It's no fun being a Democrat now. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid doesn't have the Democratic votes to pass President Barack Obama's latest stimulus. In this week's Washington Post-ABC News poll, Mr. Obama's job approval hit a record low of 42%, and 55% of those polled believe a Republican will win the White House. As the public turns on the president and his party, they are turning on the public.
Take former Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag, who recently wrote in the New Republic that "to solve the serious problems facing our country, we need to minimize the harm from legislative inertia by relying more on automatic policies and depoliticized commissions. . . . We might be a healthier democracy if we were a slightly less democratic one."
Not to be outdone, North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue told the Cary Rotary Club that "we ought to suspend . . . elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won't hold it against them, whatever decisions they make."
And Mr. Obama, who during the campaign expressed his disdain for average Americans at a fund-raiser in San Francisco that he thought was private, has now taken his criticism public. Last weekend, he told an Orlando television reporter that our country has "gotten a little soft."
This liberal lack of faith in the people is combined with a nearly boundless confidence in government, and it can be seen in issues large and small. Take taxes: Mr. Obama and his party want to substantially raise them. They trust government to spend that money more wisely than they do the people who earned it.
Karl Rove is a former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush. He is a Fox News contributor and author of "Courage and Consequence" (Threshold Editions, 2010). To continue reading his column in The Wall Street Journal, click here.
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