"Not as Lame as you Think" - Amy Sullivan

In 2002 and 2003, Joshua Micah Marshall wrote a series of articles for this magazine about the myth of Republican competence. In one of those pieces, he referenced Thomas Kuhn's famous paradigm theory, which maintains that people can hold fast to a theory or narrative even as vast amounts of contradictory evidence piles up. At the time, there were plenty of indications pointing to GOP missteps and policy failures. But Republican message discipline, and a general awe of the Bush White House's corporate authority model, ruled the day. Everyone "knew" the Bush administration was a well-oiled machine. It took three more years, more than 2300 U.S. troops dead in Iraq, a botched relief effort for Hurricane Katrina victims, and the vice president shooting a guy in the face for the narrative to change. Yes, it is possible for conventional wisdom to be that wrong.

So it is that Democrats can be "hopelessly divided" while voting together 88 percent of the time, according to Congressional Quarterly; just one percentage point lower than the vaunted lock-step Republican caucus. They can be "pathetically ineffective" while dealing a humiliating defeat to the president's biggest domestic policy effort. They can be deemed "weak" and "timid" while setting the terms of the debate for pulling troops out of Iraq.