The Party with No Agenda fakes conviction

Tom Maguire: “After the 2002 Dem debacle, observers noted complained that you can't beat something with nothing. Here we go again.”

Frank Rich in the NY Times (!): “But as long as the Democrats keep repeating their own mistakes, they will lose to the party whose mistakes are, if nothing else, packaged as one heckuva show. It's better to have the courage of bad convictions than no courage or convictions at all.”

Polipundit: “This strategy exposes them as the power-hungry cowards they are. If you don’t stand for anything, you’ll fall in November.”

Michael Barone: “Good news puts things in a different light and raises the question of just what Democrats would do if in power.”

This past week, Congressional Democrats rolled out their long-awaited agenda for governance, the “New Direction.” Here’s DCCC chair Rahm Emanuel explaining the specifics of “Six in ‘06”:

Gigot: Good. So let's assume you do win in November. What's the first priority--legislative priority--you're going to bring to Congress come January?
Emanuel: In the opening you mentioned the new direction. What we call it is the "Six in '06": increase in the minimum wage; direct negotiations for lower prescription drug prices; a vote on the 9/11 Commission recommendations to make America safe; take the $15 billion in corporate subsidies to big oil and put it towards energy independence; seventh, or rather fifth, is take--restore the cuts in college education, that were 12 1/2 billion dollars in cuts, and make those go back towards opening the doors of college education, and then the pay-go rules as it relates to budget, to put our fiscal house in order and put us on a path to balancing the budget--Six in '06.

For starters, let’s focus on the negotiations for lower drug prices. Excuse my naiveté but I don’t understand how this would work. Due to patent laws, the pharmaceutical companies have exclusive rights to their product; they can charge whatever they wish.

Nancy Pelosi: “$2 per pill for Lipitor is too much. We want it lower.”
Pfizer: “No.”

Then what? As Lawrence Hunter speculates, price “negotiations” would morph into price controls followed by all the vagaries they entail, particularly supply shortages. Pharmaceutical companies, which spend millions to develop drugs, will cut back on life-saving medicines that will face the most price pressure to market pills for toe fungus. The Democrats never miss an opportunity to savage big business, especially pharamaceuticals and petroleum, but rarely constructs policy to help the businesses we all depend upon. This "new direction" is looking depressingly like their old direction.