John Podhoretz points out the similarities in 2010 to 2006 when the majority parties (GOP in 2006 and Democrats in 2010) tried to convince themselves that a “thumping ” was not coming. The Republicans actually had three years of solid economic growth, low unemployment, rising home values and ownership, as well as low inflation and interest rates – and got creamed. The coming tidal wave that the Democrats will suffer in November is one that they so richly deserve as hubris finally meets nemesis. Even people who are not Obama haters can see the dangers of having no checks placed on him.
by John Podhoretz
The similarities between the political condition of the Democratic Party in 2010 and the Republican Party’s condition in 2006 are growing. One sign of the similarity is the tendency toward hopeful delusion on the part of many Democrats and liberals, which parallels the hopeful delusions of Republicans and conservatives in the run-up to November 2006.
Two senior congressional Democrats, Reps. Charlie Rangel and Maxine Waters, in hot water with the House Ethics Committee, just as Republicans had to suffer from the cascading effects of the bribery scandal involving San Diego Rep. Duke Cunningham and a sex scandal involving Sen. Larry Craig (with one involving Rep. Mark Foley to follow in September).
Congress was wildly unpopular in 2006, and both houses were in Republican control. The 2006 number in Gallup was 14 percent. Today, with both houses in Democratic hands, the number is marginally better, around 20 percent.
Ah, but Democrats have Barack Obama, don’t they? He received the largest number of votes ever cast, and people still like him. Well, George W. Bush received the largest number of votes ever cast in 2004. Gallup yesterday had Obama with an approval rating of 41 percent; Bush’s approval rating in the Gallup poll released on August 22, 2006, was 42 percent.
More important, perhaps, is the fact that in 2006, Americans had grown impatient with Bush and Republicans in Washington — despite three years of solid economic growth, extraordinarily low unemployment, rising home values and the continuation of unprecedentedly low inflation and interest rates.
In 2010, of course, the unemployment rate has settled well above 9 percent, what little economic recovery we’ve seen slowed at an alarming rate in the second quarter and there’s not much hope for sunnier days soon.
Of course, there are the peculiar parallels between Bush’s incompetent handling of a disaster for which he wasn’t responsible — Katrina — and Obama’s troubles with the BP oil spill.
Yet in 2006, Republicans found it almost impossible to believe they were about to live through an event Bush memorably called a “thumpin’.”
Read the rest here: Democratic deja vu
Tags: John Podhoretz
