Whipped Colorful Dogs Stuck in Neutral

I think Arianna’s working the wrong metaphor when she compares the Democratic faithful to “parched earth, desperate for some drops of truth about Iraq from their elected representatives.” (Actually, I think it’s technically a simile, but I’m making a point here.) Seems to me the Democratic faithful are more whipped dog than delicate desert flower ready to bloom. How else to explain opportunity after opportunity passing by without the sense that any momentum whatsoever is being gained by the opposition? From the grisly, mounting death toll in Iraq to the President’s doomed social security strategy to Bill Frist’s Bad Week to the Downing Street Memo to the p.r. nightmare that came with the revelation that Newsweek may have been wrong on source, right in principle regarding possible Koran-flushing at Gitmo (or as the kids have taken to calling it, Perhaps I Spoke Too Soon-Gate) to Amnesty International comparing Administration-sanctioned behavior at Guantanamo to Soviet-style gulags...

We have leaders and yet we’re leaderless. Watching Hillary ever-so-delicately maneuver herself for ‘08 has the look and feel of a Hummer trying to fit into a compact parking space. Harry Reid’s doing a commendable job keeping the Nervous Nellies in the Senate herded together but that effort only carries so far. Warren Beatty gives good commencement speech but won’t step up to run for governor. Hell, when John McCain starts to look like the party’s last, best hope to get its legislative agenda passed...

Until someone can come forward and forcefully weave a compelling narrative out of all these boldly-colored threads, I’m afraid we Democrats are stuck in neutral. And I'm all out of metaphors.