New rascals for old.

When the new Democrat-controlled House and Senate convene in January, will the American people get the change in direction they voted for? And if they do get a change, will it be the kind of change they want?

Though the election outcome was much more a rejection of Bush administration policies, particularly the Iraq War, than it was an affirmation of the Democrats' agenda, Democratic Party leaders have not been bashful in claiming that the elections have given them a mandate. "The just-completed election was a declaration to all that now is the time to change direction in Washington," boasted incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (DNev.) when he delivered the weekly Democratic Party radio address on November 18. "No longer can we allow special interests and lawmakers to conspire behind closed doors."

But what would the Democrats do that's substantively different? Would they bring the troops home from Iraq? Apparently yes, but not immediately, according to Reid, "We must craft a new way forward--one that allows Iraq to be stabilized, and our troops to begin to come home," he said in his radio broadcast.

Two days before the election, Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean was even more explicit regarding the "phased redeployment" the Democratic leadership wants to implement in Iraq. Appearing on ABC's This Week, Dean described the Democrats' "phased redeployment" agenda thusly: "That the National Guard and Reserve come home soon, in a matter of months. That we leave a strike force in the Middle East, a special operation force, not in Iraq, but in the nearby friendly country where we can go into Iraq and other places where there's a terrorist problem. And that we redeploy some troops to Afghanistan."

Anyone who believes that the Democratic Party on the national level wants to bring the troops home now and stay clear of foreign quarrels, regime change, and nation building in the future is sadly mistaken. Democratic leaders, recall, supported President Bush's decision to send our troops into Iraq, despite the fact that under our Constitution the decision to go to war belongs to Congress, not the president--and our nation had no business going to war against Iraq in the first place. Recall too that the Democratic Party was neither anti-war nor anti-foreign entanglement during the presidencies of Democrats Lyndon Johnson (Vietnam) and Bill Clinton (the Balkans). Why should we expect the Democratic leadership to be anti-war and anti-foreign entanglement now?

Revealingly, Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), the incoming chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, stated on November 19 that he will introduce legislation in the new Congress to reinstate the draft. Rangel, who has opposed the Iraq War, said on CBS News' Face the Nation: "If we're going to challenge Iran and challenge North Korea and then, as some people have asked, to send more troops to Iraq, we can't do that without a draft."

The draft Rangel envisions would include not just a military component but a national civilian service component as well. "Young people [would] commit themselves to a couple of years in service to this great republic, whether it's our seaports, our airports, in schools, in hospitals," he said on Face the Nation. This is not a novel concept for the Democrat, by the way. In the past, he has introduced legislation in Congress that, as described by a 2005 news release from his office, "would cover all men and women, 18-26 years of age. It would make military service compulsory for the number determined by the President or alternative national civilian service for those remaining."

Obviously this is not what most Americans had in mind when they cast their ballots in November.

What else do Democratic Party leaders want? They can be expected to push for, among other things, raising the minimum wage, universal national healthcare, and a guest-worker (read: amnesty) program for illegal aliens--all of which would end up penalizing Americans by various methods.

Regarding the latter, President Bush was asked in a November 8 press conference if he thought a Democratic Congress would give him "a better shot at comprehensive immigration reform." Bush responded: "You know, I should have brought this up. I do. I think we have a good chance."

The president's response adds further confirmation that the problem in Washington is not limited to either Republicans or Democrats. Put simply, the American people did not vote the rascals out of office on election day so much as they shifted power to another group of rascals. That's happened in the past, such as during the Republican Revolution of 1994, and it will continue to happen--until the American people insist that their elected officials abide by the Constitution, regardless of party label.