Salon -- Joe Conason's Journal -- Democrats have only themselves to blame.

A party that will not criticize the incumbent president cannot defeat him, now or two years from now. A party that has nothing to say about unfair tax breaks, a vanishing surplus and a looted economy cannot expect anyone to listen when it asks for votes. A party without passion or vision is hardly a political party at all. Even in their righteous defense of Social Security, Democrats too often sounded as if their chief concern was to preserve their own institutional position.

Moving forward onto this hostile political terrain, the Democrats would do well to recall the combative stance adopted by the Republicans after losing both houses of Congress and the presidency in 1992. They can begin by examining the real reasons for this narrow but awful defeat, without flinching.