{"id":32331,"date":"2024-03-15T11:44:52","date_gmt":"2024-03-15T18:44:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=32331"},"modified":"2024-03-15T11:44:53","modified_gmt":"2024-03-15T18:44:53","slug":"have-democrats-finally-stopped-wimping-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2024\/03\/15\/have-democrats-finally-stopped-wimping-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Have Democrats Finally Stopped Wimping Out?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Jackie Calmes\/Los Angeles Times<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"HaveRep. Adam B. Schiff questions special counsel Robert Hur on Tuesday, backed by a photograph of a bathroom at Mar-a-Lago where Donald Trump kept boxes of classified documents after he left the White House. (photo: Nathan Howard\/AP)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

14 march 24<\/strong> (RSN.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For years now, the single most common complaint I\u2019ve heard from Democrats is that their party doesn\u2019t fight as hard, and never<\/em> dirty, like Republicans do \u2014 they don\u2019t bring guns to a gunfight. Since 2016, I\u2019ve heard that rap from Republicans too: Never-Trump types express surprise and exasperation that their Democratic comrades in arms against the former president don\u2019t, well, take up arms politically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Democratic pols will concede as much: They worry about how they might come off to the poli-sci profs, pundits and civic-minded idealists. Their good-government bent is commendable. But getting bested repeatedly by the likes of Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell is not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201dOne of us is playing with a rolling pin, and the other is fighting with a gun,\u201d an aide to Senate leaders once told me, frustrated that Democrats were adhering to Marquess of Queensberry rules as Republicans busted norms to pack the federal courts. \u201cWe always bring a butter knife to a gunfight,\u201d longtime Democratic strategist Brian Fallon similarly groused<\/a> not long ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fallon felt that so strongly that Democrats were wimping out that in 2017 he co-founded a liberal activist group, Demand Justice, to give the left a more combative approach in judicial confirmation contests. He recently left the group for a job in the Biden campaign<\/a>, as the communications director for Vice President Kamala Harris. That\u2019s good: Democrats need scrappers, lots of \u2019em, and the ever-cautious Harris in particular needs communications firepower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even better signs of a more fired-up Democratic Party have emerged lately, just as Biden and Trump each secured<\/a> their respective parties\u2019 nominations Tuesday with wins in several states\u2019 primary contests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One sign was Biden\u2019s plucky<\/a> State of the Union address<\/a> last week, in which he took a baker\u2019s dozen shots at \u201cmy predecessor\u201d and parried House Republicans\u2019 taunts like a smiling Dark Brandon<\/a> come to life, shooting red lasers from his eyes. To hear Republicans carp afterward that Biden was too partisan gave new meaning to the pot calling the kettle black.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another indication of an amped-up Democratic offense was news<\/a> of a big $30-million Biden campaign ad buy, along with the president\u2019s busy stumping schedule in battleground states and the campaign\u2019s plans to hire hundreds of aides. The first ad<\/a> was a good one, too, featuring a lively Biden poking fun at his age, noting his achievements, drawing contrasts with Trump and, appropriately, promising \u201cto fight for you<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And on Tuesday came some evidence that other Democrats will have Biden\u2019s back. Those on the House Judiciary Committee came loaded for bear to the hearing that the majority Republicans held showcasing Robert Hur, a Republican and the former special counsel whose recent report<\/a> on Biden\u2019s handling of classified materials included damaging commentary about the president\u2019s age and alleged \u201cdiminished faculties.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The committee\u2019s Democrats, notably California Reps. Ted Lieu<\/a>, Adam B. Schiff<\/a> and Eric Swalwell,<\/a> appropriately focused less on Hur\u2019s asides about mental lapses and more on his report\u2019s conclusions that \u201cno criminal charges are warranted\u201d against Biden (compared to 41 felony counts<\/a> against Trump). And that despite Republicans\u2019 claims to the contrary, what Biden did with top-secret documents was in no way comparable to the far more serious allegations against Trump for conspiracy and false statements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The committee Democrats didn\u2019t ignore the issue of age and mental acuity; they simply turned it against Trump. Several of them came, yes, armed \u2014 with video montages of the former president\u2019s verbal flubs, slurred words and non sequiturs at recent MAGA rallies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Democrats\u2019 more typical lack of fight explains why Hur, a former Trump Justice Department official, was tapped as special counsel \u2014 by Biden\u2019s Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland \u2014 in the first place. Democrats, wanting to be seen as fair, keep giving Republicans a virtual monopoly on independent counsel jobs each time Washington decides it needs another high-profile investigation. Whether the person being investigated is a Democrat (Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton) or a Republican (Donald Trump), Democrats have supported having a Republican prosecutor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Republicans don\u2019t reciprocate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

David Brock, now a Democratic operative but notorious in the 1990s as a ruthless, right-wing scourge of the Clintons, a few years ago confessed to me his occasional irritation with his new party for its punch-pulling, say, by rejecting a line of attack as somehow unfair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow, that\u2019s nothing that I ever experienced as a young conservative,\u201d he told me. \u201cThere\u2019s a different ethic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRepublicans just want the result, they just want to get there, they want the win<\/em>,\u201d Brock added. Democrats, on the other hand, \u201cdo a lot of hand-wringing about how to get there,\u201d about whether they are being respectful of the \u201cprocess.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet, ask most Republican voters and they\u2019ll tell you that it\u2019s Democrats who are the dirty fighters, cheating in elections and weaponizing the government against their foes, chiefly Trump. Because that is what Trump tells them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s Republicans\u2019 dirtiest play of all. Lying to their own voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This election year will likely be as mean as any in memory. Here\u2019s hoping I\u2019m correct that Biden and the Democrats have sheathed the butter knives and shelved the rolling pins. It\u2019s not like Trump hasn\u2019t given them the ammunition for a gunfight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jackie Calmes\/Los Angeles Times Rep. Adam B. Schiff questions special counsel Robert Hur on Tuesday, backed by a photograph of a bathroom at Mar-a-Lago where Donald Trump kept boxes of classified documents after he left the White House. (photo: Nathan Howard\/AP) 14 march 24 (RSN.org) For years now, the single… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[977],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32331"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32331"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32332,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32331\/revisions\/32332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}