term political disaster” is mainstream media code for “stuff that corporations hate.”

Well, yes. What passes for the left in this country (center-right everywhere else, because they read) now has some not-unreasonable questions for Barack Obama. Such as:

Pretty please, can we now live in a country where people don’t have to spend $800 a month to health insurance companies that deny their customers’ claims?

Why are we still in Iraq?

How about some help for the victims of Katrina, many of whom never collected one red cent after losing everything?

Why are we paying billions to banks and still letting them gouge us with 25 interest credit card rates? Speaking of which:

How about doing something that might actually help people who live in the economy, rather than just capital markets?

These queries seem all the more relevant coming, as they do, from the liberal base of the Democratic party—the people who got Obama elected.

The trouble for our cute, charming prez is that he has no intention whatsoever of introducing a true national healthcare plan: one that covers everybody for free. He wants to expand the war in Afghanistan and drag out the one against Iraq. He will not punish Bush or his torturers, rescue homeowners in foreclosure, or nail scumbag banks to the wall. These changes would cost trillions of dollars to multinational insurance companies, defense contractors and other huge financial concerns who donate generously to candidates of both political parties and have a history of using their clout to manipulate elections in favor of their favorite candidates. A classic example is oil companies, who push down gas prices before elections in order to help Republicans.

The most that Democratic voters can expect from Democratic politicians is incremental, symbolic change that doesn’t cost their corporate sponsors any serious coin. The New York Times marked Obama’s 100th day in office with an editorial that approvingly encapsulated his accomplishments to date: “He is trying to rebuild this country’s shattered reputation with his pledge to shut down the prison camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, his offer to talk with Iran and Syria, and, yes, that handshake with Venezuela’s blow-hard president, Hugo Chávez…The government is promoting women’s reproductive rights. It is restoring regulations to keep water clean and food safe. The White House has promised to tackle immigration reform this year.”

Trying. Promoting. Has promised.

Guantánamo isn’t being closed; it’s being moved. Gitmo’s detainees will be transferred to a new harsher gulag under construction in Afghanistan. Thawed relations with Iran and Syria would create new business opportunities for big oil. Defending the right to an abortion is popular and doesn’t cost Bank of America a dime. Immigration reform is code for legalizing illegal immigrants, not closing the border. Safety regulations reassure consumers and pump up the economy. Closing the border would raise wages. Corporations won’t allow that.

Unfortunately for Obama’s Democrats, small-bore initiatives only go so far, especially with the economy in meltdown. When people are desperate and angry they don’t care as much about flag-burning or creationism or a handshake with Hugo Chávez. They want action—real action.

How will the Democrats avoid genuine change now that they enjoy the ability to enact it? Will they blame obstructionist Republicans? Will Democrats cross the aisle to vote with the Republicans? A new war, perhaps?

If nothing else, whatever dog-ate-my-homework excuse they come up with for sitting on their butts is bound to be amusing. If nothing else.

COPYRIGHT 2009 TED RALL

Kick Back and Relax

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Ted Rall

Liberal bloggers and pundits say they’re taking a breather after eight years of Bush. After all, everything’s perfect now!

The Last Republican

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Ted Rall

Why, with overwhelming majority control of Congress, are Democrats still sucking up? Because it feels natural.

Once Fearsome Enemies

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Ted Rall

Now that they’ve been defeated, the same Republicans who called liberals anti-American traitors are talking about the benefits of bipartisanship.

Gloating Must Be A Republican Thing

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Ted Rall

It would only be fair, after all the disgusting insults progressives have received from right-wingers over the last eight years, to gloat. But it’s so boring!

SYNDICATED COLUMN: Give War a Chance

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Ted Rall

Time for Democrats to Get Mean

“All of us feel it. There is a sickness in the American political system, a withering of the public faith in government that is so essential to our democracy. This has always been a country of rough political rhetoric. But the personal viciousness, the haste, the ideological shrillness are worse now than for many years.”
—Anthony Lewis, New York Times, 1-29-96

Anthony Lewis obviously lives in a different world from the rest of us. Where I live, the main problem with the two-party system is a general absence of personal viciousness. Forget posturing on trivial matters like the budget impasse. On issues that really affect Americans on a day-to-day basis, Democrats and Republicans are in complete agreement.

