Steve Benen gets it exactly right:
There’s just no reason for apoplexy here. Stark said something mean about Bush during a congressional debate. The president is a big boy; I think he can handle it. But by throwing a tantrum, congressional Republicans are suggesting that they can’t handle it. They’re not grown-ups. Random, intemperate criticism of Bush is just too much for the fragile, virgin ears.
In other words, by throwing a fit, Republicans end up looking weak and hysterical. Indeed, it reinforces the least flattering GOP caricature of all — these guys can’t govern, but they can fall onto a fainting couch like nobody’s business.
For years, Republicans worked to create the opposite reputation. They’re tough. This is the macho “daddy party.” They don’t care about “political correctness” and wussies who cry over words that rub people the wrong way. This is a crowd that calls it like they see it, and doesn’t look bad or apologize.
And yet, they’ve now spent the better part of a year trembling over mild rebukes from liberals.
Yet he goes on to note that the Democratic Party just doesn’t get it; the group that has spent much of the past decade on its own fainting couch has been cowed by all of the GOP teeth-gnashing.
One thing the Republican Party in recent years has understood that the Democratic Party has not: The country wants leadership, leadership requires strength, strength requires standing up for what you believe in standing up and saying what you think and not backing down from it. The official and semi-official mouthpieces of the conservative movement have for more than a decade uttered one outrageous statement after another. Yes, it gets cartoonish. But it belies an aggressiveness that the general public sees as a good thing; if you are certain of what you believe, the things you stand for, why wouldn’t you stand up for them - loudly and insistently. And maybe that leads to some rhetorical excess; but that’s a function of conviction and strength, not of weakness.
I agree with Benen that the Republican Party is harming itself by its sudden sensititivy to those mean old Democrats. More than that - as I posted earlier this week, I think it’s hilarious. That the likes of Rush Limbaugh might suddenly get a case of the vapors telegraphs a weakness we have not seen in the Republican Party for a very long time.
Beyond that, the Republican “outrage of the month” is becoming more and more transparent. This is the only arrow the GOP has left in the quiver; there are no new ideas or initiatives. All they have is this feigned outrage over what this Democrat said or that MoveOn ad. It smacks of desperation; they’re counting on the outrage du jour to rally the troops, to serve as the basis for lasting resurgence. It won’t. There’s no there there.
Far from rebuking Pete Stark, Democrats should applaud him - and do what he did. If they do not, if the Democratic Party after a decade of being smacked in the mouth believes that it’s too rash to stand up and smack the other guy in the mouth - then they’re not only too weak to govern the country, the party itself deserves to be buried beneath history’s ash heap. The country these past years has been strong but not smart. Shrinking violets like Pelosi and Hoyer are proving they think the best path is for the country to be smart but not strong. And that proves everything the Republicans ever said about them.
