Democrats Gone Wild

As I have pointed out before, the Democrats ran their 2006 congressional campaign on "a new direction in Iraq" and fiscal responsibility. Between the election and taking office, Speaker-elect Pelosi promised that she would keep a lid on direct attacks on the President. The goal was to show that the Democrats are ready to govern the country.

Less than five months after they assumed control of Congress and things are a mess. Committees are investigating the Attorney General and now one is investigating the claim that Saddam was trying to get yellowcake. uranium and is planning to subpoena Secretary of State Rice.

Articles of impeachment  of both the President and the Vice-President are being prepared.

On Iraq, the House originally tried to appear fair by giving Bush a year and a half to stabilize Iraq before withdrawing the troops. The Senate called for a less-than-reasonable 12 months. The compromise calls for a pull-out starting in five months and ending in 11.

In order to pass the Iraq deadline, the Democrats abandoned all pretense of fiscal restraint.

Speaker Pelosi herself went to Syria to offer a "Democratic-alternative foreign policy".

This will end badly for the Democrats. They are paying too much attention to Bush's approval rating and not enough to their own. While Bush's ratings are low, there is nothing to indicate that the country is thrilled with the job that the Democrats are doing, either.

Congress is considering a bill co-sponsored by Barack Obama that would allow people to sue for comparable worth.

Here's where they are going wrong:

They may yet get the head of the Attorney General, but their investigation into the yellowcake claim is futile. The British already investigated this and found that there was credible reason to assume that Saddam tried to purchase some. Even Ambassador Wilson admitted this when under oath.

The Democrats  may have enough votes for impeachment but they are a long way from enough for a conviction. They have no cause except spite and too many years of listening to their own propaganda. The attempt to impeach Clinton helped him and made the Republicans look petty. It is unlikely that this will come out any better.

Republicans are starting to quote troops in the field as saying that Congress's antics hurt them. The Democrats in Congress are unwilling to get progress report from the generals in charge. They are leaving themselves wide open to the charge that they cannot be trusted with the nation's security. I suspect that many Democrats are supporting the five month pull-out because they know it will will be vetoed and they need to satisfy MoveOn. There is no way to interpret the five-month pull-out as anything but a non-binding surrender by Congress.

Foreign policy is set by the President and the State Department. The House has no say at all in the process.

Finally, comparable worth never gained traction when feminists first pushed it. The idea of having a trial judge set your pay strikes at the heart of free-enterprise. Even most feminists gave up on it as study after study proved that women make less because they value other employment factors over pay.

I will be very surprised if any of this goes anywhere. Most likely it will turn into a train crash that the Republicans can use in 2008.

I wonder if Karl Rove is behind it?