It's the Democrats, Stupid!

I sort of saw this coming, but I didn't think it would be so blatant. The Democrats have spent the last fifteen years as a minority party catering to the Republicans. Now that they have the majority in both houses and the White House, they're . . . catering to the Republicans (including the Blue Dogs, who in a sane world would have run as Republicans to begin with).

Via Jane Hamsher at Campaign Silo, this knock-out interview with Maxine Waters (D-CA):



Note particularly Waters' comments on the White House's stance:

WATERS: Well that may be difficult for Rahm Emanuel, because don't forget -- he recruited most of them. As when he was over in the Congress, in the leadership, Rahm Emanuel recruited more conservative members and based on some of the information I'm getting, they told them that they could vote the way they wanted to vote, that they would not interfere with what was considered their philosophy about some of these things. So, now the chickens have come home to roost.

Of course they did. Because Rahm believes what the Blue Dogs believe. What's to interfere with? And let's remember -- Rahm beat the shit out of progressives on the supplemental/IMF and on Waxman-Markey. It's not like he has a "hands off" policy.

And Andrew Sullivan takes a swing at the Dems on gay rights:

It's vital for the gay rights movement to understand that the Republicans are intent on discriminating against gay citizens at every opportunity in order to win votes from bigots. And the Democratic party's only interest in gay equality is getting gay money.

(Clinton saw the money angle first and realized that the gay establishment was so desperate for any sort of recognition that he could get millions even while ramping up discrimination in the military and doing all he could to destroy our chances for marriage equality. And he intuitively knew that HRC's poobahs would worship him for it). Once you disillusion yourself of any other fantasies, it all gets easier to explain. None of the leading Democrats really believes that our civil rights are being trampled on; including president Obama, who has still achieved nothing substantive whatsoever for gay Americans.

I'd like to take Sullivan's comment on Obama one step farther -- not only has Obama not achieved anything substantive for gay Americans, he's said point-blank that he's not even going to try: he's leaving it up to Congress.

(As I've noted before, I -- and many others -- lay this at Rahm Emanuel's door. What surprises me is that Emanuel represented a very liberal, heavily gay district in Chicago, but got burned by the Clinton DADT debacle. And he hasn't figured out yet that it's not 1994 any more. It's just another example of how Washington works: screw your constituents, it's all about the Club.)

What it boils down to is that the Repubicans still have a majority in Congress -- it's just that a lot of them are calling themselves "Democrats."

Update: Here's a post by Publius at Obsidian Wings on one way to deal with the Blue Dogs. I wonder if anyone in Congress or the White House has any interest in doing that.