Dems In Search of New Villains

What are the Dems to do that that Bush, Cheney and Rove are gone? They've got to have someone to demonize in order to pass their legislation.

Well, there are new villains in town:

With their health care plans in a holding pattern — and no George W. Bush to kick around anymore — Democrats are casting about for somebody to blame.

House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn says that Republicans have “perfected ‘just say no.’” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said insurance companies are chalking up “immoral profits.”

But even if they won’t acknowledge it publicly, most Democrats in Congress know the truth: It’s their own colleagues who are slowing down progress in both the House and the Senate.

Back in 2005, Democrats made a concerted push to recruit conservative candidates to help them win in Republican-leaning districts. The strategy worked, propelling the party to power in 2006 and giving it a larger majority in 2008.

But now Democrats at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue are grappling with the downside: To get health care reform through Congress, they’re going to have to get it past these new, more conservative members of their party — specifically, the seven Blue Dogs on the Energy and Commerce Committee who have delayed consideration of the bill.

The frustration bubbled over last Friday after negotiations broke down between the Blue Dogs and Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.). Afterward, the chairman complained, “We’re not going to let them empower Republicans to control the committee.”

During a meeting of committee Democrats shortly afterward, New York Rep. Eliot Engel and others gave the two Blue Dogs in attendance — Arkansas Rep. Mike Ross and Ohio Rep. Zack Space — a piece of their minds, those in attendance said afterward.

And on Monday, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman raised the possibility that some Blue Dogs are dragging their heels because they want Obama to fail — both on health care and at the polls in 2012.

“Perhaps their bottom line is that they don’t want a bill,” said Illinois Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a leading progressive. “Some of us feel this has become a constantly moving target.”

“I’ve listened carefully to what they want, and I have yet to hear how money will be saved,” she added.

I think the Blue Dogs in the House are certainly concerned about 2010 and their constituents are waking up to the damage that will be done by cap-and-tax and the health care bill and they want no part of it.

While Blue-on-Red violence might have helped them win the Congress and the White House, Blue-on-Blue violence will get them nowhere.