Democrats should resist urge to play ball with GOP

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

WASHINGTON — The power of negative thinking is greatly underestimated, especially in politics.

Leaders often define themselves by what they are against, and political movements often discover their affirmative purposes when they engage in principled battles against ideas and institutions that they believe are wrong.

Think of three of our nation's most important and effective presidents. Abraham Lincoln defined himself against the spread of slavery. Franklin D. Roosevelt attacked the "economic royalists" whom he accused of plundering the working class. Ronald Reagan stood against communism's "evil empire" and high taxes.

Now we associate all three with positive achievements. Lincoln preserved the union and ended slavery. FDR (in addition to winning World War II) gave us a New Deal that encompassed Social Security, minimum wages and the rise of labor. Reagan gets credit for the fall of the Soviet Union and the spread of free-market ideas. Accentuating the negative can eventually achieve the positive.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2002112178_dionne08.html