California Conservative

It isn’t often that I get to tell you that a Democrat in leadership has thrown in the towel but that’s what I’m about to do. It isn’t that this Democrat has said that they’ve thrown in the towel outright. But this ‘leader’ hinted at it nonetheless. Here’s a statement from a “congressional expert, followed by Harry Reid’s way of saying they’ve lost:

“I think Americans were expecting a great deal from the new Congress, and Congress has always been held in low esteem, but Congress really hasn’t delivered on what it promised, especially on Iraq,” said Paul Light, a congressional expert who is a professor at New York University.

Democrats in charge of Congress insist they have made progress on several issues, like increasing the minimum hourly wage and getting money for victims of the 2005 Katrina hurricane. They blame the Republican minority for a failure on others such as immigration, greater energy independence, and on negotiation of lower-priced drugs for Medicare.

“I’m not really much for polls,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. “We’re going to continue doing what we think is the right thing for the American public in spite of a White House and the Republicans who are stalling every step of the way.”

Get serious, Harry. The day that Democrats stop relying on polling to determine their tactics and strategies is the day I’ll start watching for pigs flying in V-formation over my house. His line about “doing what we think is the right thing for the American public” is just as laughable. Let’s translate that quote using truth in advertising laws. Here’s that translation:

We’ll continue doing what we think will give us the most political capitol while whining about the Republicans’ partisanship.

Here’s another sign that they’re losing:

Democrats drew a line in the sand over Iraq in the spring, using a $100 billion war spending bill to try to force Bush to accept a troop withdrawal date.

The effort failed miserably, with Bush finally getting what he wanted with no strings attached, and the White House saw the fractious debate as taking time away from work on other priorities.

When Reuters talks about Democrats failing miserably, you know that Democrats have lost it. When Reuters says that, it’s a signal that they realize that they can’t defend the indefensible. When that happens, Democrats are forced to fend for themselves, which isn’t a pretty sight:

Democrats beg to differ, pointing out that under their stewardship the Congress has resumed its traditional watchdog role over an administration they feel got off scot-free under Republican leadership.

“I would say in the first six months, gauging how things operate here from the majority, that we had some important work to do,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California. “We had to drain the swamp. We had to create the oversight.”

Ms. Pelosi talks about draining the swamp but she isn’t credible. The truth is that what’s really happened is that they’ve drained the swamp of Republican corruption and refilled it with liberal corruption. As for the oversight part, you can’t have oversight without transparency. That’s something that David Obey has struggled with:

House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey first skirted the new rules by claiming no earmarks were contained in the supplemental appropriations. Last week, he decreed that henceforth, earmarks in his bills would not be revealed until a measure passes both the House and Senate.
———————————
Rather than including specific pet projects, grants and contracts in legislation as it is being written, Democrats are following an order by the House Appropriations Committee chairman to keep the bills free of such earmarks until it is too late for critics to effectively challenge them.

Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., says those requests for dams, community grants and research contracts for favored universities or hospitals will be added to spending measures in the fall. That is when House and Senate negotiators assemble final bills to send to President Bush.

So much for Democrats’ credibility in draining the swamp and changing course in Washington.

Last fall, I said that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi weren’t ready for primetime. Now I’m taking a minute to relax while I enjoy being vindicated. To be fair, though, it wasn’t difficult to predict.

Technorati Tags: Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, David Obey, Iraq War, Earmark Reform, Polling, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 10th, 2007 at 9:28 am and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Election 2008, Investigations, Media, Pelosi, Washington, DC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.