"The Day of Atonement absolves from sins against God, but not from sins against a fellow man unless the pardon of the offended person be secured" (Mishnah tractate Yoma 8:9). Hence the custom of terminating all feuds and disputes on the eve of the fastday (or in the ten-day period between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur). Even the souls of the dead are included in the community of those pardoned on the Day of Atonement.
Setting aside the obviously maligned and requiring securings of pardons (Rep. Foley's underage victims, the recipients of Sen. Allen's deer head) I want to focus first on the Democratic Party.
Longtime readers will know that while in this current day and age our support trends heavily, often exclusively, to Democratic candidates and aspirations, the same readers will also recall how much we dislike the Washington insiderism that not only minimizes actual grassroots Democratic activism, instead lining the pockets of high-priced political consultants, but has actually been a losing tendency -- most likely because of reason #1. We believe Americans can be very receptive to a Democratic message, only not one focused only on 15 to 20 "battlefield" states that doesn't even pretend to being a true national party.
However, current DNC Chairman Howard Dean is reversing all that, even as he has to battle the DC insiders to do so, with his ultimately sensible (to our minds) "50 State Strategy". Matt Bai covers it evenhandedly in a terrific article on Dean's goals and progress in The New York Times:
For the Democrats, winning presidential elections came to mean doing so without any help from the South or West, and that, in turn, meant cobbling together a relatively small number of so-called battleground states rather than running a truly national campaign. The D.N.C. quit doing much of anything in conservative rural states, and the party'’s presidential candidates didn'’t bother stopping by on their way to more promising terrain. Every four years, the national party became obsessed with "targeting"” -- that is, focusing all its efforts on 15 or 20 winnable urban states and pounding them with expensive TV ads. The D.N.C.'’s defining purpose was to raise the money for those ads. The national party became, essentially, a service organization for a few hundred wealthy donors, who treated it like their private political club.
Dean's big battles are against two formidable Dem political leaders, Rahm Emanuel in the House and Charles Schumer in the Senate. Ideally, a big Dem win in November will make everyone friends for once, sharing in victory, but regardless:
Underneath this clash of field plans and alpha personalities lay a deeper philosophical divide over how you go about rebuilding a party -- which was really a dispute about cause and effect. Did you expand the party by winning elections, or did you win elections by expanding the party? Most party insiders had long put their faith in elections first, arguing that the best way to broaden the base of the party was to win more races. Schumer said as much in a written statement that his spokesman forwarded to me in response to my questions about his differences with Dean. "Our long-term goal is the same -- a strong Democratic Party,"” Schumer stated. "But we"” -- meaning he and Emanuel --— "“believe that nothing does more to further that goal in 2006, 2008 and beyond than taking back the House and Senate so that we can implement a Democratic platform."
Recent history, though, would seem to undercut this theory. In the 1990'’s, the Democrats won two presidential elections behind a popular leader, and yet the party didn't grow. In fact, Democrats lost ground at every level of government except the White House and cemented their position as the party of coastal states. Steadily investing in political activity on the local level, as Republicans have done for years, seems to Dean and his allies a more realistic way for Democrats to expand the electoral map than simply trying, every four years, to piece together the same elusive majorities.
This goes to something I've been saying for six years, that Bill Clinton's biggest failing as a Democratic President was that, unlike Ronald Reagan for the GOP, he didn't leave any Democratic victory legacy. But maybe that's the DNC's job, and maybe Dean is making amends to all those neglected Dems in Southern and Western states who have felt stranded for so long as the central Party consigned them to unchallenged GOP rule.
The biggest gift Dean gives to the party: when Fate hands you an opportunity in an assumed secure seat like Rep. Mark Foley's scandal or the brewing one with the Alaska GOP, you've got candidates in place to capitalize and potentially win.
So Dems and Dean, you're cleared to atone to your maker this Yom Kippur.
On the other side of the aisle, however, we've got a Presidente who not only refuses to atone to the country he lied to, the soldiers he sent to their deaths on a lie, and the country he destabilized into chaos, he won't even acknowledge reality.
Bob Woodward's State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III is coming on like gangbusters, #1 on Amazon, and chewing up columns of newsprint. For folks who have been following this deranged Admin for the past few years it's not exactly news, but the details are chilling. From his 60 Minutes interview broadcast tonight (via RenaRF at Daily Kos):
WALLACE [Voiceover]: Woodward reports that a top General says Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has so emasculated the Joint Chiefs that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs has become "the parrot on Rumsfeld's shoulder". And according to WOODWARD: another key General, John Abizaid, who's in charge of the whole Gulf region, told friends that on Iraq, Rumsfeld has lost all credibility.
WALLACE [to Woodward]: Now what does that mean, that he doesn't have any credibility any more?
WOODWARD: That means that he cannot go public and articulate what the strategy is. This is so important. They decide that Secretary of State Rice will announce what the strategy is. This is October of last year.
[Cut to tape of Rice giving testimony]
RICE: Our political military strategy has to be to clear, hold and build. To clear areas from insurgent control, to them securely, and to build durable national Iraqi institutions.
WOODWARD: Rumsfeld sees this [the testimony] and goes ballistic. And says now wait a minute. That's not our strategy. We want to get the Iraqis to do these things. Well it turns out George Bush and the White House like this definition of the strategy [Rice's] so it's in a Presidential speech he's going to give the next month. Rumsfeld sees it. He calls Andy Card the White House Chief of Staff and says "take it out - take it out. That's not our strategy. We can't do that." Card says "it's the core of what we're doing." That's two and a half years after the invasion of Iraq. They cannot agree on the definition of a strategy. They cannot agree on the bumper sticker.
Ah, that's why no one can explain our strategy in Iraq, because, uhm, THERE IS NONE.
Best of all, here comes the most quotable phrase from Bush since, "I'm the decider":
WALLACE [Voiceover]: And Woodward says that no matter what's occurred in Iraq Mr. Bush does not welcome any pessimistic assessments from his aides because he is sure that his war has Iraq and America on the right path.
WOODWARD: Late last year he had key Republicans up to the White House to talk about the war. And said I will not withdraw, even if Laura and Barney are the only ones supporting me. Barney is his dog.
That's it. There will be no apology, no forgiveness sought.
There will be no atonement.
There will only be:
Arf.
1 comment:
Excellent observations (as is almost always the case). It's like our country is being run by a bunch of crazy Caligulas. We have to stop this before the Decline & Fall of the US Empire.
Mom
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