Incompetence in the politics of anger

Kimberly Strassel:

School is out, report cards are in. How fares the new Democratic Congress? Even with grade inflation, it's struggling to hit a gentleman's C.

The big question when Nancy Pelosi became speaker of the House was whether her party was up to the task of governing. Democrats wisely turned last year's election into a referendum on Republican competence. It was a shrewd strategy, though left unanswered was how they would use their new power. Could Ms. Pelosi and Senate Leader Harry Reid keep the party's angry liberal wing in check? Did Democrats have a big agenda around which they could rally?

Six months on, the country isn't much impressed. Congress's approval rating is drifting into the netherworld, having sunk to an average of 25%. One recent Gallup poll reported only 14% of Americans profess confidence in that institution, now run by Democrats. The numbers make even President Bush look good, an extraordinary achievement.

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... with the first 100 hours done and gone, by mid-January the Democratic Party proceeded to fall apart. The crumbling has progressed along predictable lines.

For starters, the leaders have failed to keep the Bush-hating left under wraps. This crowd isn't nearly as interested in passing legislation as it is flooding the Beltway with subpoenas. By one count, the new Democratic Congress has held over 600 oversight hearings since assuming power. Given the Senate has only been in session 100 days (the House, 92 days), that works out to six hearings per day, or one every 1.5 hours. The bashing covers everything from wiretapping to President Bush's global warming science.

The events are primarily cathartic, designed to allow the base to work out its Bush anger. Yet many Democrats have also convinced themselves the hearings are smart politics--that the way to increase their congressional majorities next year is to further paint Republicans as corrupt and incompetent--and point to Mr. Bush's approval ratings as evidence it is working. Democrats' own (lower) approval ratings suggest voters have limited tolerance for such partisanship and would prefer to see the party implementing the "new direction" it promised in its campaign.

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The Democrat congress has a low approval rating because it has failed its anti war base. This was destined to happen because it got its majority by running conservatives in conservative districts who were not in the anti war base. Anti war candidates would have lost in those districts. While the party leaders act like they got a mandate for retreat from Iraq, that is certainly not how they campaigned in 2006 and indeed after they won Harry Reid clearly stated that they would not be cutting funds for the war. He and other Democrat senators even supported increasing US troops in Iraq until President Bush adopted that new strategy.

What the Democrats have is an ungovernable majority. That is one reason why GOP leader John Boehner has been able to roll them on numerous occasions. If the Democrats want to run on competence in 2008 they have a lot of work to do and it want be in holding oversight hearings.