Bitterness and Bad Karma

Bill Safire is normally the only thing worth reading in the New York Times, and he proved it with his latest column (datelined 12/8/03), which is devoted to completely messing up the mind of every Bush-hating Democrat in America.

As you are well aware, Democrats today devote their emotional energy to two passions: hating President Bush and fantasizing about President Hillary in his place. Safire, in an act of political sadism, explained to Democrats that they cannot have their cake and eat it too: one of these twin passions has to be sacrificed for the other.

The Democrats’ Nightmare starts March 3, the day after Super Tuesday when the primary season is mostly over and Dizzy Dean has the nomination sewn up. For not only is Hillary exclaiming to Tim Russert and every other TV talking head that “the door is shut” and that “No, no, no, no” she is not and will not be a candidate in 2004, she is now actively (albeit quietly and behind the scenes) encouraging Democrat party leaders to get behind Dizzy. She even suckered in Algore.

Yes — Hillary wants Dean to get the nomination because he has far and away the best shot at losing the November election. As other Democrat bigwigs are afraid that Dean will be McGovern Redux, that’s what Hillary wants: A Democrat Disaster in 2004, which of course paves the way for her run in 2008 against a Republican non-incumbent.

Can you imagine the anguish, the depth of psychic pain, Bush-hating Democrats will experience once it dawns on them on March 3 that in order for Hillary to run in 2008, they must want Bush to win in 2004? Life isn’t fair, is it?

This has got to be the most demoralizing dilemma Democrats have ever experienced. Time will slow down for them, the close to five months from March through their convention in Boston at the end of July will seem an eternity. The convention will be dominated by the most pathologically rabid Bush-haters, donations to the Dean campaign will fall through the basement, the energy and enthusiasm of regular Democrats will evaporate as they resign themselves to electoral doom, millions of Democrat voters will not show up at the polls on election day, Dean may not carry a single state (beating McGovern’s record who carried Massachusetts plus the District of Columbia), and the day after the election Michael Moore, George Soros, and Barbra Streisand will publicly commit suicide on national television.

Well, maybe not regarding the last item but we know that will be what they feel like doing.

Hillary, on the contrary, will feel sensational not suicidal on November 3, 2004 (the day after the election). Where others see the ruin and wreckage of the Democrat Party, she will see the path cleared for her to 2008. On that day begins her campaign for the presidency. She will immediately move to overthrow Tom Daschle, seize minority leadership in the Senate, and gain unquestioned control of her party.

There will be only one way to stop her juggernaut charging towards 2008: defeat her for re-election to the Senate in 2006. There is only one human being on earth who can do that: Rudy Giulani. Thus anyone who does not want Hillary Clinton elected President in 2008 should do all they can to dissuade Giulani from running for Governor of New York in 2006 (Pataki will retire), and get him to run for Senator against Hillary instead.

But that’s off in the future. Right now, the Democrats have to swallow the bitterest medicine imaginable — that for the sake of their heroine, they must give up their sacred anger, their holy hate for the man they loathe. There’s a name for this kind of fate. It’s called Bad Karma.

Will the Democrats learn their karmic lesson? Will they come to understand in their hearts the horrible truth of Galatians 6:7 — that “whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap”? Not until they drink their cup of bitterness to the last drop. Not until, in one final spasm of masochism, they turn November 2004 into a götterdammerung for their party.

Hillary intends to be the agent of her party’s destruction next November because she intends to be the Phoenix rising from its ashes. It is a strategy motivated by nothing but coldly cynical political calculation. It has nothing to do with healing the heart and soul of a great political party.

Founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1792, the Democratic Party is the oldest political party in the world. Democracy in America has always flourished best under a vibrant two-party system. That vibrancy is now in jeopardy through self-inflicted wounds by the Democrats. As those wounds cannot be healed by an egomaniacal and megalomaniacal cynic with a heart of brass, it will be up to a new generation of leaders.

The true solution to the Democratic Party’s Bad Karma, however, lies in its members, not its leaders. When they as individuals decide to give up their anger, their resentment, their rage at a good and decent man — our president — and accept him as their president, their leaders will follow, and the resurrection from the ashes can finally begin.