A part of me is beginning to wonder.

Now, in this consideration, I am ignoring completely the presidential race, as none of the venom being used will exist in the fall when they unite under the Obama or Hillary banner.  We saw this after the lead up of the 2004 election, when Edwards had nothing nice to say about Kerry…until they were running mates, after which they were best friends for life.

First up, this from the WaPo:

 Democrats Blaming Each Other For Failures

When Democrats took control of Congress in January, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) pledged to jointly push an ambitious agenda to counter 12 years of Republican control.

Now, as Congress struggles to adjourn for Christmas, relations between House Democrats and their colleagues in the Senate have devolved into finger-pointing.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) accuses Senate Democratic leaders of developing “Stockholm syndrome,” showing sympathy to their Republican captors by caving in on legislation to provide middle-class tax cuts paid for with tax increases on the super-rich, tying war funding to troop withdrawal timelines, and mandating renewable energy quotas. If Republicans want to filibuster a bill, Rangel said, Reid should keep the bill on the Senate floor and force the Republicans to talk it to death.

Reid, in turn, has taken to the Senate floor to criticize what he called the speaker’s “iron hand” style of governance.

Now, children…

In the past few weeks, the House has thrown wave after wave of legislation at the Senate — on energy, Iraq war policy, the housing and mortgage crisis, and middle-income tax cuts offset largely by tax increases on the wealthy.

Most of it has died quietly, a predetermined fate that both sides could foresee before the first vote was cast. Yet they went ahead anyway. Just last night, the House, for a second time, passed legislation to stave off the growth of the alternative minimum tax, to be paid for by a measure to stop hedge fund managers from deferring compensation in offshore tax havens. Like the previous House version, it has virtually no chance of passing in the Senate.

Officially, House Democrats blame Senate Republicans, who have used parliamentary tactics to block even uncontroversial measures. But they are increasingly expressing public frustration with Reid and Senate Democrats for not putting up a better fight.

The nutroots are vocally angry with the democrats for not having ended the war already, and that I would imagine has fueled some of this resentment and angst. 

The Democrats know that they ran on a platform of change and progress, and promised to be a different style of government, the Nancy Pelosi “New Direction” congress.  And now a year later they continue to look like the same old mess.

Say what you want about what the Republicans did in their 12 years.  Not all their decisions and bills were smart, in my opinion.  But they did something.  They managed to do a lot, for good or ill.

So the claims that the Republicans are the problem cannot hold water…unless…

…Unless the Democrats had the same power to hold back bad legislation they opposed, but chose not to for political investment.  Let the Republicans be damned by their own greed.

The only other possibility is that they were in cahoots with the Republicans and won’t admit it.

Wouldn’t it be ironic if the 12 years of Republican control actually ended up being the most cohesive government?  I’d die laughing, but I know it isn’t the case.

In reality I think the Democrats liked where the Republicans were going and willingly rode along.

The WSJ says:

Democrats in the House interpret the 2006 elections as a mandate for change. They are more antiwar and more willing to shed old ways — such as “earmarks” for legislators’ pet projects — to confront the White House. Senate Democrats, by comparison, remain more tied to tradition and institutional rules that demand consensus before taking action.

“The Senate and House are out of phase with one another,” says Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. “There was a big change last year, a big change that affected the whole House and one-third of the Senate. That’s the fundamental disconnect.”

But wait….some of the finger pointing is contrived?

Sometimes the disputes resemble play-acting. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) has quietly invited House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Cal.) to blame the Senate if it suits her purpose to explain the slow pace of legislation, according to a person close to Sen. Reid.

At the same time, he can use her as his foil to fend off Republican demands in the Senate: “I can’t control Speaker Pelosi,” he said last week in debate on an energy bill. “She is a strong independent woman. She runs the House with an iron hand.”

So maybe not all the outrage is real…And expect the Republicans to use this:

On the Senate floor yesterday, Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn said Democrats were showing signs of “attention deficit disorder.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, accused the new majority of being more interested in “finger pointing” and “headlines” than legislation. “It won’t get bills signed into law,” he said.

The fact that the Iraq war is doing well has been a major setback, with democrats repeated trying to stem reality with the same old losing mantra.  Critics of both sides are upset.

Our view on war in Iraq: Surge’s success holds chance to seize the moment in Iraq

Instead, Democrats are lost in time, Bush lowers the bar for Baghdad.

Iraq remains a violent place, but the trends are encouraging.

U.S. and Iraqi casualties are down sharply. Fewer of the most lethal Iranian-made explosive devices are being used as roadside bombs.

Nice to see that being acknolwedged…

In community after community, Sunni groups who were once in league with al-Qaeda have switched sides and are working with the U.S. forces.

