Dog Pack Politics

By way of First Draft, we learned that on June 15, Senator Dick Durbin seemed to have no intention of backing down from his statments concerning the torture at Guantanamo Bay:

"No one, including the White House, can deny that the statement I read on the Senate floor was made by an FBI agent describing the torture of a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay. That torture was reprehensible and totally inconsistent with the values we hold dear in America. This Administration should apologize to the American people for abandoning the Geneva Conventions and authorizing torture techniques that put our troops at risk and make Americans less secure."

But by Friday, here's what we get:

“I have learned from my statement that historical parallels can be misused and misunderstood. I sincerely regret if what I said caused anyone to misunderstand my true feelings: our soldiers around the world and their families at home deserve our respect, admiration and total support.”

I shouldn't be disappointed by this any more.  I should be used to Democratic leaders rolling over to show their bellies like submissive dogs the second they (or any other Democrat who says something real) get any criticism.  Democratic leaders rush to grovel in apology for Dean every time he says something the base likes, and now Durbin is doing the belly-crawl for having the temerity to say that it is wrong to torture, and torturing puts you in some very unpleasant company. (Just a quick hint:  if you don't want to be compared to bad people throughout history, don't establish a policy of doing the types of bad things they did.)

For some reason, the Democratic leadership (with very few exceptions like Dean and Conyers) haven't figured out that the entire political process in the US now runs on dog-pack psychology: show weakness and you'll lose.  Back down, and you lose.  Apologize and you lose.  Fail to attack and you lose.

The Republicans and their apparatchiks perfected this environment and the corporate media go right along with it.  Worse, so does much of the Democratic leadership.  I try not to think of the corporate media as careerist scavengers on the Republican attacks, but it becomes harder and harder the more I see what they focus on and what they don't.  And I just wince every time the Democratic leadership does the submissive-dog behavior when criticized.  Maybe Grover Norquist was right:

“Once the minority of House and Senate are comfortable in their minority status, they will have no problem socializing with the Republicans. Any farmer will tell you that certain animals run around and are unpleasant, but when they’ve been fixed, then they are happy and sedate. They are contented and cheerful. They don’t go around peeing on the furniture and such.”

If you can't even fight for yourself, why would anyone believe you'll fight for them?

Afterthought:  Does anyone else find it ironic that the Republican Party, dominated by the Republican Fundamentalist creationist "man is not an animal"  crowd, is also the party which relies most heavily on a politics targeted directly at the subrational animal psychology that ties us to our non-sentient animal ancestors?

Comments

[Thomas Nephew]

Sigh. I thought hearing Edwards had got after Durbin would be the nadir, but Durbin giving himself up on this is just incredibly disappointing. I'm just shaking my head; "beyond belief" is a fairly apt description of my state of mind and this state of affairs.

I'll be clinically interested in what exactly changed Durbin's mind, I suppose, but...sigh.

[Craig]

"Why are we torturing human beings at Gitmo?"

That's the only statement he should have issued.

[Abby]

These Democrats are like a bunch of beagles who got into the candy and puked up their spines.

I tried to send an e-mail to Durbin thanking him for his first statement, but you can't get through if you don't have an Illinois address, and they don't really *need* my vote, since I live in a reliably Democratic state.

The only Dem who really needs my vote is my state gubernatorial candidate. Frustrating as hell.

[eRobin]

Edwards gave up Durbin? I hadn't heard that.

If you can't even fight for yourself, why would anyone believe you'll fight for them?

I've said the same thing. If you and I can see that, why can't Dem strategists? I think they want to lose.

[Michael]

You make a good point about not backing down. In fact, I had a bit of a Twilight Zone moment this weekend when I started reading Edvard Radzinsky's new biography of Stalin. The whole of the second section of the book is devoted to Stalin's rise through the ranks of the Bolsheviki to become Lenin's reliable right-hand man when any kind of dirty work was called for. Radzinsky makes the point, over and over and over again, that Stalin learned a lesson with each little task Lenin asked him to accomplish: chief among them being that leaders never have to say they're sorry--at least in a totalitarian state. The Republicans have learned that lesson and learned it well, and are now attempting to turn our once fair country into as close an approximation of a totalitarian regime as they can get away with.

[Barry Freed]

Dog-pack politics. Dog-whistle politics. Is there any more doubt that this country has gone to the dogs?