DEMOCRATS: Party of Angry White Men?
By Tom Adkins (03/17/03)
I accompanied my lovely wife to the Saturday Starbucks klatch. Nice girls. Good coffee. Corporate. All the better. I dutifully slid off into a corner, and spotted some discarded newspapers. Hmmmm… New York Times or National Enquirer? I went with the Times because it had a better talking fish story. Really. Just below the fold.
A few pages in, I spotted a blurb about Jim Moran (D-VA), the pugilistic congressman with a history of beating his wife, eight-year-old kids, and a series of ethics charges. Lots of them. After taking $10,000 of campaign contributions from a pro-Hammas group, Moran spouted this gem last week: "If it were not for the strong support of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq, we would not be doing this."
Oooohhh! Nasty!!!
True, Moran is a low-rung character. But I'm spotting a trend. Robert Byrd used the "Mother of all epithets" on national TV. The Clintons apparently do as well, adding the lovely "FJB" zinger towards their Jewish acquaintances. Catch the Democrat presidential hopeful soundbytes, and you'd think you were watching a WWF production. Heck, John Kerry looks grumpy even in a wet suit. Throw in the yapping George Miller, the boorish Robert Wexler, the snippy Joe Hoeffel…I can't help but notice…have Democrats become the party of the Angry White Men?
The evidence is everywhere. Chuck Schumer is positively smarmy each time he leaps before a camera. Tom Daschle, having morphed Democrats into the "Whatever-George-Bush-Says-We're-Against-It" party, noticeable seethes about whatever "outrage" he manufactured that day.
Worse, they're picking bad fights. Daschle held up Homeland security in a sad unionization attempt. Pat Leahy has apparently become the Democrat Bigot Committee Chairman, leading the filibuster against Miguel Estrada. When racism, sexism, and a bad attitude don't work, Democrats wheel out the Father Of All Haranguing, Ted Kennedy, to berate any American who dares disagree, using names you tell your kids never to utter. From Paul Wellstone's "memorial" to Jim Moran's diatribe, you can easily picture today's Democrats sitting around Archie Bunker's living room, bitching about how their neighborhood is "changing".
This line of thought tumbled through my head because the day before, at the exact same time, I was sitting before JC Watts as he was named Chairman of GOPAC, Pete DuPont's grass-roots brainchild that New Gingrich hot-rodded into the 1994 Republican congressional sweep. Watts was surrounded by President Louise Oliver, VP Linda Ziglar, Council Cleta Mitchell and advisor/strategist Cheri Jacobus. I wondered…where are all the good ole' boys?
They sure aren't over at the White House, where Ann Veneman, Gale Norton, Elaine Chao, Rod Paige, Colin Powell, Norm Mineta, Mel Martinez and Christy Todd Whitman make up almost half the president's cabinet, along with inner-circle advisors Karen Hughes and Condoleeza Rice. And they aren't at the Supreme Court, where Republicans appointed the first woman and second black man. And they certainly weren't at GOPAC, where JC Watts and a cabinet of women now hold the GOP future, running the entire Republican farm system.
Contrast this to the blatant tokenism of the Clinton cabinet which boasted such luminaries as Janet Reno, Hazel O'Leary and Jocelyn Elders.
Apparently, the battle to see which party makes the real commitment to a color blind meritorious nation is over. And Republicans won.
But it's not simply bean-counting that separates the two parties. It's the entire approach and attitude. In a manner that can only be described as thoughtful and committed, Watts explained "I don't want women and minorities to vote for us…I want them to BE us." Winning elections? Not enough. Watts wants to convert the masses.
Oh, sure, there's Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and the Congressional Black Caucus. But they sound like black Archie Bunkers. And the Democrat women sound worse than the men. (think Barbara Boxer defending the lovely virtues of partial birth abortion). Even Jimmy Carter has become a bitter old man, and Bill Clinton looks pathetic every time he opines.
It's become this simple: Democrats have become the party of mean, nasty bigots. Nevertheless, Moran's spokesman said he "still intended to run" next time, presumably to keep the Democrat's anti-Semitic wing alive.
Meanwhile, the Republican commitment to minority success has become irrefutable. While Democrats hold press conference upon press conference about "diversity", Republicans actually did it. Now, the rest of America has to catch up. For JC Watts, his challenge is to extend the Republican Tent. As the party of Angry White Men chases folks away, it could be a simple matter of saying "hello" as they run screaming.
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