On the Shiite side of Iraq’s sectarian chasm, something similar is happening. About 70,000 local, pro-government groups, a bit like neighborhood watch groups, have formed to expose extremist militias, according to Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations.

But as much as facts have changed on the ground, little seems to have changed in Washington. There are plans to withdraw some troops next year, but there is no clear picture of the endgame in Iraq.

Well endgame is premature still.

How long will troops be needed? Exactly what do we expect success to look like? Will we leave behind a permanent presence?

None of the answers are any clearer than they were when the news began improving. In fact, they seem fuzzier.

On the Republican side, the White House has been busy making excuses for the Iraqi government’s failure to move toward national reconciliation (which is the goal of the troop surge), and it has lowered the benchmarks for success to the level of irrelevance. That translates into reduced accountability, continued dependency and an open-ended commitment. Lowering the bar for the Iraqi government sends a message that Baghdad can enjoy security paid for in American lives, and reconstruction aid paid by America’s taxpayers, and ignore its responsibilities.

Congressional Democrats, meanwhile, seem lost in a time warp. They could try to impose new benchmarks that acknowledge the military progress. Instead, too many seem unable or unwilling to admit that President Bush’s surge of 30,000 more troops has succeeded beyond their initial predictions. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who in the spring declared the war lost, said last week that “the surge hasn’t accomplished its goals.” Anti-war Democrats remain fixated on tying war funding to a rapid troop withdrawal. Yet pulling the troops out precipitously threatens to squander the progress of recent months toward salvaging a decent outcome to the Iraq debacle.

And that lies the real issue.  Will the Liberals sandbag the success in Iraq on their Anti War principles?  With the most realistic positive aspects yet, will they continue to to plan for defeat?

Another faux pass, though not as critical nationally, was the democrat disconnect over Christmas:

Nine Democrats vote no on House resolution marking Christmas

And all but one voted yes on the Ramadan resolution in October, as did nine other Democrats who voted “present” on this one. (Barbara Lee missed the earlier vote.) The boss blogged this much earlier but after knocking Tanc for voting “present” on the Ramadan resolution — which no House member voted against, do note — I’d be remiss if I didn’t flag this at HA.

Scrooges on the Hill: Saying no to Christmas resolution

From the office of GOP Rep. Steve King:

Congressman Steve King reacted this morning to the nine “NO” votes on his resolution to honor Christmas and the Christian faith. The vote shocked Capitol Hill observers because votes on similar resolutions honoring the holidays of Islam and Hinduism passed without any NO votes.

…

The nine Members voting NO were Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY), Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-NY), Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO), Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) (FL), Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA), Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA), Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA), and Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA). None of the nine voted against resolutions honoring the Islamic holiday of Ramadan and the Hindu holiday of Diwali.

Shameful to see one of mine in there, but Jim McDermott has been in left field a long time.

His excuse?  A waste of time and a protest vote:

Jim McDermott: I voted against the Christmas resolution because it only stated “obvious facts”

And also because it wasted precious congressional time.

Unlike those Ramadan and Diwali resolutions that he did vote for, I guess.

“Obviously, it’s a protest vote against Steve King,” the Iowa Republican who sponsored the resolution that passed 372-9, McDermott said. Democrats cast all the nay votes.

…

Rather than “wasting time on this stuff,” he said, people should be protesting President Bush’s veto of legislation that would have boosted federal funding of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, by $35 billion over five years. Bush had sought a much smaller increase.

Here’s King’s resolution and, for comparison, the Ramadan resolution, which states many obscure, otherwise undiscoverable facts like (a) there are 1.5 billion Muslims in the world, (b) they celebrate a holiday called Ramadan, and (c) Ramadan began on September 13. He’d have been on firmer ground noting that the Ramadan resolution went out of its way to refer to the war on terror and the need to make common cause against jihadis, a distinction that in theory makes King’s proposal comparatively unnecessary. But in that case, how do you explain the yes vote on the Diwali resolution?

Update: We’ve heard the “waste of time” excuse for a vote offered before. It’s the left’s version of “Don’t you know there’s a war on?”

For what it’s worth, I agree.  Such votes are meaningless except in the warm and fuzzy department. 

But be consistent.  If one is bad, then they all are.

The worst way the democrats can, and are imploding is they are constantly acting to appease muslims and a few other faiths, and acting to piss off and offend Christians and to a lesser extent, Jews.

If, as the resolution stated, Christianity is the predominant faith in the USA, then why alienate all those registered voters…unless they figure most are not democrats…not that I am implying that.

It all adds up to me (and others) wondering if the 2006 takeover is going to be short lived.

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