Counting His Blessings

It has been said that Bush has been blessed with the opponents he has had. And it seems the Democrats continue to bless him.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 - Howard Dean emerged Tuesday as the almost assured new leader of the Democratic National Committee, as one of his main rivals quit the race and Democrats streamed to announce their support of a man whose presidential campaign collapsed one year ago.

Why the Democrats would do this to themselves is a mystery. But the editors of NRO are begging Pretty Please.

But now he's back. And this time it isn't the supposedly unsophisticated Democratic caucus and primary voters who are swooning for Dean, but the party's insiders, the voting members of the Democratic National Committee. Freud could get an entire monograph on his theory of the "death drive" out of observing contemporary Democrats. The party is displaying an unquenchable thirst for irrelevance. Several theories have been advanced in the wake of Bush's reelection for the Democrats' troubles: a lack of seriousness on national security; an out-of-touch liberalism on social issues; an inability to sell its message in terms that connect with "red state" voters. The DNC is about to reject all these theories in favor of one of its own — all that ails the Democratic can be fixed by more of the same, only more so.

Its always preferable in a democracy to have at least two viable parties. But how does one stop the Democrats from sticking the knife further and further into their own gut?