Both parties agree that at least 6 percent of American workers should be kept systematically unemployed in order to keep inflation down. The parties of Jackson and Lincoln both favor tax cuts for the rich, a less-progressive tax structure and unregulated free trade.

Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans favor restoring the college direct-grant system. Neither favors improving mass transit. Neither really accepts the existence of global warming, much less feels the need to do anything about it .

This evil spirit of bipartisanship poorly serves citizens who disagree with the Uniparty’s mad rush to an illusive center.

Citizens of European-style parliamentary democracies have dozens of distinct political party platforms to choose from, ranging from extreme left to extreme right. In France or Italy, for example, Socialists don’t do lunch with Christian Democrats. They don’t sleep together either, à la Matlin and Carville. Ideology is serious business there, and voters are better represented.

Accepting for the moment that our wretched nation is limited to two parties, we have the right to at least expect two distinct stances on most issues.

The wimp-owned and -operated Democrats are particularly responsible for the current one-party system. As demonstrated by Clinton’s pathetic groveling for common ground with the Republicans in his State of the Union address, Democrats parrot pro-business Republicans on virtually every issue. Perhaps most unforgivably in a country that worships macho posturists, they never fight back when the GOP slanders them. All of the most outrageous televised attack ads of recent decades have been Republican ones–Nixon comparing McGovern’s national health care plan to socialism and Bush’s overtly racist Willie Horton ad come to mind first.

Even if the Democrats aren’t interested in rescuing themselves from their string of one-term presidencies, they owe the country some seriously aggressive ideological shrillness. In the interest of public service, here’s what I’m talking about:

ATTACK AD 1: “They Hate You” (30 seconds)

Show cameras sweeping across sea of white faces at Republican National Convention, interspersed with Ku Klux Klan rallies, Nazis goose-stepping, blacks being attacked by dogs in the South, cross-burnings, piles of bodies at Auschwitz, and then panning across Republicans in Congress, especially Jesse Helms.

VOICE-OVER: America’s Republican Party. They’ve come a long way since Lincoln, haven’t they?”

TEXT: Anti-welfare. No funding for AIDS research. Anti-affirmative action. Against raising the minimum wage.

VOICE-OVER: “Republicans hate ordinary people. They hate blacks. They hate gays. They hate women. They hate people who work for a living. The odds are, they hate you. And why shouldn’t they? You’re not like them. They’re rich. Powerful. Mean.”

Show George Bush golfing and Bob Dole at a black-tie dinner. Cut to exclusive estates in wealthy suburb.

VOICE-OVER: “If you don’t live like them, don’t vote like them. This message sponsored by the Democratic National Committee.”

ATTACK AD 2: “Domestic Violence” (30 seconds)

Show shots of O.J. Simpson being tried for murder, photos of Nicole Simpson with bruises on her face. Cut to shots of Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole. Then show all four men’s faces together, “Brady Bunch”-style.

VOICE-OVER: “What do these four men have in common? They treat women like crap.”

First, zero in on Reagan.

VOICE-OVER: “Ronald Reagan was accused of showing up drunk at a young starlet’s home back in the 1950s and raping her. Later, when he got married, he abandoned his first wife, Jane Wyman, and let his son Ron, Jr. live on food stamps rather than help him through college.”

Next, show Gingrich.

VOICE-OVER: “Newt Gingrich served his faithful first wife with divorce papers in the hospital while she was recovering from a cancer operation. Why? Because she wasn’t flashy enough for him to be seen with in Washington after he became a big-shot. Then she had to take him to court to force him to pay child support.”

Then show Dole.

VOICE-OVER: “Bob Dole? He dumped his first wife too. So the next time some Republican starts talking about family values, remember what kind of family values he’s talking about. America’s Republicans: Anti-woman. Anti-child. Anti-family. Paid for by Democrats to Re-elect President Clinton.”

Now there’s some ideological shrillness to make American politics exciting again.

(Ted Rall, author of Waking Up In America (St. Martin’s Press, 1992) and All The Rules Have Changed (Rip Off Press, 1995), is a syndicated editorial cartoonist and freelance writer.)

