Contributed by Brian Krenz on 10/26/07

This country is being run by a man with absolutely no morals. Over the past seven years, George Bush has presided over some of the gravest blunders the United States has ever made. From exceedingly dubious warrant-less wiretapping to an atrocious war with no obvious end in site, he has plunged the nation into a void of international embarrassment and contempt. In this void children are denied health insurance, habeas corpus ceases to exist, and torture of un-convictable prisoners is seen as sound policy. All of this would be enough to make anyone cry foul, yet if you listen, even very carefully, all you will hear is silence. In the face of this atrocious behavior, Democrats remain steadfastly mute.

Earlier this year, Democrats in congress caved in to White House pressure by allowing a temporary surveillance provision that essentially granted Bush all of the investigative powers he could want (some say the bill actually gave him more than he even asked for). The bill does not require a warrant for eavesdropping on phone conversations and emails, even those of Americans here at home. And the spying is broad—a former AT&T employee recently admitted that all internet traffic data under AT&T’s massive umbrella was consistently sent to the NSA. Democrats claimed that because the bill was brought up so close to recess, they didn’t have time to fight their Republican counterparts on it. But if the Democrats had really wanted to put up a fight they could have done it—even if that meant postponing their beloved vacations. The real reason Democrats gave in was because they were afraid of appearing soft on terrorism. Every move they make seems to be dictated by this irrational fear. This is nothing short of a disastrous mistake considering that so many of those politicians’ views—from the war to healthcare—line up with the views of most Americans. Democrats have nothing to lose by speaking their minds, because the vast majority of the country would agree with what they have to say. In fact, possibly the only way that Democrats could lose in next year’s election would be if they didn’t challenge Bush and his Republican cronies enough. The American people didn’t elect this congress to sit on its hands—they wanted action and so far there has been very little.
I am willing to concede that finding a way to end the war in Iraq with so little Republican support is difficult, maybe impossible. But on issues like the recently vetoed children’s health insurance bill, which would have given healthcare to millions of otherwise insurance-less children (repeat: children), and the wiretapping bill last summer, Democrats have no excuses. If Democrats pushed their Republican colleagues on the children’s healthcare, they would succeed. There isn’t a politician anywhere in the country willing to allow his or her name to be tied to an image of a poor child whose family can’t afford to give him basic medical care. Democrats will say they simply didn’t have enough votes to override the veto, but I’d wager they didn’t threaten congressional Republicans the same way those Republicans threatened them in past congresses. A little honest strong-arming to get the American people what they want is alright—that’s politics.

Perhaps most frightening is that this problem isn’t just contained in the congress. The presidential candidates are showing an equal ineptitude for true leadership. Hilary seems perfectly content to sit on her lead in the polls, and her recent vote to classify the Iranian National Guard as a terrorist organization (which essentially gives Bush a green light to attack Iran) is evidence that she doesn’t really have the nation’s best interests at heart. Barack Obama should be perfectly poised to shine as America’s next great leader, but lately he has been as quiet as a mouse. Obama’s meticulous behavior and his ability to bring about compromise make him the perfect candidate to unite the nation. But he can’t do that without standing up and saying what he really believes. The bottom line is that every presidential candidate should be furious about the domestic spying bill, the vetoed children’s healthcare bill, rumblings of a conflict with Iran, torture, and countless other issues. Yet here we sit, waiting for someone to speak up—to lead.

And the country is starved for that leadership. People want to believe that we are capable of good—that we can be revered by the world again—and they now know that type of leadership will never come from George Bush. They looked to Democrats in 2006 to challenge the president and give us a new direction—toward hope and peace. And now those same Democrats are so tight-lipped, so unable to engender support in their colleagues that there are millions of uninsured children and millions of Americans afraid of big-brother reading their emails and listening to their phone calls. There was a time when Democrats showed leadership beyond compare—Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy. They were visionaries, they inspired, they made America believe we were good and that we could do good for the world. But today, that sort of attitude is nowhere in sight. Everyday I hope that someone will step up, take the reigns of the nation, and bring us back to our old selves, and so far, everyday I am disappointed. Time is running out; the world won’t tolerate our insolence much longer. We can only act in a reprehensible, un-American manner for so long before that manner becomes typically-American.

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