That's the opener for today's W$J editorial, "The Doughnut Democrats" Next paragraph:

"No, we aren't saying that modern Washington Democrats are socialists, Party Chairman Howard Dean notwithstanding."

Why the hell not? 

• With the notable exception of Joe Lieberman, there are virtually no Scoop Jackson defense hawks remaining in a party that has made Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo its main policy touchstones for the war on terror.
 
•The party that voted en masse for income and capital gains tax cuts under JFK now has but one message on taxes: Raise them.

•On trade, the Democrats who delivered 102 House votes for Nafta and Bill Clinton in 1994 will, at last count, provide all of five House votes for the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

•The Clinton Democrats helped enact the most momentous social policy legislation of the past generation: welfare reform. Now Democrats conspire every day to gut work-for-welfare requirements and prevent the renewal of welfare reform by Congress.

•Above all, there's the know-nothing-ism on Social Security. The Democrats in unison proclaim that Mr. Bush is advancing a risky right-wing scheme to destroy Social Security by creating private investment accounts for workers.

Blah-blah-blah. Here 's what I want to know. Name one principle of socialism that the Democratic party leadership would openly disavow. One.

Sheesh. Some years ago, on a lazy Sunday afternoon, I was watching C-Span. Gus Hall, the late American Communist Party Boss was giving a speech to a bunch of empty chairs. That was followed by Dick Gerhardt speaking to some other group. It was quite uncanny (and why I remember it) that the two gentlemen made nearly identical points, using nearly identical language. Things have only gone downhill for Democrats since then. Socialists? Maybe, but a socialist is only a communist without a gun.