© 1996 Ted Rall All Rights Reserved

SYNDICATED COLUMN: So Much for Democracy

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Ted Rall

Is a Clinton Victory Worth the Cost?

My involvement with the Democratic Party started at age 9, when my mom took me along to pass out McGovern-Shriver leaflets door-to-door in our solidly Republican neighborhood. “The Democrats,” my mother explained, “are the party of the people. Republicans only care about rich big-shots.” Nothing I have seen since 1972 has contradicted the latter part of that summary of our two-party system. Watching my mom’s enthusiasm while she tried to reason with our neighbors and dialed number after number in the dingy campaign headquarters in downtown Dayton convinced me that there really was a chance of ousting President Nixon—a man, who all attempts at historical revisionism notwithstanding, was the devil. My fourth-grade class held a mock election that fall. There were 32 little Nixonites to my one Democratic vote.

I quickly learned that, in America, Democrats usually lose, even when they win. Jimmy Carter squeaked by Ford in 1976—an astonishing fact when you consider the unelected incumbent’s corrupt pardon deal and idiotic demeanor—and never enjoyed a mandate to act like a real Democrat. The great Reagan defense build-up actually began in 1978 under Carter, along with draft registration and the U.S. refusal to attend the 1980 Olympics because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. I was convinced that Carter lost in 1980 because these compromises had lost him his party’s liberal base, but I still worked for Mondale and Dukakis as they continued to pursue watered-down liberalism, organizing college students and dodging New York cops while wheat-pasting posters in the subways.

The capitalism run-amok excesses of the Reagan and Bush years made it easier to be a Democrat again—by the time 1992 rolled around, there was nothing more important to the country’s political and financial health than getting George Herbert Hoover Walker Bush out of the White House. The day after the election, a reporter called me to ask my reaction. “I feel like an evil cloud has lifted from the country,” I told him as I scribbled file labels at one of my three jobs. “Americans have rejected the idea that caring about other people is a sign of weakness.” I really did feel that way.

Which brings me to November 5th, when I will not be voting for Bill Clinton.

I am personally better off than I was four years ago, but the country has continued to go to hell. The reasons are simple. Given the first chance in a century to get national health protection passed, he blew it by proposing an outlandish scheme designed to protect insurance-company profits. Then he signed NAFTA and GATT, treasonous free trade deals that sell out American workers for the benefit of his corporate pals’ bottom lines. Even Reagan and Bush never pushed hard on NAFTA. To be sure, he did the right thing by sending troops to Bosnia, but he waited so long that the people they were sent to protect were all dead by the time they got there.

Clinton’s 1995 copresidency with Newt Gingrich was an embarrassment, but the last straw was his cynical election-year betrayal of the poor by eliminating welfare without creating the jobs to replace it.

My friends argue that a vote for Ralph Nader or Ross Perot—or for that matter, opting to stay home and watch TV—is a vote for Bob Dole. In a rigid two-party system, they’re right, but so what? Even if there were a chance that Dole could be elected, he and Clinton are both essentially the same: Both are pro-business, pro-choice and deficit-obsessed. A Dole Administration might cost the nation a few progressive appellate judges, but on the issues that really matter, most Americans wouldn’t notice much difference.

Furthermore, casting a protest vote, or not voting at all, is an effective means of telling the mainstream parties that you’re not interested in what they’re offering. While low voter turnout allows “winners” to claim mandates at press conferences, they know that the truth is that their message isn’t selling. While it may mean supporting a “spoiler” in the short term, it can force the big parties to reevaluate their directions.

This year, voting for Clinton potentially tells him that you agree with everything he’s done so far when you’re actually voting for the anti-Dole. If you support NAFTA and guaranteed unemployment and making children homeless, fine. But our republic wasn’t intended to have voters support the lesser of two evils—or likely winners simply because they’re likely to win. If you substantially disagree with Clintonism, you have a moral obligation as a citizen to vote for someone else. If no other candidate else appeals to you, your duty is to stay home.

Some people may question how I could abandon the Democrats after all this time. But I never left the party—it left me.

(Ted Rall, a syndicated cartoonist and freelance writer based in New York City, was a 1996 Pulitzer Prize finalist.)

