On the Contrary

I was watching one of the news media shows where they had a balanced panel of commentators discussing whether it would be to the Democrats advantage or disadvantage to push for investigations of the Bush administration (torture, wire tapping, leaking classified information to the press).  I put balanced in italics because each of these commentators is a mouthpiece for their particular political persuasion.  That means that everything they say is crafted to make their party affiliation look good, so very little honesty goes on here.  But what you do hear is the conventional wisdom of Washington.  That is, what is the incestuous Washington talking heads thinking is reality.  On this particular day, the conventional wisdom is that this would be bad for the Democrats to hold the Republicans accountable for breaking the law.  It would hurt their agenda.

I think they have this so wrong as to be almost stupefyingly ignorant.   Their thought (a rare agreement among the whole group) is that it would detract from the Democrat’s agenda of health care, energy, and the economy.  Now for the conservatives on the panel, this position is very self-serving.  Why would they want to expose the depth of their depravity?  But as usual, the Democrats on this panel are about a mile behind the public and fail to see a jugular exposed when they see it, much less know what to do with it.  And more importantly, they fail to see that their agenda means nothing if they don’t stand up for their basic beliefs in the law and our Constitution.

But here is the real crux of the issue:  The American people have been on this free ride where sacrifice and accountability have been eschewed for having it all now.  They are seeing the results, except for the Bankers and the wealthy, who have reaped the benefits of this system of short term gains.  They know this can’t go on.  They are looking for core values that give them hope for the future.  The Republicans are looking stranger and stranger as they try to maintain the status quo when most Americans are demanding change.  They have no plans for the problems that face us but to either deny them, or to block any attempts to fix them by the Democrats, which might look like success.  But if Democrats become more interested in their agenda than in their core values, they start to look like Republicans where the ends justifies the means.

The very essence of change in America will begin when we start standing up for our core principals, even when doing so might be painful.  And Americans are hungering for belief in something again.  What the Democrats are missing is that these investigations will expose the Republicans for the valueless party they are.  It will de-legitimize them in the eyes of most Americans.  It will actually make change easier in the future once Americans have been exposed to the crass hypocrisy of the present Republican Party and see a party that is willing to risk short term gains for the long term good when they stand up for their values.  It will establish the Democrats as the party of values and real change instead of just more of the same.  Most importantly it will reestablish the rule of law, fairness, and the supremacy of the Constitution, what America is really about.

I won’t fool you and tell you this will be easy.  I won’t tell you that some Democrats are not going to get mowed over in the process because they enabled some of this stuff.  But that is the whole point.  What is important is never easy and sacrifice is required.  Look at the health care debate.  The whole thing is revolving around being revenue neutral.  Why?  People hear revenue neutral and they think no sacrifice.  It is going to cost what it costs and we have to do it.  Pay for it with a surcharge across all wages and salaries.  It is a shared burden.  That’s a new concept.  The point here is that it is time for honesty and the American people are looking for leadership that embodies honesty.  When the Democrats say that their agenda is more important than honesty, they have put their agenda at risk.

There is one other side benefit of pressing forward with these investigations.  It may save the Republican Party from itself.  If you believe in a two party system, but both of the two parties are now in the Democratic Party with the Republican Party the lunatic fringe, then exposing the baseness of the Republicans and how the caved in to power will be the first step in helping them rebuild themselves.  Until the nation is forced to look at what they have wrought, and reject them totally, they will continue to pander to the psychos in their base, and not bring responsible plans to the table for our future.  Tearing them apart is the first step in healing this nation and restoring a responsible and viable Republican Party.

So as usual the Washington Press and the political pundits have it exactly wrong.  They are looking for the short-term gain, instead of the long term win.  But that has been both our politics and economic philosophy for the last 30 years.  I guess change is really very hard.  President Obama has fallen victim to this shot sightedness.  Hopefully he is starting to see the light.