Will "Debbie Dubya" See The Light?

I know The Daily Kos and others have been all over Dem Florida U.S. House Rep Debbie Wasserman Schultz for stating that she “can’t work publicly against Florida House Repugs Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mario Diaz-Balart and Lincoln Diaz-Balart” (as noted here) so that’s why she had supposedly been supporting their Democratic challengers “behind the scenes.”

This is awful on a bunch of levels that I don’t mean to reconstruct here (where do you start with I R-L, for example?), but I just want to note here that DavidNYC has posted on the recent developments here, with Wasserman Schultz apparently engaged in some halting first steps on behalf of the Dems in question (I don’t know why Wasserman Schultz needed to be prodded into action like this, but there you are).

Also, this New York Times article yesterday communicates that Lincoln Diaz-Balart is caught in the current squeeze faced by so many in Congress, whereby his constituents face foreclosure of their homes in greater and greater numbers while his party “urg(es) restraint, reluctant to commit taxpayer funds to what they say is simply a bailout for greedy lenders and reckless buyers” (and, more than anyone else, this is the mantra of Saint McCain).

So what does L D-B have to say?

“I haven’t studied this sufficiently to commit right now,” Mr. Diaz-Balart said in an interview outside Epworth Village, a retirement community where he spoke to constituents about how to get their payments from the economic stimulus plan approved by Congress last month.

“It’s a very serious problem, and I am not dogmatic,” he said. “I am not going to say there cannot be state intervention in a dogmatic way.”

For constituents like (Juan) Carpio, that is not enough. “I’m very lukewarm about him nowadays,” said Mr. Carpio, who like his congressman is a lifelong Republican of Cuban heritage.

Others were less subtle. “He says a lot of about foreign policy, mainly toward Cuba, which makes no difference here,” said David Carbonell, a former computer programmer and gas station manager now on disability with a heart ailment. “You have people living here at the edge of poverty and he has done nothing to bring anything back to Hialeah or Miami Lakes. He is a party hack. He will vote the way his party votes.”

Sounds like anti-Castroism alone isn’t good enough for your constituents any more, Mr. Diaz-Balart. Maybe it’s time for you to resist the flinty-eyed, curmudgeonly posturing of what passes for your party leadership and practice some actual governance.

And maybe this will spur on “Debbie Dubya” to forego the niceties and confront these three wingnuts head on, something they would not hesitate to do themselves if roles were reversed.

Update: More great stuff on this from kos here...