Sickening

I was a Howard Dean fan in 2004, and was disappointed when his campaign ran aground and left John Kerry to try unseating the Bush-Cheney-Rove triumvirate. In the Washington Post, Dean seems to be telling it like it is --- again. The health care reform debacle is enough to stagger the imagination. It would be bad enough if Republicans were running the train off the tracks --- after all, wrecking stuff is the one thing they do well and it's what I expect from them. Unfortunately the GOP is getting tons of help from the Democrats, help they didn't need to fuck things up royally.

I predict that after making a total botch of everything in 2009, Democrats will start their journey back to the wilderness of political minority in 2010, and their decline will pick up momentum heading into 2012. In itself, that wouldn't be too bad since the Dems have proven they aren't really capable of running things anyway. The worst part is that conservatives in general, and Republicans in particular, have been driven absolutely insane by the horrifying sight of those Ns in the White House. As bad as Republicans were during the Reagan years, the Gingrich years, and the Bush-Cheney-Rove years, they're going to be much, much worse in 2012. In 2004, for example, no one had heard of Winky or Beck; now they're the superstars of the party. The small number of good (i.e., moderate, sensible) Republicans has dwindled down to almost zero, and the lunatics really are running the asylum.

In short, the Democrats not only blew every golden opportunity they were handed in 2008, they've made it possible, even likely, that we'll get at least four years of government (2013-2016) that will make 2001-2008 look tolerable in comparison.

Added 9:54 am on Thursday: Lo and behold, E.J. Dionne makes the argument much more intelligently than I can.

Added 10:36 am Thursday: Taylor Marsh, who blogs for real, adds her analyis of this stinking mess at Huffington Post.