© 1996 Ted Rall, All Rights Reserved

SYNDICATED COLUMN: ‘Civil’ Democrats Defend Kemp, Dole on Morals

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Ted Rall

‘NEW YORK, August 32—In an active demonstration of his convention speech call for a new era of “civility,” yesterday President Bill Clinton (D-AK) took the unusual step of coming to the defense of his Republican opponents on moral issues.

“I have come under fire over so-called moral issues myself,” said Clinton, who survived the Gennifer Flowers and Paula Jones scandals and now leads the polls by twenty points. “This isn’t about partisan politics—I know how painful it is to have one’s private life overshadow one’s accomplishments in the public arena.”

Clinton then turned his conciliatory remarks to vice-presidential candidate Jack Kemp, who has been dogged by rumors that he attended a gay orgy in California ever since columnist Drew Pearson wrote about the incident in 1967. The episode became public when then-Governor Ronald Reagan fired a staffer who also attended the orgy in a remote cabin in the Sierra Nevada mountains. It has come up several times during this year’s campaign.

“The Democratic Party has always supported homosexual rights,” Clinton said in a hastily-called news conference held in front of the Anvil, a gay bar in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. “Is it so wrong to love another man? There is absolutely nothing wrong or immoral about a buff 32-year-old quarterback rolling around with a bunch of sweaty nude men in the middle of nowhere. It took great courage for the Republican Party to nominate the nation’s first openly, or closeted, as the case may be, gay, or bisexual, or whatever, vice-presidential candidate.”

“There will be those bigots who would otherwise have supported our opponents on the Dole-Kemp ticket this November but plan to vote Democratic instead because Jack Kemp chose to experiment with his sexuality three decades ago,” Clinton continued as a hand-picked crowd of transvestites and male prostitutes cheered. “Well, hear this—the Clinton-Gore ticket doesn’t want your vote! Just because Al and I have always limited ourselves to straight sex doesn’t mean that we don’t support Jack Kemp’s right to

rub his firm, tight, rippling biceps against the twitching thighs, supple buttocks and welcoming arms of a dozen men greased down with massage oil!”

Clinton also reaffirmed his party’s support of gay marriage.

“In fact,” the president concluded, “Jack Kemp and Bob Dole have every right to come out of the closet. If elected, I think they ought to divorce their wives and live together as man and wife—which would demonstrate that the Republicans are serious about deficit reduction by eliminating the expense of maintaining a separate residence for the vice president.”

Jack Kemp could not be reached for comment.

Meanwhile, while campaigning in front of the Grassy Knoll Bar & Grill in Dallas, Vice President Al Gore (R-TN) told an enthusiastic lunch-hour crowd of born-again Christians that it was time to “reach out” to Bob Dole, Newt Gingrich and other well-known Republicans who have gotten divorced.

“Ronald Reagan, a great president, divorced Jane Wyman before most people were even born. Newt Gingrich knew that marrying his high school math teacher would help him get the SATs he’d need to get into a good college, but when it came time to enter public life, that wife was no longer appropriate,” Gore said, his facial expressions alternating masterfully between sympathy and understanding. “So he divorced her in that hospital bed—but if he hadn’t done that, he wouldn’t be who he is today. Similarly, you won’t find any mention of Bob Dole’s first wife in his autobiography. Dumping the mother of his only child wasn’t an easy decision, but it gave him the opportunity to marry a woman who would one day run the Department of Transportation!”

A well-dressed heckler screamed out: “What about Bill and Hill?”

“No!” Gore responded directly to the man. “It’s wrong to compare marriages along party lines. No one knows why Republicans get divorced while Democrats stay married, but we are all Americans. We are inclusive and we are tolerant and we are nice, and that means accepting lifestyles that we ourselves may not necessarily agree with. We’re bigger than a few sundry ‘til death do us parts.”

A Dole spokesman replied: “It’s about time the Democrats started talking about family values.”

(Ted Rall, a syndicated editorial cartoonist and freelance writer living in New York City, is the author of The Worst Thing I’ve Ever Done! (NBM Publishing, 1996), a graphic novel depicting the true confessions of Americans’ worst crimes.)

© 1996 Ted Rall, All Rights Reserved.

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