[Mb-civic] A Meltdown We Can't Even Enjoy - Eugene Robinson - Washington Post Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

A Meltdown We Can't Even Enjoy
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By Eugene Robinson
The Washington Post
Friday, March 31, 2006; A19

It's frustrating. The three overlapping forces that have sent this 
country in so many wrong directions -- the conservative movement, the 
neoconservative movement and the Republican Party -- are warring among 
themselves, doing their best impression of crabs in a barrel, and 
sensible people can't even enjoy the spectacle. That's because it's hard 
to take pleasure in the havoc they've caused and the disarray they will 
someday leave behind.

Factions within the conservative movement have been engaged in 
escalating skirmishes over what, exactly, the label "conservative" 
should mean. This week the fight is over illegal immigration. The 
nativists and xenophobes want mass deportation and a Berlin Wall looming 
over the Rio Grande. The cultural determinists lose their studied, 
academic poise the moment they hear brown-skinned people speaking 
Spanish or see them waving a Mexican flag. Watch your blood pressure, 
people, because Cinco de Mayo is just a few weeks away.

The social conservatives seem to be hopelessly conflicted about 
immigration. They have a kind of immune-system reaction against this 
unchecked inflow of aliens who look suspiciously like carriers of alien 
values. But, as some conservative commentators have noted, the 
immigrants flooding across the border are more likely to have 
traditional, family-and-church values than many native-born Americans. 
Does . . . not . . . compute.

Meanwhile, the small-government, tight-money conservatives have finally 
reached the point of utter disgust about another issue -- the fact that 
George W. Bush and a conservative Congress have presided over a massive 
expansion of government and an explosion of debt. For this group, having 
to point to Bill Clinton as a model of fiscal probity redefines the word 
"galling."

The neoconservative civil war is simpler to map, because it's all about 
Iraq. After a long period of denial, even the most fervent and 
evangelical of the neocons are now forced to admit that this whole Iraq 
thing hasn't quite worked out the way they expected. Those who advocate 
staying the course can read the polls. They see that bringing out their 
dictionaries, pointing to the definition of "civil war" and splitting 
hairs isn't doing much to stanch the flow of public opinion.

When one of the neocon movement's stalwarts, Francis Fukuyama, declared 
himself a turncoat recently in a new book -- he questions not only the 
war but the whole premise of neoconservatism as a real-world philosophy 
-- his erstwhile compatriots reacted with the shrill bitterness of a 
rejected lover. It's the kind of intellectual food fight that's almost 
always fun to watch, except that it's about Iraq, and there's nothing 
funny about Iraq.

The conflict within the Republican Party is about two primal urges, fear 
and ambition. Suddenly there is the chance -- not the probability but 
the possibility -- that the Republicans will lose control of the House 
or the Senate this fall. At the same time, presidential hopefuls with an 
eye on 2008 are jockeying for position. That combination of 
circumstances is turning problems into crises, and crisis management is 
not the ideal way to run a country.

That's what is happening with immigration. Majority Leader Bill Frist 
has the Senate in a lather, as if all 12 million illegal immigrants in 
the country suddenly arrived last Thursday. I'm sure that has nothing to 
do with the fact that he'd like to run for president.

It would all be entertaining if the stakes weren't so high. Iraqis and 
Americans are dying; the treasury is bleeding; real people, not 
statistics, are at the center of the immigration debate. Iran is intent 
on joining the nuclear club. Hallowed American traditions of privacy, 
fairness and due process are being flouted, and thus diminished. As the 
powers-that-be self-destruct, the powers-that-would-be -- Democratic 
leaders and all Americans who've seen enough of this movie -- need to 
put together an alternative program that will begin to undo some of the 
damage the conservative-neocon-GOP nexus has wrought.

To this point, I think the Democratic Party has done just what it needed 
to do, which was basically to sit back and watch the other side wear 
itself down. When one party is in charge of the White House and both 
sides of Capitol Hill, there's not much the other party can do anyway. 
Refusing to draw up articles of impeachment or sign on to Russ 
Feingold's censure resolution may reflect cold political calculation, 
but it also acknowledges plain reality: Not gonna happen.

Democrats have behaved with remarkable discipline, which shows how much 
they believe they need to win this fall and in 2008. What they haven't 
yet done is communicate a compelling vision of where they will take the 
country when they are given the reins. Dry position papers, drafted by 
committee, aren't enough. Make us see a better future.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/30/AR2006033001334.html?nav=hcmodule
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