A bad week for Dems

Noemie Emery has a wonderful piece in the Weekly Standard highlighting what has to have been the worst week for the Democrats since losing the election in November. Emery focuses on the behavior of Barbara Boxer, Ted Kennedy, Robert Byrd, John Kerry, and surprisingly Evan Bayh. For starters, here's a bit on Robert Byrd's obstruction of Condi Rice's confirmation hearing:

"I wouldn't think having a former kleagle of the Ku Klux Klan lead a futile floor fight against the nomination of the first black woman to be secretary of state is a good way to enhance the appeal of the Democratic party to swing voters, but maybe that's just me," opined Jack Kelly. No, Jack, it's not just you. It's you and Andrew Young, a partisan Democrat and genuine civil rights leader; it's you and Dorothy Height, head of the National Council of Negro Women; you and C. DeLores Tucker, former chair of the Black Caucus of the Democratic National Committee; you and Ron Lester, a Democratic pollster quoted by the New York Post's Deborah Orin as saying, "A lot of African Americans are watching this and they're wondering why [Democrats] are going after her so hard."

To be sure, the Democrats have been in rare form since the inauguration. As much as they chastise the GOP for leaning too far to the right, the Dems seem so far removed from even trying to reach the political center that their daily antics are nothing more than a political farce that wouldn't be so tragic if they were making sincere attempts to offer policy alternatives to Bush and their Republican foes in Congress. Instead, you only have to look to the election in Iraq to see how the Dems are fixated on bashing anything that is Bush, hyping up any weaknesses they see in America or American policy, and downplaying our current strengths and success.