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Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, and Barack Obama, the leaders of our party, all took essentially the same position on the final FISA capitulation, which essentially boils down to 'it's not my responsibility to stop this horrible mess.' Whether it was Hoyer pushing the compromise, Pelosi encouraging him and calling it an improvement on the original FISA legislation, or Obama's radio silence when a word to Hoyer could have stopped this train in its tracks, this is the basic attitude that the Democratic leadership has had towards the Bush administration in general, even after winning in 2006. It's the attitude on display in 2007 during the war capitulation vote, during the Energy bill fight when Hoyer stuck billions in nuclear subsidies into an Appropriations bill, on net neutrality, on FISA in August, 2007, on impeachment, on military contractors, on Congressional subpoenas, on global warming, on immigration, on torture, on Federal budget priorities, and on basically every major policy issue that has come up this Congressional cycle.
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There were a few moments of genuine accomplishment - stopping Bush on Social Security in 2005, stopping John Bolton's appointment in 2006, working to uncover corruption in the Justice Department, preventing (until now) a war with Iran - but these have been entirely defensive. A few unexpected stalwarts, like Nancy Boyda, have shown themselves to be terrific, while the fighting Democrats of 2006 - Chris Carney, Joe Sestak, etc - and people like Jerry McNerney have proved to be better scolds than leaders.
Meanwhile, leadership on a Presidential level on core policy issues - war, torture, civil liberties - never really emerged, even though the country opened up and millions of people gave to Obama and Clinton as surrogates for change. Steny Hoyer and Nancy Pelosi backed Al Wynn for Congress, just as Obama is now backing John Barrow, FISA reactionary, in primaries.
The attitude is not a Republican 'damn the consequences' model, but it is one that illustrates a dramatic lack of leadership. Somehow, the risk profile of Democratic decision-makers has remained incredibly cautious and barren of willpower. And somehow, our strategies as activists have failed to gel with existing political decision-makers; the disaffected elites in the business and military worlds are not yet coming our way. There are reasons for hope, pilots, if you will, of a new type of politics - Glenn Greenwald has showed that there is the possibility of leading a different political paradigm, Martin Heinrich, Donna Edwards, Tom Udall, Tom Perriello, and Darcy Burner are putting leadership into their campaigns. The ACLU has become enormously effective in working with internet communities in a genuine partnership, and we are learning new tools and tactics. Bill McKibben's remarkable Step It Up has morphed into 350.org, a global movement, and audience share of the TV and radio barons is shrinking.
My hope for the next cycle is that we will see a scenario of rising expectations turn into frustrated expectations, and the public will have an appetite for more concrete ideas about change. Issues like FISA will go mainstream, just as the New Right turned the Panama Canal treaty in 1977 into a mainstream voting issue. After all, you can only claim it's not your responsibility to fix the mess for so long, if you ran on fixing the mess in Washington. |
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