E.J. Dionne: Dems "stop coddling" Bush

[Atman]

On Edit: My original post called Dionne a republican. I knew better, but I was thinking of someone else, and posted in haste. Sorry...the article is still good, though....

In the Hartford Courant it ran with the headline I use here, though the piece has a different head on the WP site...


Democrats Stop Coddling, Start Fighting Bush
by E.J. Dionne

The year 2003 will be remembered as the time when Democrats decided to fight back against George W. Bush after coddling and even embracing him in 2002. This whiplash will mean some surprising things for 2004.

It's hard to think of any other president who has gone so quickly from being so unifying to being so divisive. There was hardly a soul this side of Noam Chomsky who didn't support Bush for some time after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and didn't support the war on the Taliban in Afghanistan. Even Democrats who never conceded that Bush had legitimately won the 2000 election wanted to give Bush a chance to lead the country out of crisis.

<snip>

Republicans won in 2002, but Bush lost most Democrats forever. Conservative critics of "Bush hatred" like to argue that opposition to the president is a weird psychological affliction. It is nothing of the sort. It is a rational response to getting burned. They are, as a friend once put it, biting the hand that slapped them in the face.

<snip>

Here's what's interesting for 2004: The conventional wisdom, fed by shrewd Republican operatives and commentators, is that Democrats, so out there in their antipathy for Bush, will push their party into an extremist wonderland and lose white men, security moms and anybody else who does not share their desire for revenge.

The opposite is true. Democrats will not have to spend inordinate amounts of time or money in this election year "uniting their base." Opposition to Bush has already done that.

<snip>

More...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40029-2003Dec29.html

[SaveElmer]

1. E.J. Dionne is not a Republican

He is a well known left of center columnist.

[priller]

2. Foolishness of GOP "conventional wisdom"

I was hearing it all day yesterday as I was driving across Texas. Hoo-boy! (as we say down here.) It was non-stop gloating over the easy, assured victory Bush will waltz to in November. And Howard Dean is a radical lefty, out of touch with normal Americans, which are the "Nascar dads". The war in Iraq is going great, we're so much safer now with Saddam behind bars, he'll spill the beans of WMD any day now. Stuff like that, all day long.

If I'd had a cell phone with me, I would have called them and reminded them of an oft-quoted Bible verse, "Pride cometh before the fall." These guys are so cock-sure of themselves, they won't know what hits them.

[zbdent]

3. I still think that we are probably guaranteed 50 million, if the same

people who supported Gore (in the 2000 election, not the rest of the time) decide to defeat Bush again.

I am wary of reports of exoduses of Repub voters from Bush. They're still too much in love with their money to realize that the country is really going down the shitter.

The Akron Beacon Journal LTTE today had some (three-name) writer saying that Bush was his hero.

Funny thing, I did a phone search on the name, seems that none of the Jordans who live in Tallmadge have the same first name. Probably some kid in grade school who has been brainwashed. Had all the RW keywords.

Hang on to your barf bags - http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/editorial/letters/7596748.htm

[MasonJar]

4. What a perceptive analysis.

Dionne got one thing square in the center. The Democratic candidate will not have to win most of the anti-Shrubs over. Anybody but Bush is now my middle name. I'd sooner vote for a can of worms. A one celled plant on the ocean bottom wouldn't savage the earth like Whistle-ass, making it more vital.

[KoKo]

5. Kick! This is an excellent response to WaPo's other article on Dem's Hate

for Bush that's posted here in Editorials.