Exhibit A is Jason Horowitz' wet kiss to Rahmbo (Obama's "voice of reason"!). In it, Horowitz quotes numerous anonymous Democratic "leaders" in Congress who throw Obama under the bus, saying essentially "He shoulda listened to Rahm!" Well, Rahmbo isn't a big picture guy; he comes from the Clinton school of triangulation, where you get elected to pass dinky, boutique pieces of legislation that don't rock the boat. To coin a phrase, that's not change we can believe in! (UPDATE: Dan Froomkin has a good rogering of the Rahmbo effect.) One specific whine from a senior Democratic congressman caught our attention:
"There is this growing sense in the House that this White House is tone-deaf and doesn't care about 2010, that it is sacrificing members for 2012 and that the president thinks he doesn't need to get engaged, or that he thinks politics don't matter and that he could care less about what is happening on the streets of our districts. That's not Rahm."
Translation: Saving my precious career is more important that the Nation's welfare!
Juxtaposed in the same edition is Exhibit B, a letter to the editor from a person in Monterey, California, who cites a Democratic congressman, quoted in Ruth Marcus' Feb. 24 op/ed, as saying (regarding his health care vote last year), "This is a career-ending vote." The letter writer then marvels:
"'Career-ending vote?'" Perhaps thinking of their elected office as a 'career' is a significant problem with far too many senators and House members."
Indeed. Those Democrats (or Rethugs for that matter) who think in those terms deserve to be "retired," since they appear to have long ago forgotten what public service is supposed to be about, not to mention what every Democratic platform since 1948 has supported.
