George Bush: Threat To Democracy

It's more evident every day that the Bush Administration truly is a great threat to democracy in this country. Not because of any danger George W. Bush himself poses but because his success is causing Democrats and their fellow anti-Republicans to give up on the the principles underlying our democracy.

Liberals have long used non-democratic means to push their issues agenda. They have a long history of going to the courts to get what they couldn't otherwise get through legislation. That strategy continues to this day. The same-sex marriage issue is but the latest example.

Elections, however, were generally left alone.

But the prospect of Bush's victory in 2000 led Al Gore to try and steal the Florida election by cherry picking votes and by trying to create them by manipulating the recounts. It happened again in California when lawsuits were filed by the usual liberal interest groups to stop the recall election of Gray Davis. It happened again in Washington last year when the Democrats succeeded in stealing the election for governor. It manifested itself here in San Diego when supporters of Donna Frye for mayor, speaking in the name of democracy and counting every vote, tried to overturn the election and put their candidate into office by arguing that democracy demanded the laws governing the election be ignored.

In all these examples Democrats sought to thwart the will of the voters in choosing their political leaders. This tactic is substantially different from the past tactic of overturning legislation or enacting policy through litigation. It represents a significant threat to democratic self-rule and it originated in 2000 when the Democrats refused to accept Bush's victory. Many of them continue to reject his victory to this day.

The ongoing filibuster debacle in the Senate is a direct result of the Democrats' refusal to accept Bush's presidency as legitimate. That's proven by the bogus argument they make, joined unfortunately by 7 wobbly Republicans, that Bush must consult with the Senate before he nominates a judicial candidate. The constitution requires no such thing.

It's also a result of their refusal to accept the Republican majority in the Senate as legitimate. That's proven by the comparisons Democrats make to the percentage of Clinton's judges that were confirmed or held up. The problem with the comparison to Clinton is that many of his judges were held up when Republicans controlled the Senate and his judges did not enjoy majority support. In other words, under Clinton, the Senate was controlled by the opposition party. Today, under Bush, the Senate is controlled by the government's party. The only way the two situations can be considered the same is by equating the status of the minority Democrats today to the status of the majority Republicans back in Clinton's day. To do that is to delegitimize the Republicans as the majority party in the Senate.

The voters gave the majority in the House and the Senate to the Republicans. By a majority vote, they also gave the presidency with ALL its powers to Bush. It's past time for Democrats to respect the results of this century's elections. If they want the political power that rightly belongs to the winning party they should spend their time working on winning future elections instead of trying to re-fight the elections they've already lost.

-tdr