New Politics Cont'd...

So just to sum up. The Democratic victory, which was just about average in historical terms (i.e. number of seats picked up etc) supposedly represents a dawning new age of a "new politics."Septuagenarian dinosaurs Rangel, Dingel, Waxman, Conyers et al are all poised to take over various committees (Dingel and Waxman having led their respective committees before the GOP takeover in 1994). Robert Byrd, first elected to the Senate in 1066, has once again been handed the keys to the national fisc. Nancy Pelosi - no one's definition of a novel or creative thinker - will lead her party in the House and Harry Reid, a who would have to get drunk to have Warren Christopher's vivaciousness, will lead the Senate. The minimum wage, first promulgated by the Democratic party in 1938, I think, is their signature domestic policy issue. And, George McGovern is briefing the "progressive" wing of the Democrats about how to get out of Iraq.

Meanwhile, Bush I Republican retreads are taking over the White House's foreign policy shop as Bush II sings the praises of Republican-Democrat bipartisanship. Yes, this is truly a new era the likes of which nobody has ever seen before. Verily, the light of the new dawn is blinding.

Jonah Goldberg