Democrats: 'Particide' In Six Easy Steps

Suppose you had a political party you were trying to get rid of. How would you do it?

Would you give it some cement shoes and toss it into the bay? Would you roll it up in a carpet and drag it into the trunk of your car in the middle of the night? Would you put out a contract on it?

If the latter sounds appealing, no need to get your hands dirty messing with any nasty mob guys from Jersey. I know some very upstanding establishment folks who've perfected a killer formula (pun intended) for particide. They're called Democrats, and they know how to get the job done right.

In fact, they've demonstrated it again for the umpteenth time just as I'm writing these words. Yesterday, that tough guy Harry Reid laid down the law for congressional Republicans thinking he wouldn't play hardball on the much-needed economic stimulus package now working its way through Congress. He told them: "Well, I think that if they think this is a bluff, wait until we have this vote and they'll find out if it's a bluff. I'm not much of a bluffer." Then, today, he completely caved into their pressure on the bill, proving - though perhaps not quite in the manner he intended - that he is in fact not much of a bluffer, after all, even if he is from Nevada. Nor, as it turns out, is he much of a negotiator either.

Yep, ladies and gentlemen, if it's particide you're after, Reid and his fellow Democrats would be happy to show you how it's done. It's pretty simple, really. There are just six easy steps that you need to follow to take out a political party that's grown a bit, shall we say, inconvenient.

First of all, make sure it does nothing. If you're looking for a good way to anger voters, here's the best. Have them send you to Congress to address a host of their urgent concerns. Let them invest their full faith in you to rescue them from all the effects of a country gone completely off the rails. Let them believe and let them hope. Then do nothing. Crush their pedestrian little dreams in your blood-soaked hands by protecting corporate interests instead. Spend two years racking up not a single notable legislative accomplishment, and then go before the voters asking for another term. They'll remember your name.

A second excellent technique is to fail to block the worst tendencies of the worst president ever, the very mission you were most entrusted with by the voters. If they hate this president's stinking war, make sure you give him the money for it every time he asks. Send all his reactionary nominees to the Supreme Court after they mock you in bullshit hearings. Yeah, go ahead. Allow a supporter of torture and Constitution-shredding to become the highest law enforcement officer in the land. Etc., etc. Get it? Sure, you can go through the motions of opposition, but at the end of the day, be sure to bungle it so badly that you leave everybody scratching their heads and wondering which party actually controls Congress. Next, while you're at it, don't do anything to make this hated president and his administration accountable for their manifold crimes of the century. Treat them as though they've got pictures of you in some airport men's room somewhere that they're threatening to release if you dare do anything remotely resembling oversight (or patriotism). Let these guys absolutely run rampant thrashing the republic in every imaginable way, while you sit on top of your congressional majority abdicating any responsibility for protecting the people who sent you there to protect them. Show the public how tough you can be by investigating the use of steroids in baseball, while lies about war and illegal phone-tapping and torture and suspension of habeas corpus go ignored. Keep your priorities straight and you're guaranteed to score points with the voters, for sure.