California Conservative

Joan Venocchi has written an interesting column in this morning’s Boston Globe that’s worth fisking. Let’s get started.

Calling for a filibuster makes political sense for Kennedy, who is adored by every left-wing constituency in America. He isn’t running for national office; he can afford to stick to strict liberal principle. He wants to go down fighting. For Kennedy, a filibuster call mollifies the left at no political cost. It is also an attempt to make up for the obvious: He used the wrong tone and tactics during the hearings. Going after Alito as a bigot backfired. Forget about Mrs. Alito’s tears. The moment Kennedy was exposed for belonging to a discriminatory college fraternal organization, it was over. He lost the moral high ground.

I don’t think filibustering makes sense for anyone but if it did, it’d make the most sense for The Swimmer because Ms. Venocchi is right in pointing out that his national ambitions went out the window ages ago. Ms. Venocchi is wrong, though, when she says that Teddy lost the moral high ground when Kennedy’s membership in the Owl was exposed. It disappeared when Mary Jo Kopechne drowned near Chappaquiddick 3 decades ago. He never regained it after that.

The two Supreme Court vacancies that occurred after George W. Bush’s reelection demonstrate the importance of winning elections. Democrats should be focusing on 2006 and 2008. For once, they are being helped in their quest for electoral success by the GOP. The reign of Republican power is unraveling on several fronts, from Jack Abramoff to Iraq. National security is the only drum left for Republicans to beat. But Karl Rove’s scare tactics won’t work forever. The country, collectively, is smarter than Bush’s brain. It just needs time to think things through and an election day.

For all the supposed unravelling that’s happening, it isn’t noticeable in individual races. And as for Ms. Venocchi’s belief that “Karl Rove’s scare tactics won’t work forever”, it’ll work until Democrats start taking national security seriously. It’s obvious that people don’t trust Democrats on that issue. Poll after poll might show that people don’t like us being in Iraq but those same polls show alot different results when the subject turns to national security. And to steal Ms. Venocchi’s line, “The country, collectively, is” wise to the Democrats’ unseriousness on national security.

Diehard liberals will not change. The ones in Massachusetts are an especially stubborn crew, convinced of the righteousness of their cause and certain they will one day hold important positions in a Democratic White House. But if these would-be Cabinet secretaries and ambassadors in Cambridge and Boston are to assume their rightful posts, they need a winning cause, one that engages more than the left. Filibustering the Alito nomination won’t do it.

Assume their rightful place??? Ms. Venocchi sounds like a reasonable woman but that sentence is appalling. It also shows that, while she knows that Democrats can’t win with their current base, she hasn’t noticed that America is in a much different place than the Democratic Party of the Northeast.

Something that’s worth noting, too, is that, while the vote counts are relatively close, the things that Republican voters believe are substantially different than what Democratic candidates believe. It isn’t like there’s only a tiny difference in policy beliefs.

Cross-post at ConfirmationWhoppers

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 29th, 2006 at 8:21 am and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Judiciary, Liberals, Media, W. 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.