Democrats Look to the Future, Sorta

And speaking of ideas -- Bruce Reed writing in Slate notes that Democrats are starting to come up with some of their own.

Rahm Emanuel, former Clinton flunky and now a congresscritter, told Tim Russert that he was advancing five [count em, five!] ideas:

making college universal, demanding a budget summit, cutting energy dependence in half with a hybrid economy, creating a science and technology institute to rival NIH, and making health care universal over the next 10 years.

Well, that interesting. He's proposing massive subsidies to higher education, massive subsidies to the health care industry, massive subsidies to the auto-makers to promote hybridization, massive subsidies to the scientific establishment, and getting the budget under control. Do you sense a problem here? Russert did. He asked right off the bat, "and who pays for that" to which Emanuel replied, "the American people." [transcript here]

Oh, really? We'll see about that.

If this is the tone of the Democrats' best thinking, it's doomed.

Reed also points to a speech given by Barak Obama in which he states:

Whenever we exaggerate or demonize, or oversimplify or overstate our case, we lose. Whenever we dumb down the political debate, we lose. A polarized electorate that is turned off of politics, and easily dismisses both parties because of the nasty, dishonest tone of the debate, works perfectly well for those who seek to chip away at the very idea of government.

Well, duh! You're just beginning to realize that. At least some Democrats are beginning to wake to the realization that the "Move On" types are a tremendous liability, not just to their party, but to the entire American political culture. They really have no place within a responsible party organization. The willingness of the current Democrat leadership to cater to these loons and to embrace their rhetorical excess is a major reason for their impotence.

But one should ask first why the Democratic Party has indulged itself in such irresponsible behavior, and you are inevitably forced back to the conclusion that it is because they have absolutely nothing of value to offer in the way of ideas. Empty, destructive rhetoric is all they have in their arsenal. And, on the evidence of Rahm Imanuel, they are a long, long way from developing anything useful.

Read Reed's article here.

You need more than "new" ideas -- you need "good" ideas.