Dems Long For The Good Old Days

The good old days for them, that is. I was just a little tike at the time but I was old enough to recall that 1974 was a horrible time for the nation. America had not yet reached rock-bottom (that was still to come in the form of the disasterous Carter Administration), but things were generally sucky.

For Democrats in Washington, however, these were the salad days of the party. You had Vietnam, Watergate, and a coming gathering of Congressional strength in the wake of these events. Michael Barone writes this morning about how Dems see 2006 through the prism of 1974. For them, Iraq is Vietnam, Fitzmas is Watergate and they are predicting a major shift in power come November.

Unfortunately for them, it's not quite turning out that way. The CA-50 special election was not a harbinger of a Dem takeover in the works, Iraq is a mission that is succeeding more every day (especially now that the Z-man has been terminated) and Fitzmas just flopped worse than they could ever imagine. All in all, a pretty lousy week for the Donks.

Barone observes:

"Historians may regard it as a curious thing that the left and the press have been so determined to fit current events into templates based on events that occurred 30 to 40 years ago. The people who effectively framed the issues raised by Vietnam and Watergate did something like the opposite; they insisted that Vietnam was not a reprise of World War II or Korea and that Watergate was something different from the operations J. Edgar Hoover conducted for Franklin Roosevelt or John Kennedy. Journalists in the 1940s, '50s and early '60s tended to believe they had a duty to buttress Americans' faith in their leaders and their government. Journalists since Vietnam and Watergate have tended to believe that they have a duty to undermine such faith, especially when the wrong party is in office."

Perhaps if Democrats tried looking forward instead of miring themselves in nostalgia for the past, voters wouldn't be so hestitant to entrust their future to them.

Naahh.

Posted by: Gary at 11:00 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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