In the Arena

Good Advice

For Democrats, from David Ignatius. I’d add that Congressional Democrats had best be careful of symbolic battles–however worthy–against the Bush Administration. They’d be better advised to step out with positive alternatives on issues life Health Insurance, Global Warming etc–pass them and challenge Bush to veto them–rather than allowing the executive privilege tit-for-tat suck all the oxygen out of the public debate. The more the Democrats are lured into that tiff, the more they’ll seem same-old same-old pols, and the less altitude they’ll have in 2008.

This doesn’t mean that legitimate investigations of the Bush administration’s actions–the Iraq contracting scandal, various regulatory depredations–shouldn’t be front and center. They should. But the Dems will suffer if all the headlines are about procedure rather than policy.

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