By stripping Florida Democrats of their delegates to the Democratic National Convention -- a fate that awaits Michigan Democrats, too -- the members of the Democratic National Committee's rules and bylaws committee have said it all: They don't want the White House in 2008.

Why? Because they don't have a clue about how to fix the Bush/Cheney messes they were part and parcel to: illegal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, mountains of debt and economic collapse.

In 2000, the DNC stood by while the US Supreme Court screwed Florida's voters by stopping the recount of all the votes, as ordered by the Florida Supreme Court, and installed George W. Bush in the White House. In 2004, it did likewise in another stolen election, rather than back the fight to deny Bush/Cheney Ohio's electoral votes to save Americans and the world from four more years of Bush/Cheney rule.

If that weren't bad enough, the Democrats in Congress refuse to impeach Cheney and Bush or end the war in Iraq, and now the DNC has slapped 10 million registered Florida Democrats in the face by stripping them of their delegates to the party's -- and a party is what it is -- national convention all because the Republican majorities in both state houses passed a bill moving the Sunshine State's presidential primaries to January 29 and the Republican governor, Charlie Crist, signed it. The Florida party was given 30 days to move its primary back at least a week or suffer the consequences.

Under normal circumstances, being locked out of the national convention wouldn't be such a bad thing, because the conventions of both parties have become worthless, scripted anachronisms. The only purpose they serve is for delegates and officials to be wined and dined at private parties hosted by millionaires and corporations seeking to buy influence in Washington and the state houses.

But this is not a normal circumstance. The Florida Republicans stuck a dreadful amendment on the January 29 primary ballots to revise the property tax structure, which, if it passes, would be a boon to wealthy homeowners and businesses owners at the expense of middle and low income homeowners if they choose to fall into the trap. What that amendment would do is give permanent residents who own homes the one-time choice of keeping their current status, under the Save Our Homes amendment, which limits tax assessment increases to the current rate of inflation or 3 percent, whichever is less, or opting for a super-exemption that would immediately cut their taxes but which could wind up costing them more in future years. Worse, if too many choose to stay with Save Our Homes, that could wind up as a court challenge as being unfair because those who chose the super-exemption would be subject to higher assessments.

But the DNC committee doesn't care about that dilemma. Nor do the Dimocratic candidates who have announced that unless the Florida party rolls back its presidential primary, they will not campaign in the state.

While the state legislature may or may not have a special session this month to deal with the budget shortfall, caused by former Governor Jeb Bush and his Republican legislative buddies who gave away the store, in the form of tax cuts, to their rich friends, there is no way the Democratic minority can force a change in the primary date and, if by some miracle they succeeded, Crist already announced he would veto it.

Yes, the Florida Republicans stand to lose half their delegates should the Republican National Committee follow through on punishing them for moving up the primaries, but it's a small price for them to pay to keep Democrats away from the polls next January 29, in order to push through their property tax amendment that requires a 60 percent super majority approval to pass.

Not that the Republicans are any brighter than the Democrats. They're just wilier. Last year, they shot themselves in the foot by championing a constitutional amendment mandating 60 percent super majorities to pass future amendments. A mistake that now has to be overcome by keeping voters who might vote the "wrong" way away from the polls -- translate that to Democrats in 2008.

Well, the Florida GOP is getting a lot of help in that endeavor from the DNC and candidates Hillary Clinton, Barak Obama, John Edwards, Joe Biden, Christopher Dodd and Bill Richardson, all of whom have caved in to what the St. Petersburg Times, in an editorial, called "party hacks and states as small as Iowa and New Hampshire" and questioned "how they would stand up under real pressure in the White House."

''I'm not writing any checks to any of these candidates,'' Senate Minority Leader Steve Geller, D-Cooper City, told the Tallahassee Democrat. ''If you're too good to campaign in Florida, you're not going to use us as an ATM. This is the traditional Democratic circular firing squad and I just absolutely know that this is going to hurt us in November."

Talk about a circular firing squad. The DNC rules committee members insisted their action was all about the party's rules that had to be enforced -- a joke considering how the Dimocrats in Congress have either supported or ignored Bush/Cheney's breaking a mountain of laws, never mind rules.

And where was DNC Chairman Howard Dean -- you remember him, the guy with the 50-state strategy for rebuilding the party that sent the neocons in the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) wild -- in all this? Dean was standing with the rules committee and earlier this summer, according to TIME, said if Florida Democrats held their primary (as if they had any choice) in January, it "essentially won't count." Leading Geller to comment, "I question whether Howard Dean is working for the Democratic Party or the Republican Party.

And there you have it. The Dimocrats really don't want the burden of the White House even if Bush/Cheney really slither back to Texas on January 20, 2009. And maybe they'd rather hand both houses of Congress back to the Republicans, too.