Don’t fret, Democrats: Bush policy still con job by Matthew Miller

Democrats need to make next year’s debate turn on rival visions for America, not near-term economic bumps. Democrats need to expose Bush’s ”compassion” hoax for what it is — a rhetorical trick to con independent voters into believing that Bush isn’t a Neanderthal like Newt.

But three years into his term, we can see President Bush’s domestic vision all too clearly. …

Bush will try to disguise this vision — who wouldn’t? — but Democrats must expose it, in all its unsavory detail.

Democrats have a different vision, and this clash has to be the central domestic choice put to voters in 2004. Richard Gephardt puts it nicely: “We’re all in this together,” he says, “whether you like it or not, whether you know it or not. What happens to some of us eventually affects all of us.”

It’s this conviction, this view of the world, that underlies deep commitments to student aid, to Social Security and more. For all his pretty speeches, Bush’s choices reveal his party thinks we’re more or less on our own.

This Bush ethic — that it’s every man for himself (championed ironically by the antithesis of the self-made man) — is reflected in the shocking greed and corruption that continues to be exposed at the highest levels of business. …

The Democratic notion that we’re in this together, and need to protect ordinary Americans against the rot at the top, resonates today because it’s so true.