Base Dogma

[nobody]

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007849

Base Dogma
Left-wing bloggers observe the Alito hearings from an alternative universe.

BY DAN GERSTEIN
Sunday, January 22, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST

It's hard not to listen to the reviews of the Democrats' performance in the Alito hearings and come away thinking that much of our party is living in a parallel universe.

Most of the political establishment has concluded that the Democrats were: (a) ineffectual; (b) egomaniacal; (c) desperately grasping at straws; (d) downright offensive; or (e) some combination of the above. The American people, outside of those living in deep-blue enclaves, either were not paying attention or concluded that Sam Alito seemed like a pretty decent guy who was more than qualified. And if they saw anything about it on TV, they couldn't figure out why those pompous Democratic senators were trying to slam Judge Alito for being racist (and making his wife cry).

Yet the liberal blogosphere is agog at the way the Democrats let Judge Alito off the hook. And they're stupefied as to why the Senate Democrats are signaling that they won't risk triggering a nuclear confrontation with a filibuster. Postings on Daily Kos were typical. First, this comment from Georgia10: "Don't tell me a filibuster isn't warranted when 56% of this nation says Alito SHOULD be blocked if he'll overturn Roe. . . . I keep hearing . . . that we need 'angry' Dems, we need Dems with courage. We need Dems with courage. Well guess what--we HAVE angry Dems, we HAVE courageous Dems. Look in the damn mirror, people. WE are the party. WE are the Democrats. We're angry, we spit fire, and our time has come."

Then there was this response from one DHinMI: "Alito is a judicial radical and far from the national mainstream on numerous issues. . . . And with his anemic numbers, [Bush] wouldn't be able to count on much support from the country in ramming through the nomination."

There are many problems with this analysis. The most immediate is that even if you accept that the activist base's concerns are valid--that Judge Alito may in fact be a "judicial radical"--the Democrats simply didn't prove it. They certainly could not justify their absurd insinuations that he was a closet bigot. Their only sliver of evidence was his peripheral membership in a conservative Princeton alum group that opposed affirmative action and that he never was active in. That was it: no pattern of behavior, no Trent Lott-like public statements, no red flags. Beyond being reprehensible, this line of attack was degrading. It reinforced the leftover perception from pre-Clinton days that our party cries wolf on race when it can't win on the merits, and thereby lowered our credibility one rung more in challenging legitimate incidences of discrimination. Those who suggested to Ted Kennedy, et al., that this was a winning play should have their strategists' licenses revoked.

Nor could the Democrats back up their central claim that Judge Alito would bring to the court a wild-eyed conservative agenda bent on taking away our rights, especially those of women. Maybe he'll vote to overturn Roe, but there's no way a disinterested observer could come away from these hearings convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that he would. Indeed, I am an interested, pro-choice observer, and I couldn't say for sure how he'll rule based on the hearings. Yes, he indicated two decades ago that he thought Roe was wrongly decided (as have many other respected constitutional experts); but he was writing as a legal advisor to a pro-life administration, not as a judge. Far more recently, and relevantly, he has said he would not prejudge cases before they came to the court and that he would give great weight to precedent. It's little wonder that an ambivalent country that has twice elected a pro-life president and accepted pro-life leadership in Congress didn't flip its lid over the case against Judge Alito on abortion.

And that's the heart of the problem with our party and its angry activist base. It's not so much that we're living in a parallel universe, but that we have dueling conceptions of what's mainstream, especially on abortion and other values-based issues, and our side is losing. We think that if we simply call someone conservative, anti-choice and anti-civil rights, that's enough to scare people to our side. But that tired dogma won't hunt in today's electorate, which is far more independent-thinking and complex in its views on values than our side presumes.

That point was driven home in an incontrovertible analysis of the 2004 election results by Bill Galston and Elaine Kamarck. They found that the American polity has undergone a great shaking out, where conservatives now vote almost universally for Republicans and liberals for Democrats, and that Republicans have won the presidency twice in a row because they're doing a better job of pulling moderates/independents their way--in particular married women and white Catholics who are uncomfortable with the Democrats on values issues. Judging from the dreadful tack our party took in the Alito process, it's clear that we haven't yet internalized these political realities--most likely because our anger at George Bush continues to blind us to them. Many Democrats just don't want to acknowledge that he's president and is going to pick conservative justices--let alone that the two we got, John Roberts and Samuel Alito, are about as good as we could hope for.

This episode shows we don't have any leader in power who will tell our base that we're not going to become a majority party again by telling the majority they're out of the mainstream. We do badly need leaders with courage--the courage, that is, to push our party (to borrow a phrase) to move on, to accept that we can't win with the same lame ideological arguments in post-9/11 America, and that we must develop an alternative affirmative agenda that shows we can keep the country safer, make the economy stronger, and govern straighter than the ethically challenged Republicans. Then we can worry about picking the nominees instead of fighting them.

Mr. Gerstein is a former communications director for Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman.

I really do hope the dems wake up and offer something better in 08. How do they expect the republicans to need to come up with anyone better than Bush when the best they have to offer is Gore, Kerry, or (heaven forbid) Hillary?

[Truant]

did metanis hack your account?

[Marbus]

Personally I think it's a pretty interesting article and on track in many ways. I get a bad "feeling" about Alto but I haven't had time to read a great deal on him or watch the hearings. Something isn't right but this Democrat couldn't back up any claims. Yes I get MoveOn, Sojourners and many other liberal mailings but even reading those I didn't see a great deal of 100% credible evidence to defeat this guy... not sure whose fault that is, if he truly is a freak and closet bigot.

I'm not saying the autor is correct, but it is an interesting point to consider... and like Nobody said... I SURE hope we can muster someone before 2008 because I'm not planning on running until 2020 or 2024. Right now I couldn't get monitory support from my party or the Republicans I'd piss off the money guys in my party in regards to Guns, Jesus and Abortion (I'm anti-abortion but pro-choice with limits - which actually I think 80% of Americans are, and most Dems but those guys don't get the lip service like the ultra left wing freaks) and I would piss the Republicans off because I would increase taxes for the rich, lower taxes for the poor, figure out a way to stay our of everyone's business unless asked, force American corporations to commit to reducing Greenhouse gasses by 50% by 2015, at least start discussions on a national health care system and I wouldn't have Ultra freako Christians hanging out giving me money. They could give it to the poor... finally I would do EVERYTHING I could to push through TERM LIMITS to Senators (Ted Kennedy should have been gone a LOOOOONNNGG time ago) Those are the vaules I'm looking for but NO one seems to have them right now in Washington...

Cheers!
Marb