’)The Emerging Dem Majority says that the Dem establishment and the grassroots/online activists have to work together versus the GOP. I agree, but the Democrats in Washington have to start listening to the activists. I don’t expect them to do everything we want them to, but they need to stop looking at blogs and email as just a source of cash for them (DNC, DCCC, DSCC, Sen. Clinton, Sen. Kerry, this means you), and understand that the blogosphere is for the left what talk radio is for the right – a venue for media and getting beyond the mainstream press’ filter.
Of course, the other thing you folks in D.C. need to start doing is exhibiting some backbone. The press and the cons are full of it when they say we want the Dems to move further to the left. We want you to just move. I don’t care if your name is Centrist McModeration, nothing gets on the radar through milquetoast equivocation. Sen. Feingold and Rep. Murtha, for good or bad, show that Dems can in fact get stuff on the national radar – not because their ideas are of one idealogical stripe or another, but because they put issues on the table in simple blunt language. Every day I rack my brains wondering why Democrats with the ability to command media coverage – Sen. Clinton, Sen. Kerry, Sen. Kennedy, Sen. Obama, Sen. Reid, and Sen. Biden for instance – think that proposing “an amendment to the working language to the bill currently under consideration” is any way to advance the Democratic position on an issue.
But they won’t do these things. They won’t issue a simple press release. I don’t know why. I seriously don’t. Is it the consultants who make money from not rocking the boat? Are the Dems just spineless? Is the threat of Karl Rove saying mean things really that scary? They do know he’s going to say it anyways, right?
Activists, online and off, would do well to not call every Democrat who doesn’t toe the liberal line as a heretic (although when you make a living as a professional basher of your own party, like Sen. Lieberman, you deserve scorn and worse). But there’s never going to be a meaningful dialogue between the Dems in power and the rest of us if they won’t simply stand up for themselves.
I don’t think it’s so much about backbone as it is about pragmatism.
The worst thing they can do is
give this Runaway Republican Train any quarter when they are
hell bent on crashing into a wall.
The Dems just are gonna sit and watch this accident waiting to happen.
But if they aren’t devising a game plan while they wait, then all will be lost.
Liberals Have No Reason To Feel Triumphant
You know what’s grating? All this liberal gloating about the President’s/Republicans low poll numbers of late. What these people don’t get is that while many Americans (myself included) are fed up with the Republicans and the way they’ve conducted …
I don’t feel any more triumphant than conservatives felt when an action such as the resucue attempt of the Iran hostages failed. I’m not celebrating anything.
“BTW, those people walking past you going into the building are Republicans making laws and policy.”
Yes they are. And right now, a lot of people don’t agree with those laws and policies.
Liberals Have No Reason To Feel Triumphant
Of course you do. On a daily basis you are triumphant about the polls and all the horrible lies and conspiracies you have, in your minds, exposed re McChimpieBush-a-burtonbeezlebubevilfratboysatan. Why otherwise claim the polls are so important. Celebrate.
BTW, those people walking past you going into the building are Republicans making laws and policy. Don’t let them spoil your victory celebration.
Dugger
So calling it the “Jimmy Carter Desert Classic” expresses what exactly? And why can’t liberals express the same emotions regarding Iraq?
So calling it the Jimmy Carter Desert Classic expresses what exactly?
A slap in the face for those who died?
It expresses my very personal frustration at the poor decisions made by Carter that cost the lives of some people I worked with. Carter didn’t do it on purpose – but they were still poor decisons. He took the wrong helicopters with the wrong type pilots.
And you never did name those celebrating conservatives. The ones I knew, escpecially blue suiters, were unhappy and p*ssed.
Dugger
JSA,
Which conservatives expressed triumph after the Jimmy Carter Desert Classic? I forgot.
And if the peole don’t agree with rs and Ds present a better alternative, they’ll vote ‘em out. Didn’t happen 2004.
Dugger
BTW, those people walking past you going into the building are Republicans making laws and policy. — Duggerspeak
And we have seen how wonderful those policies are. It’s been a great experiment, answering the age-old question, “What would it be like if a Republican never vetoed a single piece of legislation passed by a GOP-dominated congress, and what would it be like if a president never had to fear impeachment?”
In the course of this noble experiment the GOP has also managed to dispell the myth of Republican competence.
On a daily basis you are triumphant about the polls
Pleased, yes. Triumphant, not so much. It has more to do with larger numbers of people peeking at the man behind the curtain for the first time than any effort on the Dems part.
“And you never did name those celebrating conservatives. The ones I knew, escpecially blue suiters, were unhappy and p*ssed.”
Which is exactly how the liberals I know feel now. I’m sorry for your losses. But understand that many can feel the way about the current situation and President Bush the way you feel about President Carter.
You’re right, I can’t name names. The number of clear thinking conservatives who found elation in the Iran debacle should be equal to the number of clear thinking liberals who find elation in the Iraq situation – ZERO. But are you saying conservatives didn’t take relief in Jimmy Carter’s poll numbers heading into the ‘80 election?
But are you saying conservatives didn t take relief in Jimmy Carter s poll numbers heading into the 80 election?
back when George I, Rumsfeld, Cheney and Baker were in collusion with Saddam in order to get the hostages released shortly after Reagan’s inauguration?
I’m telling you Oliver. Mass defection of the vertebrates from the democratic party may be the only option. The invertobrates aren’t going to stop dragging us down until they die.
JSA,
Both of us have yahoos at our fringes who can sometimes do and say grotesque things. And yes, we sure did and do like good poll numbers but my point was to sort out something which is temporary, doesn’t count, even if it makes you feel good, from that which really counts: the election.
And thanks, I suffered no personal losses re Desert One – just a few good acquaintances I worked with for a while – mostly long distance. I remember the consternation we felt the day the mishap occurred and realized that AF special choppers were not used and the AF special ops pilots bypassed for Navy minesweeper pilots – to fly over desert terrain and inter-operate with special AF C-130s.
Dugger
Dugger,
Points well taken.