House Dems Have No Recourse

They have no ideas, no prospects of regaining the majority, and their own party leader is pit-deep in the very sort of thing she tried to make a jihad against House Majority Leader Tom "The Hammer" DeLay.

So what are they doing? Filing more ethics complaints against Republicans:

The Democrats have targeted six Republican lawmakers on the issue of ethics, buying ads in their local newspapers calling on them to "start working for us" instead of for "special interests."

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is spending $36,000 on the ads, calling the move the beginning of a campaign to fuel an anti-incumbent fever like the one that swept the Democrats out in 1994, the Washington Post reports.

Well, gee, I can think of several differences between now and then...

1) 1994 was not an "anti-incumbent" year but an anti-Democrat year (not a single incumbent Republican was defeated in that election in either the House or Senate);

2) The reason it was an anti-Democrat year had little if anything to do with ginned-up false populism, but with anti-Clinton sentiment stemming from the previous year's tax hike and the attempt to nationalize the health care sector, and the positive/pro-active "Contract with America" agenda put forth by the GOP;

3) When ethnics problems were dogging the then-ruling House Democrats, it was several years earlier, during the Bush41 term, with the resignation of then-Speaker Jim Wright and the House Bank and House Post Office scandals. And you'll recall that none of that toppled the Donks' decades-long hegemony, at least by itself.

'Pubbies, for the most part, seem to be aware of this, at least in a general sense, and firing back:

"But Republicans maintain that the Democrats are making the mistake the GOP did in 1998, when the party made its main message about President Bill Clinton instead of a positive agenda," according to the Post.

Representative Jack Kingston of Georgia, vice chairman of the House Republican Conference, said the Democrats are "stepping into their own Venus flytrap."

That's a surprising bit of history revisionism for Republicans, of all people, to make, since the 1998 mid-term campaign was marked by Pachyderms across the country running away from the Clinton impeachment issue as fast as their elephantine legs could carry them. That, in tandem with the absence of a positive agenda (which they had let Sick Willie largely steal from them anyway), depressed GOP turnout and prevented substantial Republican gains on Capitol Hill.

Democrats will certainly never shy away from scandalmongering. It's just that in order for that tactic to work, they actually need scandals to monger:

The ads are running just days after federal agents raided the San Diego-area home of Representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham, one of the ad targets, as well as a yacht where he has been staying while in Washington.

The authorities are investigating Cunningham’s dealings with a defense contractor who bought a home from the congressman in 2003 at what critics say was an inflated price.

An attorney for Representative Cunningham called the raids "an appalling abuse of government power."

Certainly an appalling indulgence in "COPS"-like melodrama. I remember a similar ethics complaint filed against former House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt during the Democrats' anti-Newt jihad in 1995, and darned if I can recall any of his domiciles getting raided. Sounds like another fishing expedition to me, particularly in light of the rank subjectivism evident in his "critics'" evaluation of local real estate prices, with the real "crime" being the "R" after his name on his business cards.

Just to finish the hit list:

Another target of the ads is House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, whose spokeswoman Shannon Flaherty said Democrats are "relying on smear tactics and personal attacks in a feeble attempt to win back seats."

The four other representatives targeted are House Administration Committee chairman Bob Ney (Ohio) – who was criticized for "his fight for Indian casinos" - Richard W. Pombo (Calif.), Charles H. Taylor (N.C.) and Rob Simmons (Conn.).

Carl Forti, communications director of the National Republican Congressional Committee, called the ads "a waste of money."

Not much money, though. Thirty-six grand against six 'Pubbies out of 232 hardly seems like the campaign equivalent of Operation Barbarossa. Sounds like a week's worth of radio ad buys at best (based upon my dozen-year-old recollection of local TV and radio advertising rates).

Oh, sure, there'll be more, but without any big issue with which to gain traction, these little nibbles won't accomplish anything. Contrary to the hyperbolic expression, there really isn't any such thing as "death by a thousand paper cuts," unless you're referring to a dump truck crushing somebody by unloading several tons of newspapers on them. Besides, with Dems as pit-deep - let's be honest, far deeper - in this stuff than Republicans, it can only boomerang on them.

Hypocrites make lousy martyrs, but, to employ another aphorism, fish gotta swim and birds gotta fly. Dems don't dare be honest about what they really stand for, so scandalmongering is all they've got. And after all these years, it's pretty much all they remember.

It brings to mind something Bob Geldof said after the recent "Live8" concert: "Something must be done, even if it doesn't work."

That could end up being the epitaph of the entire Democrat Party.