Commiting Political Suicide?

Does the Democratic Party want to lose the 2008 Presidential Election? After the past eight years of Neopublicrat rule by decree (actually, let’s make that 14 years with a Republican majority in both the House and the Senate) and the degree of disgust with our government by We, the People, it has been said that this year would be a banner year for the Democratic Party.

I really have to wonder about that. It seems as though they want to lose yet again this election cycle. Let’s just look at Obama’s rhetoric prior to becoming the presumptive Democratic candidate. He was truly sounding like an agent of change – one who wanted to effect changes that would champion the cause for the citizen/taxpayers of this country. He sounded like one who wanted to return the balance of power to We, the People and not to the big-moneyed corporate and “Christian” interests that have contributed to the more and fascist environment that has permeated our government since the “Republican Revolution” began in earnest in 1994 courtesy of Newt Gingrich.

Since he has assumed the “presumptive Democratic candidate”, it seems he has done a 180 on many of the positions that made me think he could be the real deal. He backed down on the FISA legislation and has now said he would consider “offshore drilling,” albeit in conjunction with other measures meant to conserve energy and to more earnestly develop alternative sustainable energy resources.

What the hell is going on here? It now sounds as though we are subjected to either hard-right Republican ideologies or Republican-lite. It’s my understanding with the FISA legislation that if the latest version had not passed the law would have reverted to what was in place – which seemed to work fine until we ended up with a bunch of despotic bullies pretending to be governmental leaders. With regard to the offshore drilling, I have yet to hear either of the presumed candidates address the issue of the nearly six million acres of federal land that the corporate oil interests already hold drilling rights to. This land has been leased to them for years and yet none of these lands have been explored. Why not? Try, just try, to find unobfuscated facts about these leases and it’s nearly impossible. I have been searching in vain using “the Google” in conjunction with “the internets” to find such info and have hit a blank wall. Guess I’m just not politically perceptive enough to figure out the correct “key words” to assist in such a search. I have tried “federal land leases to oil” and the myriad of variations I can come up with in my somewhat older, less agile mind. I remain unable to find this information in ANY format much less an easily digestible version. Try finding out pertinent basic information on just about anything about our government – it’s damned near impossible.

It makes me wonder if this is done deliberately by our grand high government poobahs to purposely keep us in the dark. Try writing a letter to a Congressman or to a Senator? I do on a regular basis – granted many of them are “form” letters that I am alerted to by various websites I subscribe to – but what’s interesting is that I only  receive acknowledgement on a somewhat regular basis from one of my representatives. At that, it’s always the same boilerplate “one-size-fits-all” constituent response letter that always ends “I hope all is well in *****.”

Just as sure as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west on a daily basis, this election year is turning out to be more of the Same S*it Different Day (SSDD) as the previous two federal elections (2000 and 2004). In those years, there were two selected candidates, both real “combat” veterans whose bravery under fire, courage, and honor to serve their country when their country asked them to whose service was demeaned by condescending hypocritical “Young Republicans.” These Yrs support Dubya’s War on Iraq but can’t be bothered to answer the call because they, like their heroes, Dubya and Darth, have better things to do. They think they can contribute better on the home front by emulating their phony and hypocritical leaders. Yellow elephants, indeed (which is truly an insult to elephants as they are very intelligent and sensitive mammals).

The sight of the chicken hawk Republicans at their convention parading around with their “Purple Heart Band-aids” sickened me more than I care to remember. How absolutely condescending and patronizing of the ideological “do as I say but not as I do” brain-dead sycophants. Kerry was disused, even though he was truly a “war hero” because he, upon returning to this country, dared to speak up against the war in Vietnam and he dared to throw his medals away. BFD – he threw his medals away – they were his – he earned them and he had the right to throw them away. He acted and spoke from his own experience, not from sitting in a think tank conjuring up reasons why we should go to war and stay at war.

Now, we come to Obama. The smears against him began in earnest months ago. They are reaching new lows for sheer stupidity – in fact, there are too many of them at this point to remember them all. Cokie Roberts uttered one particularly vapid one. She found fault with Obama and his family making a short trip to visit his family in Hawaii. Hawaii – according to Cokie – was inappropriate – because it was “foreign and exotic.” Forget the fact that hundreds of American service members died at Pearl Harbor in the 1940s or that Hawaii is one of the 50 states of this country. Cokie decided that Obama should have gone to Myrtle Beach. Myrtle Beach, quite honestly, is an expensive tourist trap. Oh, but, Obama should have gone there and forsaken his blood family who live in Hawaii.

So, where are the other Democratic Party leaders? Why aren’t they taking a few lessons out of the Rove Playbook and getting themselves booked on the Sunday morning news shows or holding press conferences taking the sleazy loudmouth jerk-offs of the Faux News on tit for tat? Why aren’t they speaking out, standing up, and going to bat for Obama? Why are they caving in to the idiots who got us into this mess and who refuse to accept responsibility for it? Why are they so afraid to call the Neopublicrats out for what they are – amoral and hypocritical sewer cretins?

They are conspicuous by their absence. It sticks out like a sore thumb. Where is Pelosi? Where is Reid? Where is Conyers? Where is Hoyer? Where are the other top Democratic leaders? Why, when they do say something do they  also praise McCain a la Bill and Hillary Clinton? Why are they doing this? For a while, I began to sense a sliver of hope that perhaps, just perhaps, we could save our country from the intellectual and moral abyss that we have slid into. I now have grave reservations.

Why does the Democratic Party, yet again, want to commit political suicide? Will anyone tell us?