Can't we have both?

Kevin Drum, after a lengthy disection and refutation of the Impeach Bush argument, asks:

Anyway, consider this an open thread for random vituperation. What's your preference: ringing calls for impeachment or an actual electoral strategy?

My answer is twofold:

First, although I would love to see Bush impeached, it likely wouldn't succeed and what would it accomplish? I think he deserves it on general grounds, but so what? Now we get Dick Cheney or Denny Hastert. No thanks. Impeaching Bush would feel good - paybacks and all that - but not mean anything from a policy/electoral standpoint. And the press provided hangover would be a monster.

And the policy is what matters.

Democrats actually have plenty of policy ideas that should guarantee them majorities in both houses and invitations to the White House Christmas dinner until they can't take it anymore and destruct in a fiery ball of corruption and chaos (see: Republican Revolution, 1994-2006). Think about the things the Democratic party stands for:

1) Economic Security for everyone
2) Access to education and opportunity for everyone
3) Healthcare as a right, not a privelege
4) Reasonable stewardship of the environment
5) Engagement in the world with a muscular but balanced approach
6) Support for and participation in organizations that strengthen security
7) Trade policy that opens markets and pushes our competitors up instead of racing us to the bottom
8) Economic and social justice as a matter of policy and law
9) Fighting terrorists by lifting oppressed people up, where possible, and killing terrorists, where necessary
10) Protection of the individual first and the corporation second

These things work best in packages of 10 somehow, but you could do lots of others, small and large. I know some of the worst sales people in the universe, and they could sell those ideas.

The problem is that the Democratic party won't just stand up and say it. The party leaders and, even the rank and file, are deathly afraid of the attack of the right wing conspiracy and so, even when they summon the courage to meekly mention these things, they back down at the slightest provocation.

That's one of the reasons I like Howard Dean so much. He will say it, even if he sometimes speaks a wee bit too extemperaneously. So what?

I understand the fear. Not too long ago, before I had my political sea legs, I was hesitant to speak out or call people on ideas based on lies or misinformation. I didn't want people to think I was a liberal for fear of...who knows. But I am a liberal, and proud of it. And so what if you get shot down now and then? Get tough. And, I'm not a politician making my living in that world. These guys are elected and paid to represent our ideas.

Pick ten. It doesn't have to be mine, although just a few of those would be enough. Speak them. Write them. Make them a mantra. Ask Tim Russert and Wolf Blitzer why they don't believe in them. Make the Republicans say health care is a privelege. And when Rush and Sean and the rest start calling you a socialist or whatever else they want to call you, laugh at them and ask them why they hate America.

Get to it. Now