by the Left Coast Rebel

The fallout of Senator Evan Bayh’s surprise retirement in liberal ranks is second only to the election of Scott Brown. Everyone from Ezra Klein saying that Bayh was hypocritical on being a budget hawk so how could he claim to quit because of the Democrats running the country (debt) into the ground, to the countless finger-pointing and tea leaf reading that has been a stay since the announcement a few days ago. I recall reading (or hearing) someone say that the essence of Bayh’s desire to quit was the lackadaisical attitude that Obama and Congress have towards the nation’s mounting debt, despite hollow lip service otherwise. I heard several mention today a meeting that Reagan had with many conservative leaders before he became ill with Alzheimers. In the meeting (1992, I believe), Reagan told them that essentially liberalism will always crush itself under it’s own weight.

A piece in the opinion section of the Wall Street Journal may hit the nail on the head:

The political retirement of Evan Bayh, at age 54, is being portrayed by various sages as a result of too much partisanship, or the Senate’s dysfunction, or even the systemic breakdown of American governance. Most of this is rationalization. The real story, of which Mr. Bayh’s frustration is merely the latest sign, is the failure once again of liberal governance.

For the fourth time since the 1960s, American voters in 2008 gave Democrats overwhelming control of both Congress and the White House. Republicans haven’t had such large majorities since the 1920s. Yet once again, Democratic leaders have tried to govern the country from the left, only to find that their policies have hit a wall of practical and popular resistance.

Democrats failed in the latter half of the 1960s, as the twin burdens of the Great Society and Vietnam ended the Kennedy boom and split their party. They failed again after Watergate, as Congress dragged Jimmy Carter to the left and liberals had no answer for stagflation. They failed a third time in the first two Bill Clinton years, as tax increases and HillaryCare led to the Gingrich Congress before Mr. Clinton salvaged his Presidency by tacking to the center.

Read the rest here.
Via Memeorandum

UPDATE: Reaganite has more on a quote from Bayh re: the liberal agenda. Let’s just say that it brings up stories like the Red Sea being parted………famines….plagues, locusts….Read it here.