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Now, the other way around - Democrats selling out their positions and supporters to give the Republicans what they want - happens all the time. But I can't think of a single instance in recent memory where the Republicans returned the favor. - JoeMommaSan
To be more precise, I'd say: Democrats selling out their [purported] positions and supporters to give the [Republican or Democratic] president what he wants. [As Psychlist rightly noted.]
And "Democrats selling out their positions" should probably read "Democrats selling out their party platform" - because where else do these "positions" ever get clearly stated or affirmed, if even there?
What their supporters assume about the Democratic Party is largely just that - projected assumptions, often based on myths of old (from say FDR's legacy) and cynical marketing slogans, that are devilishly hard to shatter for loyal Party members despite the overwhelming, cold, hard evidence of another, unstated Democratic agenda (even if it's simply an agenda by default as dictated by a president), the results of which Glenn's post itemizes in detail. Notice too, how it's never about doing the right thing for the right thing's sake - instead it's just about what the rest of the world thinks about us (our "moral stature" in the world as opposed to honoring our founding ideals). Good thing they - the rest of the world - still have principles, or we'd have no reason at all to remedy our unprincipled ways, I guess...
But what are the causes of the results that Glenn highlights? Because in addition to accepting the reality of the actions of today's Democratic Party - whether run out of Congress or the White House under Obama - we need, I think, to understand how the Party (secretly) operates in Congress, so that we can attempt to thwart it or reform it in the most effective manner.
As I indicated yesterday, I think a huge part of the problem is the top-down domination of the strictly-segregated Party caucuses, and thus the Congress, by Party Leadership. Particularly when, as now, that Party Leadership worships at the feet of the American president. The Speaker is not a Party position, officially - the whole House votes for Speaker. But Pelosi effectively works to dominate the House through a handful of Party Leaders in both Parties whose jobs are to cram down leadership decisions on key matters with a minimum of dissent or rebellion (using Party favors and horse-trading as needed to accomplish the task). It may "get things done," but in the worst possible way, and with predictably egregious results, given the dangerously thoughtless, untransparent, and undemocratic manner of the legislation's creation, and its lack of vetting or careful examination by committees of jurisdiction and the public.
That closed-door, top-down, ends-justifies-the-means process is very much underway again today on the auto bailout. Yesterday, the first day back for the Senate in more than a month, Carl Levin introduces a bill he's had written in the interim to bail out the auto industry's largest American companies (for whom he is the unofficial spokesperson in Congress). Today, the Senate Banking Committee invites to a hearing the three CEOs to advocate for Levin's bill (the House will do the same tomorrow). Then, within a week - minus any committee hearings with disinterested, even semi-objective experts or any public input via mark-up from committee members - Harry Reid will force the Senate to vote on the measure, basically as is. All in an effort to 'cram down' an auto bailout in accordance with the wishes of the Party Leadership of both houses who have been personally, privately lobbied by the CEOs to do just that. It's the exact same process that was followed for the TARP Bailout, which committee members now spend their time and energy bewailing as they berate in pathetic futility the administration witnesses that their Party voted to empower - in accordance with Party Leadership dictates (including Obama's, probably helped by Emanuel) - to basically do as they please with our TARP money.
Next time anyone gets a chance to publicly rebut a Congressional Democrat lauding "bipartisanship," that Democrat ought to be asked if it isn't time for weekly Party caucuses in Congress to be merged - in the spirit of "bipartisanship" - and for committee strategy sessions to be attended by Republican ranking members in addition to Democratic Chairs. Watch them scurry for the exit when actual power-sharing in Congress is at stake, as opposed to the empty feel-good rhetoric that's deployed to obscure the bankrupt agenda of today's Democratic Party leadership. A bankrupt agenda that to-date, the rank and file of the Party refuse to repudiate in any meaningful way, because Party Loyalty and its campaign-financing power drive Congress, not the Constitution or the people.
[Sorry about yesterday's "Calc III textbook" effect, bystander - I rushed that one a bit and it shows. Hope this is clearer and not so confusingly over-elaborated. And yes, because the real Constitutional power of the federal government does lie in Congress, in one sense there's less to despair about in Obama's unpromising beginning than if one mistakenly believes that the president holds the real Constitutional power in Washington. But, of course, that simply leaves us confronting the dilemma of a Republican-admiring, presidency-worshipping Democratic Party hierarchy in Congress that we've come to know all too well since 2006... We need to focus on creating a Resistance movement inside the Democratic caucus, or, if need be (as seems increasingly likely), outside both Party caucuses.]
