Unlike the Republicans, Democrats in Congress despise their own base, the Democratic base that helped more Dems win in 2006 and now in 2008.  

 

But the Democratic leadership on Capitol Hill is bound and determined to ignore change and continue with their terrible business as usual while flying the finger at progressives and those who sought change.

 

David Sirota writes at Campaign for America's Future: "Seems to me that House and Senate leaders have declared an all-out war on "the Left." In fact, "seems" is the wrong word - it doesn't "seem" like that, they are actually saying it explicitly.

"Here's this excerpt from the Washington Post (h/t FDL):

Asked what it would mean if Lieberman kept his chairmanship, one Senate Democratic aide said bluntly: "The left has been foiled again. They can rant and rage but they still do not put the fear into folks to actually change their votes."

"Here's the Hill newspaper today:

Democratic leader says party won't turn left

By Mike Soraghan

As the House prepares to elect its leaders, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is challenging the idea that the expanded Democratic majority and its leaders will make a hard left turn.

"To show that these aren't errant, uncommon statements, make sure to read Glenn Greenwald's review of how this hatred for "the Left" now reaches all the way to the top of the new Obama administration through Rahm Emanuel.

"It's pretty odd that only two weeks after a landslide election that saw a huge ideological progressive mandate, Democratic congressional leaders think it's a great public message to declare jihad on progressives.

"I don't know, call me crazy, but I think 67 million people voted for Democrats because they want Democrats to reject Bush's ideological conservatism and solve problems - not spend their time making paranoid, quasi-McCarthy-ist speeches deriding "the Left."

"If we wanted that, wouldn't we have elected John McCain and Sarah Palin?"

"And Glenn Greenwald writes: "An article in The Hill, describing how profoundly House Democrats will miss the leadership of Rahm Emanuel, recounts this episode, involving the vote by Democratic Rep. Tim Walz of Minnesota in favor of the dreadful Protect America Act in August of last year (h/t Matt Stoller):

Members said [Emanuel] had a phenomenal knowledge of their districts, and he kept up to date well after the campaign ended. Rep. Tim Walz (D-Minn.) said one of his supporters wrote a letter to the editor of a small paper in his district, complaining about his vote on a rewrite of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Walz mentioned the letter to the editor to Emanuel on the floor and was stunned by his response.

"You mean the one about how you should caucus with the Republicans?" Emanuel shot back. "That's a good letter. Makes you look bipartisan."

To this day, Walz is still amazed. "He had read the letter."

"When I first read this passage, I mistakenly thought that was Walz was "stunned" by Emanuel's response because Emanuel was telling him that it is a good thing to infuriate your own supporters by voting in favor of a definitively Republican bill to massively expand the surveillance state at George Bush's behest.  No -- that point was totally unremarkable for Walz and didn't register with him at all.  Walz was merely "stunned" as in "impressed" -- impressed with Emanuel's political acumen at having read and remembered that letter.

"This little vignette provides a very vivid and crystallizing illustration of how Congressional Democratic leaders think and behave.  They consider it a good thing -- not a bad thing -- when they anger their own base.  They're thrilled when they get accused -- accurately -- of acting like Republicans and supporting right-wing measures, particularly on national security and "terrorism" issues.   They consider it a benefit -- an incentive -- when they are attacked for embracing Republican political policies and violating the principles of their own base. 

"This is undoubtedly the rationale which, at least in part, led to Obama's own reversal on FISA:  namely, it was considered a good thing that he infuriated his core supporters and was accused of supporting definitively Bush/Cheney terrorism policies because -- in the words of his new Chief of Staff -- "it makes you look bipartisan."  See here for the fruits of this thinking."