The bigger picture

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American politics seems to have dwindled down to a choice between a big government party and a big permanently-out-of-government party. The Senate Democrats had two months to cook up a reason to vote against John Roberts and the best California Sen. Dianne Feinstein could manage come the big day was that she had wanted to hear him "talking to me as a son, a husband and a father."

In that case, get off the Judiciary Committee and go audition for "Return To Bridges Of Madison County," or "What Women Want 2" ("Mel Gibson is nominated to the Supreme Court but, despite being sensitive and a good listener, is accused of being a conservative theocrat").

That slab of meaningless emotive exhibitionism would make a good epitaph for the Democratic Party. The reality of life as a big-shot Dem is that what John Roberts is like "as a father" is less important than what George Soros is like as a sugar daddy.

The more money shoveled at the party by moveon.org, Hollywood, the National Organization for Women and other unrepresentative fringes, the less able it is to see over the big pile of green to the electorate beyond. A party as thoroughly Sorosized as the Democrats is perforce downsized.

To be sure, they have many institutional advantages: If you watch the TV news, you would still think Cindy Sheehan an emblematic bereaved army mom, rather than a pitiful crackpot calling for President Bush to pull his troops out of "occupied New Orleans." Her Million-Moan March washed up in Washington Thursday to besiege the White House. As the Associated Press put it, "Sheehan, supporters descend on the capital." There were 29 supporters. Can 2 dozen people "descend" on any capital city bigger than the South Sandwich Islands'?

Surely her media boosters were cringing with embarrassment at their own impotence. Since its star columnist Maureen Dowd became focused on Mrs. Sheehan's "moral authority," the New York Times has run some 70 stories on Cindy -- and every story attracted another 0.4142857 of a supporter to her march on the capital.

Nonetheless, Hillary Rodham Clinton has yielded to "pressure" from all those 0.41428s and agreed to meet with Mrs. Sheehan to "explain" her vote for the Iraq war. The dwindling stars of today's Democratic Party expend most of their energy jumping through the ever-smaller hoops of an ever-kookier fringe.

These days one party raises a ton of money from George Soros and the other raises a ton of money from you. George Bush has made a commitment to spend $200 billion on Gulf Coast "hurricane relief." Stephen Moore in the Wall Street Journal provided this perspective: Katrina supposedly displaced a half-million families. For $200 billion, every family could be given $400,000, and they could build their own beach-front home anywhere in America except next door to Barbra Streisand.

For 400 grand, they could all move into the Plaza Hotel -- with a view of Central Park, not the cheap rooms looking out on 58th -- and live off the $30 Snickers from the mini-bar.

Oh, sure, some might blow the $400,000 on beer and strippers, as several hurricane "victims" have already done with their complimentary Fedit-credit cards at the Baby Dolls Club in Houston. "You lost your whole house," said Abby, one of the eponymous dolls, "you might want some beer in a strip club."