Not Exactly Hitting The Ground Running

For post-election democrats, it’s more like just hitting the ground.  The great issues of today are not being addressed by the new democrats’ ‘new direction.’  And increasing the minimum wage and spending more on education are neither of them.  The obvious ones are winning the war-on-terror, economic policies like making the tax cut permanent, fixing Social Security, educational policies like allowing school choice via the school voucher program (No child left behind), real tort reform, earmark removal just to name a few.   The party has nothing to say about the issues they just ran on.  Oh that’s right, it was Bush sucks.  What is happening now is the party has nothing to say.  The minimum wage issue is a standard election issue for every election.  The fact that there never was a plan beyond ‘Bush is a liar’ is becoming evident as democrats are being seen as in some state of disarray. 

I don’t know how this ever got passed the editorial board, but this New York Times headline is an example.  After Win, Democrats Revert to Finger-Pointing

Speaker-elect Pelosi, 0 for 1

Here’s a picture that’s worth 1000 words.  House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi’s strained smile beside her new number two Steny Hoyer (D-Md).  House democrats handed the San Francisco liberal her first defeat in her first assertion of power.  John Murtha was Pelosi’s choice for the position.  He’s the one with the frown on his face.

House Democrats today picked Steny H. Hoyer, right, over John P. Murtha, far right, for majority leader and Nancy Pelosi for Speaker.

In defending her choice for John Murtha, Nancy Pelosi said, among other things, that she chose Murtha because she thought that would lead to an expedient end of the war.

I was proud to support him for majority leader, because I thought that would be the best way to bring an end to the war in Iraq.

That admission was omitted from the NYT’s article. Mmmm

Disclaimer: This is a New York Times link. It’s truthfulness and completeness should be judged against what you already know about the NYT and Nancy Pelosi.

Socialist Candidate and French Values

France is having what we would call their primary season, picking a candidate from their party to run for president next year.  The ‘liar’ accusation is alive and well in French politics.  Not sure if it has always been that way or if they are mimicking the US model.  I guess we can take small pride in what family values means to US politicians though, compared to candidate Miss Ségolène Royal, the favorite to win France’s Socialist Party’s nomination. 

Miss Royal reportedly has four children, all possibly with the same father, the article does not go into that much detail, but it does say this. . .

Miss Royal, 53, has four children with her partner, Francois Hollande, who is leader of the party.

She has a partner, not a husband, and they are raising four children.  At 53 and four children later, is ‘marriage’ and ‘family’ a thing of the past in France or is shacking-up embraced by the Socialist Party? Â