Democratic Party’s agenda, relevance

Re “One sorry mess of a party,” Opinion, Feb. 9

Jonah Goldberg’s commentary is simple propaganda: put a false idea out there often enough and hope it sticks. But he’s just wrong. Democrats can win elections; witness Al Gore in 2000.

Democrats do “have their own ideas,” most fundamentally that government should serve all the people, not just the wealthy.

Democrats fight for healthcare, welfare, the environment, workers’ rights, Social Security, the 1st Amendment, checks and balances and so on.

True, Democrats don’t walk in lock-step behind der leader. It’s a tenet of liberalism that people should be free to think for themselves. Sure, it gets messy sometimes -- so does democracy.

CYNTHIA TUELL

Upland

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Goldberg must be getting forgetful. While he nitpicks about Democrats Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Jimmy Carter, he seems to have forgotten truly monumental problems with the Bush administration.

He complains that Democrats have shifted into hate gear on President Bush and the Republican Congress, but he forgets that this administration has cynically used 9/11 to drive its political agenda through fear, and it started an unnecessary war that so far has cost more than 2,000 American lives and $239 billion that could have been used at home for healthcare and education.

He forgets that this administration is so incompetent or uncaring that it has allowed a major American city to be devastated and remain devastated. It is so callous that it proposes a reverse Robin Hood budget that robs from the poor so the rich can have massive tax cuts.

Question for Goldberg: Why wouldn’t Democrats, or anyone who is paying attention, hate this administration and what it is doing to ruin the country?

RUSS NICHOLS

Los Angeles

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My grandfather and my mother were Democrats, and I was a longtime Democrat until the mid-1990s.

The late Paul Tsongas was my hero, and I thought Bill Clinton would pick up the progressive national baton and get the party headed in the right direction. The “Black Hawk Down” fiasco in Somalia and Monica-gate drove me to the neo camp. I believe Goldberg’s article was on target.

The Democratic Party fails because it supports the failed policies of an earlier generation, and then wonders why it consistently loses elections.

Democrats even cheered when the president brought up his failed Social Security reform in the State of the Union address. In its present form, Social Security will be taken away from millions of Americans by 2050. That is my retirement, your retirement and the retirement of many of the nation’s poorest families.

The Democrats would be wise to take a lesson from Franklin D. Roosevelt and support America first, do whatever it takes to win the war on terror and reinvigorate this country’s industrial base; then they can talk about being relevant.

RICH TULLO

New York