Gods, the Democrats just don't learn: name it and you own it.

Remember so-called “partial-birth abortions”? Remember what the real name of that procedure is? Oh, yeah: “dilation and extraction.”

Fetus-worshipers: 1, Democrats: 0. Name the issue, and you've won the argument.

Now the fear-mongerers are threatening that, if Democrats take both Senate and White House, they're going to “pack” the Supreme Court by expanding the number of justices to 11 from the current 9.

Bull. The Republicans are the ones who have packed the courts with Far Right judges whose opinions (and rulings) are hopelessly archaic, entirely out of step with the majority of Americans. They're doing exactly that with the Supreme Court as I write this.

In doing so, of course, they utterly delegitimize the judiciary and guarantee unrest for the foreseeable future. Do they care? No, of course not. These are the dying actions of a dying party: the deathbed curse that will haunt the nation long after they're gone, or so they hope.

That's packing the courts. What the Democrats will need to do to the Supreme Court in order to lend it even the slightest vestige of continued legitimacy is to expand the Court. Expansion isn't packing; it's the answer to packing. Court packing and Court expansion are not the same thing at all.

Names matter. Name it, and you own it.

That's why the Democratic Party (not the “Democrat” Party, as the Name-Caller-in-Chief and his—as my grandmother would have put it—arsh-lekhers  would have it) needs to hire more poets.

Hel, they should hire me.