Come On, Democrats! Is It Really That Hard to Get the Message Out?

The subject simply cannot be avoided any longer, now that it has reached the level of a national crisis. Democrats, well aware that their ship has been lost at sea for several years, are conducting a nationwide search for a new captain.

That’s right. They’re looking for their very own Rush Limbaugh.

It seems that Phil Donahue’s return to the airwaves has not been all crackle and pop, and nobody is turning cartwheels over the work of Paul Begala or Bill Press.

“Most liberal talk shows are so, you know, milquetoast, who would want to listen to them?” Hollywood producer Harry Thomason told the New York Times. “Conservatives are all fire and brimstone.”

In Washington, where such things are taken seriously, former Clinton administration officials are trying to “identify talent” who will address policy issues in ways that don’t put viewers into a coma.

James Carville’s name has come up, but a national survey revealed that 83% of Americans would rather stick their heads in a bowl of gumbo than listen to more ranting from that muskrat.

Geez, you’d think lefty Hollywood could come up with somebody. Is Warren Beatty doing anything? Are the Smothers Brothers busy?

Why not make a run at Dr. Laura, who seems to have lost some of her marketability as a conservative. Maybe the Dems can flip her to their side now that her mother died alone while the good “doctor” was making a fortune preaching family values on the radio.

There’s also talk among Democrats of a “progressive” cable network to rival the conservative Fox, which features blabbermouths like Bill O’Reilly and someone named Hannity. And there’s still more talk of a liberal think tank to rival the conservative Heritage Foundation.

I’m sure someone has also been assigned to study Republican haircuts and see if the Democrats might want to change barbers too.

But I have news for them.The Democratic Party doesn’t need its own collection of talk-show carnies, popping veins and spouting nonsense. Forget the star search, and just look for anyone with something to say.

It’s not like you’re going up against Winston Churchill, for crying out loud.

For the right person, five minutes in front of the mike ought to be enough to wake the party from the dead.

On the war:

My fellow Americans, I, for one, am tired of sitting here with my lips zipped and my knees knocking for fear of being called a traitor. We find no nukes in Iraq, and the White House says let’s go to war. We find no link to Al Qaeda, and the White House says let’s go to war at a cost of $60 billion or $80 billion while the economy tanks.

Make sense to you? If not, the right thing to do -- the patriotic thing to do -- is to demand explanations for policies that seem more hypocritical by the day. And please, folks, in a country where the wheel is constantly reinvented, let’s buy into alternative energy sources so we don’t have to keep hopping into bed with despots.

On your pocketbook:

Checked your pension plan lately, pal?

Yeah, I’m talking to you, the average Joe who slogged through a long career, waiting on the day when you could hang up your hat. I hate to break it to you, but you just got stiffed, big-time. When you weren’t looking, President Bush signed an order that could cut your payout by half.

What’s Rush Limbaugh got to say about that?

On the growing income gap:

What’s that you say, Bunky? Your stocks are in the commode? Your savings plan evaporated? Your unemployment check stopped coming on Christmas Eve? Is that what’s bothering you?

Well, you should have been a CEO, because while you were getting hosed in 2002, literally dozens of executives struck gold.

Take Tenet Healthcare. Investigators from three federal agencies came calling on the Santa Barbara-based company for one possible irregularity or another, and the stock nose-dived 61% for the year.

But the chief executive pocketed -- are you ready for this? -- $111 million.

By the way, Bunky, you see where the president proposed that gargantuan tax cut on corporate dividends?

On your nagging cough:

Acid rain, advancing smog, chance of increased respiratory disease.

That lovely forecast was issued last week by nine Northeastern states that sued the federal government for what they called the most drastic rollback of the Clean Air Act in 30 years.

The Bush administration’s generous breaks on anti-pollution controls were cheered, however, by the scions of power and industry.

Don’t worry. This was only a blip in the administration’s otherwise sparkling environmental record.

Get some cough drops and a gas mask, and you’ll be fine.

Dangerous men in charge:

Remember the Iran-Contra scandal? Remember John “Mr. Buck Stops Here” Poindexter getting convicted of lying to Congress and slithering free on a technicality?

Dubya loves him.

Poindexter’s the man behind the Homeland Security Act provision that allows government snoops to look at your e-mail, your phone records and virtually everything else about your private life.

Even William Safire was horrified by this guy, and he’s the nation’s preeminent conservative columnist. But I think Safire was even more horrified at the civil liberties abuses of Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft.

You see how this works?

Democrats don’t need a star; they just need someone with a pulse. I’d take the job myself, except that they make this one so easy.

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Steve Lopez writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at steve.lopez@latimes

.com.