Clueless, planless, spineless

As if it's not obvious liberals are making things up as they go along, we get this from USA Today:

Democrats need to counter the perception that they are a party without ideas. A recent poll by Democrats James Carville and Stanley Greenberg found that just 44% — scarcely anyone beyond diehard Democrats — think the party has any ideas for addressing the nation's problems.

It's gotta be pretty damned hard to come up with pitchable ideas when you're consumed by hate. (See post below.)

Liberals are also struggling to counter the perception they lack a fighting spirit:

You don't win, in other words, by saying that Osama bin Laden isn't all that different from Thomas Paine, or that America's ambitions in the world aren't so dissimilar from the goals of yesterday's Nazis or today's jihadists, or that maybe Pol Pot and Che had a point.

Similarly, Columbia University history professor Alan Brinkley wrote recently in The American Prospect, a liberal monthly, that Democrats haven't been able to produce a plausible military leader since John F. Kennedy:

"Unspoken but clearly felt in the comparisons between Democrats and Republicans in recent decades has been a particular conception of masculinity and patriotism. Kerry's impressive war record wilted quickly in the face of withering attacks from the Swift-boat avengers, but also in the face of the self-confident, masculine swagger that seems to be a natural part of the president's demeanor."

It was also hard to see Kerry as the manly type after watching him try catch a football with his eyes tightly closed all girly-like.