Paglia Puts it Well

I do love the way Camille Paglia writes:

On talk-show call-ins, I started to hear real love for Bush, a protective
desire to defend him against the smug liberal hyenas. It was a pivotal moment in
the campaign. And the righteous fury of the Bush crusaders started to sway the
undecideds. For months on Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity or other conservative
radio shows, I really didn't hear such great enthusiasm for Bush. But then all
of a sudden, there was a turning point. I remember sitting in my car in April
listening to Hannity -- who has become a major force in American politics and
whose talents as a broadcaster just keep getting better and better (though I'm
always wishing he had more respect for other cultures and a broader
understanding of our place in the world). He was talking slowly and thoughtfully
after hanging up with a like-minded caller, and I got really alarmed. I said to
myself, wow, here it is. It was a whole, comprehensive geopolitical picture: the
only way we can win the war against terror is to take the fight to the
terrorists abroad, America must be a beacon to the world. America has a divine
mission to bring liberty to the world. It was a view of destiny that had a
staggering clarity and simplicity.

Now if the Democratic consultants had any brains, they would have viewed all
this as an important system of ideas that needed to be logically addressed,
instead of just sneering at it. This is a war of ideas! But too many Democrats
rely on a juvenile Al Franken level of discourse -- sneer, sneer, sneer at the
benighted ones. We are all so superior in our little elite enclaves. So even if
Kerry wins the election, the Democrats have lost this war of ideas.

It's as if we have no eloquent speechwriters any longer. The Democratic Party
has become a p.c. wallow over the past 20 years -- a sinkhole of unctuous,
bleeding-heart liberalism and emotional manipulation, always using seniors or
"disenfranchised" African-Americans as convenient straw men. We're supposed to
be in a constant state of empathy, on high alert to a cosmos of injustice. And
always there are the aggrieved -- and those nasty people in high places who are
doing awful things to them! It's become a tedious soap opera removed from
reality.

The Democratic operatives, chummily clustered in their Northeastern drinking
holes, are missing the fact that most Republicans are not the top execs of
Halliburton but hardworking small-business people who lead orderly lives and try
to be good citizens. There's been a slow shift: What used to be the Democratic
base -- plain, unpretentious people going about their business and just trying
to do the right thing -- is shifting toward the Republican Party. Republicanism
is becoming populist. Republicans believe that tax cuts to large and small
businesses help growth, encourage spending and investment, and create jobs. The
Democrats have no answer to that except hysterical rhetoric. Rush Limbaugh
rightly calls it the tired old "Democratic playbook" -- more than 25 years
old.