Friday, June 24, 2005

Krauthammer on Democrats' "Intellectual Bankruptcy"

A Party Without Ideas: "What has happened to the Democrats over the past few decades is best captured by the phrase (coined by Kevin Phillips) 'reactionary liberalism.' Spent of new ideas, they have but one remaining idea: to hang on to the status quo at all costs.

This is true across the board. On Social Security, which is facing an impending demographic and fiscal crisis, they have put absolutely nothing on the table. On presidential appointments -- first, judges and now ambassador to the United Nations -- they resort to the classic weapon of southern obstructionism: the filibuster. And on foreign policy, they have nothing to say on the war on terrorism, the war in Iraq or the burgeoning Arab Spring (except the refrain: 'Guantanamo').

A quarter-century ago, Daniel Patrick Moynihan noted how it was the Republicans who had become a party of ideas, while the Democrats' philosophical foundation was 'deeply eroded.' But even Moynihan would be surprised by the bankruptcy in the Democrats' current intellectual account."

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