Bartelby Democrats (Wash. Post: reg. req'd)

[meow2u3]

A scathing critique of the pink tutu Dems in Congress

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HERMAN MELVILLE'S "Bartleby, the Scrivener" tells the tale of a lawyer's assistant who inexplicably stops doing his job, instead spending his days staring blankly at a brick wall. "I'd prefer not to," he invariably tells his employer when asked to copy a paper, go to the post office or even answer a question. "No: at present I would prefer not to make any change at all," Bartleby says when asked to leave. In their response to President Bush's State of the Union address Wednesday night -- indeed, in much of their reaction to Mr. Bush's push on Social Security -- the Democrats share a disturbing resemblance to Bartleby.

Unlike Bartleby, the Democrats' maddening passivity can be excused in part by the administration's maddening evasion of hard choices. The accounts proposed by the president would not, in themselves, extend the solvency of the Social Security system by a single day. Mr. Bush not only presented his private accounts to the country as risk-free, he made none of the tough calls about what should be done to achieve solvency.

(more)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62097-2005Feb3.html

[displacedtexan]

1. Bartelby and Howard Beale are the inspiration for my blog!

In fact, here's the blurb from the top of my blog, which is aptly called "A Scrivener's Lament":

Bartelby took a stand when he said, "I would prefer not to." In another time and place, Howard Beale exclaimed, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!" The news these days is so damned depressing that my own inner Bartelby Beale just has to blog!

If the sigs are turned on, the link to my blog is under the burning bush. If not, check it out: http://www.ascrivenerslament.blogspot.com/

[Cocoa]

2. this is just a version of republican spin about dems

this isn't criticizing the dems for not opposing Bush strongly enough, this is analagous to the republicans whining about dems "bashing Bush without offering alternatives of their own."

The dems' not making a proposal of their own is smart politics. They know as soon as they make a proposal of their own, that the right wing noise machine, the republicans and all their whore friends, will focus the debate on defining and trashing the dems, and not scrutinizing Bush's proposal at all.