1115.org

On Monday, WaPo carried — for reasons that are not entirely clear — an op-ed by Harold Ford Jr., Chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council, and Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley.

In the course of rambling on and not saying very much at all that made sense, these two gentlemen made the following statement:

George W. Bush is handing us Democrats our Hoover moment. Independents, swing voters and even some Republicans who haven’t voted our way in more than a decade are willing to hear us out. With an ambitious common-sense agenda, the progressive center has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to win back the White House, expand its margins in Congress and build a political and governing majority that could last a generation.

A “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to … build a political and governing majority that could last a generation.” It makes my blood run cold to hear anyone talk like that.

I firmly believe that the worst excesses of the Bush administration and the Republican political machine can be attributed to the similar dreams of empire they harbored. I think Karl Rove’s thoroughly misconceived wet dream of a permanent political majority for conservatives is what incubated almost every nightmare we have lived through for the last 6 years.

I don’t want anybody — Republican or Democratic — to harbor dreams of building a political and governing majority that could last a generation. Dreams like that trigger the kind of naked, demented power-lust that corrupts absolutely. Because it’s not absolute power that corrupts absolutely, it’s the dream of absolute power, the fevered vision. That’s what leads to the sacrifice of principles and ideals, to the trampling of Constitutions, the rape of democracy, to riding roughshod over civil liberties. Because ultimately this kind of power always has to be seized, and always by foul means rather than fair. No one comes by it except through dirty tricks. Which is, of course, why the Republicans brought us vote caging and voter intimidation, the rampant politicization of the Justice Department, those briefings conducted by Rove and his band of merry men that constitute serial violations of the Hatch Act, and oh so much more besides.

I don’t want the Democrats to envision, or to dedicate themselves to building, a political and governing majority that could last a generation. I want them to just focus on winning the Presidency in 2008, maintaining their majority in the House and getting 60 or more seats in the Senate (without counting the likes of Joe Lieberman). I want them to focus on just providing the best government they can for the four years they’re elected to run things, the kind of government America has craved in vain ever since Bush magically ascended to the Presidency. If they can manage to do that, then maybe they get another 4-year shot. And maybe even another.

But I want to see them focusing on four years at a time, and not getting swept away by these seductive dreams of empire. Because I’m really not so sure that Democrats in their own way aren’t every bit as corruptible by the prospect of unbridled power as the dastardly Republicans. And I sure as hell don’t want to find out.