Gift Horse?

Of all political sins, few are so unforgivable as overconfidence; to have the prize in hand, or as good as in hand, and let it slip away. Transgressors are quickly subjected to unsympathetic tsk-tsking, and just as quickly reduced to historical asterisks. Witness Thomas Dewey or Michael Dukakis, the latter surely as dead as the former. It is these and other traffickers in overconfidence that Democrats must keep uppermost in mind as they inch toward the 2000 elections.

Overconfidence could easily take root, since Republicans have boxed themselves in, but good. If over the next 21 months they fight White House and Democratic caucus proposals, they will be pilloried as the party of negativism - and as the party of impeachment. If on the other hand they acquiesce to Democratic proposals, the majority party will be seen as unoriginal and somewhat superfluous - and as the party of impeachment. Either way, Democrats come out ahead. The boxing in through impeachment was only the topper; the theatrics of earlier, baseless "smoking gun" accusations fashioned the mechanics of party devolution.

The GOP's reputation for self-destructive tomfoolery has gotten so out of hand, and its consequent prospects so bad, even ubiquitous TV hucksters of Republican hypoopery are screaming "Enough!" Almost sad is the sight of Ed Rollins uneasily squirming and suggesting his party engaged in less than sterling "public relations," or of Arianna Huffington exasperatedly getting shriller and shriller at her party's bottomless depths of artlessness. These cheerleaders are savvy enough to recognize a rotting egg when they smell it, but normally keep their realistic comments to the confines of clients and high party muckamucks while assuring the base that everything in Rightville is peachy. That they are now publicly pleading for an end to spectacular suicide attempts is a sure sign their patient is worse off than even devastating generic polls are showing.

Courtesy of Tom Delay, Newt Gingrich, and a host of like-thinking ghouls, the Republican Party reconfigured its smartly won victory of '94 at political light speed into an inextricable mess, one Machiavelli himself could not untangle. It has shown itself, through government shutdowns, serial committee investigations, and finally impeachment, to be unsuited for governing but brilliant at opposing. Having removed all doubt that it finds governing difficult, the Party of White Guys demonstrates psychologically, perhaps unconsciously, almost clinically, that it wishes to return to the comfortable womb of minority party pot-shots, sniping, and sneers.

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