Arianna Huffington: Schiavo Case Proves Dems Are Starving For Leadership

[Jack Rabbit]

From ArianaOnline
Dated Tuesday March 29

Schiavo Case Proves Dems Are Starving For Leadership
By Arianna Huffington

This column is not about Terri Schiavo and the wrenching spectacle that has surrounded her tragic fate. May she rest in peace.

It is about Congressional Democrats and how they once again pathetically misread what moral values mean in a political context. May they miraculously wake from their persistent vegetative state — or it won’t be long before they are receiving their political last rites.

Ever since November, Republicans (aided and abetted by a poorly worded exit poll) have not only succeeded in defining the last election as having been about moral values, they’ve succeeded in defining moral values. In the GOP’s extraordinarily abridged moral dictionary, fighting against gay marriage is morally valuable; fighting against 12 million children living in poverty is not.

Democrats, meanwhile, have been going through the most embarrassing public identity crisis since Anne Heche couldn’t decide if, when it came to the bedroom, she preferred surf or turf. They’ve been mastering the feeble arts of second-guessing themselves and ducking for cover.

Read more.

[KG]

1. news flash, Arianna

Dems have been Starving For Leadership for 25 years.

[Rose Siding]

2. Too true

Has Reid made any statement at all? Unprecedented emergency recess mtgs of Congress should at LEAST merit a statement from the minority leader!

Dean addressed it but he's focused on local media in this current organizational drive so he didn't get much play.

I was encouraged that today's MoveOn e-mail was a plea from Obama for support for Byrd. At least they aren't running from progressives, but more visible forcefulness from leadership would go a long way.

[Jack Rabbit]

3. Arianna paints this as a failure of imagination as well as leadership

As a mother, I deeply empathize with the plight of Terri's parents — and don't see why, given their willingness to take over their daughter’s care, they shouldn't be given that chance. But it wasn't my decision to make — just as it wasn’t Congress'.

And being steamrolled by the Republicans or dancing on Terri Schiavo's grave were not the only two options open to Democrats. If they hadn't been running around hiding from their own shadows, they would have easily found a larger moral frame in which to put the fight over Schiavo's fate.

In the polls cited form last week, the public held the Democrats in almost as much contempt as the Republicans. This is the hole the Democrats dug for themselves by trying to play it safe. The Republicans look bad and the Democrats don't look good.

[Cocoa]

4. this case is not a core issue for dems

I'm glad the dems are essentially split on this.

I'm glad Jesse Jackson did something politically unpredictable.

This is a case, and I think most "culture war" cases are, a case that the dems should wrestle with, not just follow polls or pundits, or apply some formula about where they should be.

If they had done what Huffington suggests, I think those poll numbers might be very different.

[montana500]

5. Dems were smart to keep quiet about this

someone needs to tell her to keep quiet.

[wiggs]

6. I agree

Dem leadership has done great keeping quiet and letting gop hang themselves on tough issues like deficits, lies to congress, false intelligence reports, torture, obscene nominations like Rice, Bolton, Wolfowitz, Gonzales, Chalabi... environment, energy task force, plunging dollar, drilling for oil, AWOL, halliburton, 9/11, planning to seize Iraq prior to 9/11, etc etc etc.

[Montauk6]

7. "surf or turf" OUCH!!!!

[Piperay]

8. Good article

Arianna is on point. :thumbsup: