Bill Clinton’s recent visit to Buffalo brought back memories of the old used to be. Not too long ago, then President Clinton - even amidst the turmoil over his tryst with an intern - gave the Democratic Party vision, a sense of direction, and most importantly, an air of respectability. He was a calming force for his party and America itself. It looked like the Democrats were going places.

Oh, how times have changed.

In the scant five years since the sun set on the Clinton Presidency, the Democratic Party has fallen apart. It has become a scatter-brained melting pot encompassing far too many varying ideals that have led to a great deal of in-fighting. Adding fuel to this destructive fire, the party has become excessively wayward in its overall direction and its leadership, epitomized by loose cannon Howard Dean, has done little to rectify the situation.

The Democrats’ in-fighting can be exemplified by the ire being cast upon our State’s representative in Washington, Hillary Clinton. She has long been considered the party’s Golden Child thanks to her glowing tenure as the First Lady as well as her senatorial accomplishments and vast potential. The rumor mill has placed her as the odds-on favorite to run for the presidency in the next election. Despite such a track record and the esteem that she has been held in, she has been the Party’s whipping girl over the past month following her commentary that basically said we must stay the course in Iraq. The far left of the party, the party’s followers, and its leadership have assailed her political moderation and her respect for the Administration’s militaristic cause. Some of her longtime followers now look at her with a bit of disgust.

The left has looked at Hillary with hotheaded disdain and have done the same to Senator Joe Lieberman. He recently visited Iraq and spoke eloquently of the impact our forces have had on making that nation a better place to live. The thoughts of these senators should have been a call to action for their peers. But, this is where the Democratic Party gets really strange. It has assailed both of these senators with a sense of vindictiveness, yet it promotes in earnest the overzealous anti-war sentiments of Howard Dean and the impractically quick pullouts promoted by Senators Russ Feingold and Joe Biden, among others. These three men have considerably less respectability then potential-president Clinton and one time VP candidate Lieberman, yet the party and its chummy left-wing press seem to value their opinions more. This has created a rift within the Democratic rank and file and has all but eliminated a centralized party viewpoint and common rallying cry.

The current leadership of this party lacks the ability to right this sinking ship. Chairman Dean is reckless, illogical and perhaps a little strange. At his beck and call - almost as if Dean were a political Pied Piper - a great many Democrats have lost sight of why they were elected. Our votes put them in power to govern and lead our nation. Instead, they have put governance on the backburner and have made toppling the Bush administration their primary goal. At any chance they get, these "leaders" attack Bush and put him to blame for wars, natural disasters, and laws of economics. They use their microphones on the Congress floor as a pundit’s soapbox rather than as a tool to introduce and forward legislation for the betterment of America. They would rather take the easy way out by pointing fingers and saying that our nation’s direction is wrong, instead of working together with the Administration and giving it solid, well-founded thoughts and plans on what direction the Nation should take. This hands-off, hate-induced lack of governance is readily promoted by the Democratic Party and it looks to be their gameplan for the remaining years of the Bush presidency.

From in-fighting to inaction, the health of the Democratic Party leaves much to be desired. The party is losing not only its respectability, but also its worth to the masses who put them in power. In five years the party has been transformed from a well-organized, well-meaning organization to an absolute travesty, an ugly shell of its former self that may never return to normalcy.

Where’s Bill when you need him?