President George W. Bush and the U.S. Congress both registered record-low
approval ratings in a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday.
Only 29 percent of Americans gave Bush a
positive grade for his job performance.
If you think that's bad, a paltry 11 percent rated Congress positively,
beating the previous low of 14 percent in July.
Remember
when Nancy Pelosi was promising that within its first 100 hours, the Democratic
Congress would pass laws that would raise the minimum wage, bring the troops
home from Iraq, expand health benefits, reform immigration laws, make college
affordable for all, secure energy independence, and address broad taxing and
spending issues. She also promised to "drain the swamp" - changing a
Congress that failed to address ethical problems of individual members and that
used "earmark" provisions to give pork to constituents and favors to
lobbyists. Harry Reid and colleagues on the Senate side had a similar, though slightly
more muted, messages.
After
140 days congressional Democrats left town with no significant accomplishments. There
was no increase in morality, no magically bipartisan era, no sweeping enactment
of a coherent agenda for change, like the Republicans "Contract With
America" in 1994. Instead, the 110th Congress has been a combination of
"now I'll get mine" and "now you'll get yours!"
The
seeds were planted in the strategy for winning last fall. Democrats Chuck
Schumer and Rahm Emanuel saw a road to getting back majorities in the Senate
and House. Their strategy built on Republican negatives: public anger over
scandals involving Mark Foley, Jack Abramoff, and Tom Delay, special interest
earmarks, inflated spending, and a war that - judging from the daily drumbeat
of bad news in mainstream media - was going badly without clear purpose or
end-game.
Rather
than push hard-core liberal themes that lost elections for a dozen years, (and
would no doubt continue to do so), Schumer and Emanuel followed a different
path. Their plan was to find moderates or even conservatives to run as
Democrats in potential swing districts, criticize the Bush Administration and
Republicans, talk a lot about hope and civility and bipartisanship, and let the
candidates say whatever their constituents wanted to hear. The strategy worked,
giving Democrats majorities in both Houses of Congress.
From
the very start, they got off on the wrong foot. Nancy Pelosi's first act as
Speaker was to push anti-war activist and vocal critic of all things
Republican, John Murtha, as her choice for House majority leader, despite
serious issues concerning Murtha's ethics. The Democratic Caucus helped Ms.
Pelosi out by rejecting her choice, but Pelosi made Murtha her caucus' number
one voice on war policy.
Another
ethics problem for Democrats is William (cold cash) Jefferson of Louisiana,
whose "frozen assets" consisted of $90,000 wrapped in foil in his
freezer. This cash was, as you may
remember, marked bribe money demanded by Jefferson in exchange for helping a
business secure government contracts. Jefferson was filmed taking the
bribe, but his colleagues have not censured him, and the work of the House
Ethics Committee on this matter stopped when Democrats took over last January.
Ms.
Pelosi has been eager to make a show of raising ethical standards, but not at
the expense of her colleagues' or her own ability to bring home the bacon. She
tacked an earmark for $25 million for California strawberry farmers onto the
emergency appropriations bill for US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bill was loaded with
provisions giving special favors - and $17 billion in extra spending - for the
pet projects of dozens of Democrats. Including a $23 million earmark for Mr.
Murtha's district.
Far
from draining the swamp, Democrats have been wallowing in it. In place of legislation, we've had
investigations. Pointless investigations into everything the Administration is
doing - not so Congress can do something about it, but rather to try to make
the point that Republicans are doing it wrong.
Just
after the elections, Senator Schumer warned that the Democrats' victory was
less a mandate than a protest. He cautioned that if Democrats were merely
obstructionist, opposing the President without actually trying to enact a
positive legislative agenda, they would lose power quickly - and deservedly so.
The
Democrats' leadership should have listened. Although President Bush is
suffering from appalling poll numbers, the Democratic Congress has earned even
lower poll numbers by showing more interest in posturing, payback, and pork
than in coming to grips with real problems.
