Democratic Leadership

I hope this isn't a harbinger of what to expect of Democratic leadership in Congress. Matthew Yglesias wants Democrats to not take any leadership on confirming or rejecting Bob Gates (he went to my high school, I can call him Bob).

My initial read -- subject to revision as we learn more -- is that they should take advantage of the presence of some hard-core wankers in their caucus. Blocking Gates is problematic. Giving Gates a seal of approval is also problematic. So, if Webb wins, let Gates come to the floor and let him be confirmed by 49 Republicans plus some combination of Lieberman, Ben Nelson, and Dick Cheney. That way Bush gets to keep running Bush's war Bush's way on Bush's say-so and Bush gets to keep reaping the blame when things keep going poorly.

So rather than take the lead and vote the way they feel, Yglesias is promoting an avenue that allows Democrats to be unaccountable. Because Gates is almost assured of being confirmed, they take no risk by actually voting for confirmation and if Gates' Iraq strategy doesn't work, they will have no blame. If Gates comes in and does a wonderful job, they can say they voted against him because of Bush's record of nominating cabinet members. No pain either way. I don't really see how this approach could be considered working with the President.

Then there's this little piece of non-leadership from Kevin Drum before the election on Tuesday.

Golly. You mean the Democratic document didn't have a whole section about exactly which taxes Nancy Pelosi wants to raise and by exactly how much? I wonder why? Kinsley then follows up this faux bumpkinism with a complaint that the Democrats also fail to present a plan for crushing the Iraq civil war, even though he admits one sentence later that neither does anyone else. If it weren't for the 800-word limit on op-eds, I figure the next paragraph would have been a complaint that Democrats lack a plan for turning water into wine.

Once again, the Democrats are afraid to actually say how they're planning on paying for their plans. Isn't this what they've been criticizing Republicans for for 6 years?

I don't know how to feel. I'm glad the Republicans aren't in charge of Congress any more because a divided government that actually has oversight works better than one party rule. On the other hand, I disagree with just about everything the Democrats stand for on the economic side of the table and it appears they will show no leadership whatsoever. They'll just try to position themselves to win the next election, which is what the Republicans have been charged with for the past 6 years. I guess I don't get how anything really changed.