Scott Johnson of Powerline comes up with an excellent literary reference for an article by Michael Barone on Democratic obstructionism.
Bush’s press conference last week was very good — even though nobody saw it. What people will remember is that Bush has a plan for Social Security. The Democrats don’t. The Democrats have been threatening to shut down the Senate if they don’t get their way — and now they’ve backed off on that threat. There’s a very good reason for this: Bush knows that the Democrats are up against a wall. Shutting down the government nearly brought down the Republicans in 1994, and the Democrats have already been stuck with the obstructionist label. They know full well that if they take this conflict for the next level it’s only going to hurt them.
The Democrats don’t have a plan. The Republicans do. The public recognizes that Social Security is in a crisis. In politics, the advantage is always going to go to the party that has an agenda, which is why the Democratic efforts at the politics of obstruction are going to come back to bite them.
