In light of the horrible Democratic performance tonight, I thought I’d get this post out…
So down on the Joel Stein thread, there’re some commenters tossing me some chin music which may be worth reading.
Y’know, the last few posts Armed Liberal’s done here really cut to the quick of why I tend to find his pretense of being a common-sense moderate more than a little suspect.
And we were off into a long comment thread about yours truly. One one hand, my role in the real world isn’t important enough that it means that much to successfully dissect my ideas. On the other, since I think that I’ve found a community in blogging – the comment thread has a few fellow Democrats who see things my way – it’s worth half an hour for me to go through the thread and make a few points.
On the one hand, we’ve got this current post, where one guy writing for the LA Times does an editorial making the argument that enthusiastic support for the troops really does imply support for the war in Iraq, and that if you don’t support the war in Iraq, then you should avoid lionizing the troops themselves. It’s not an argument I personally buy into, but I generally don’t see what’s so horrifying about it to war supporters, since many of them have already been making that argument from the other direction – that, since supporting the troops means supporting the war, you must support the war to properly support the troops.
Regardless, this editorial is an opportunity for AL to stand up and cast doubt on the party and ideology he continually claims to still support at some level. Joel Stein is a self-admitted member of liberal elite who’s not gung-ho for the troops? Then a pox on the entire Democratic party, by way of a 112-year-old Teddy Roosevelt essay!
Here’s where we call in rockclimbing ‘the crux move.’ The problem is simple to me; on one hand I think the position is reprehensible, but there are a lot of views I don’t like. The issue is first whether this is a position that is likely to be one that attracts voters; and second, if it did attract voters, would it be good policy? People vote for parties because of the people associated with it – do they trust, respect, and like them? Do they believe they can lead them to the future they are promising? Do they believe that it’s a future worth having if they get there? So what does this column by Joel Stein tell us about where liberals want to take us? Ands does it paint liberals as people worth following?
On the other hand, we had yesterday’s post where, after two or three years of thousands of liberals consistently making the argument that there are real, systemic problems with the Bush administration’s approach to torture issues, AL finally takes note that, hey, maybe there’s more here than a few bad apples. His response is to say that he need to think about it, and that supporters of the war need to take a stand on the issue… but there’s no indication of what stand, exactly, he proposes war supporters take, nor is there anything nearly approaching the garment-tearing that he suggests Stein’s column should trigger on the lefty side.
Donno, I’ve been saying for a pretty long time that there are unavoidably bad consequences to doing the kind of things we’re doing. Bad stuff is going to happen. Some of it by accident, some by hazard, some because people are human and fallible. Now if you study history at all, and look back to World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, the reality is that torture – as we’re defining it in Iraq and Afghanistan – isn’t in the same league, ballpark, or sport as what the Good Guys did then. Is it as good as it should be? No. Is it as good as I thought it was? No. Does this single issue devalue everything that I thought the war is supposed to accomplish? Mmmm. Nope.
So, to recap: years of systemic torture is something Republicans need to think about and take a stand on. Eventually. Last week’s Joel Stein column means Teddy Roosevelt hates the modern Democratic party.
I repeat: the guy who publicly posts stuff like this increasingly doesn’t feel like any flavor of “liberal” to me.
Here I’ve gotta call bullshit. I took a stand when I wrote my post. It may not have been as vehement or definite a position as Chris wishes I would have taken, but I’ll also suggest that Chris – who wants to see the war ended and Bush defeated as primary issues – sees the world differently than I do – who sees succeeding in the conflict with the jihadis as the primary issue. Each of us picks the aspect of the news that reinforces the issue we care about.
Chris goes on.
I understand your point. I think you’re missing my point – that what you’re doing is, at best, naive, and at worst disingenuous.
You keep harping on the idea that the Democrats are under the sway of these radical extremists, and that said extremists are destroying the party’s effectiveness. The first part of that statement is debatable, but even taking it as true for the sake of argument, how does that make the Democrats any different from the Republicans, who are at least as influenced by the worst elements of their party? Are you somehow under the impression that Tom Delay, Grover Norquist, and James Dobson are appealing figures to most of the country, or that they don’t hold considerable sway over the right wing?
I don’t think the first point – “that the Democrats are under the sway of these radical extremists, and that said extremists are destroying the party’s effectiveness” – is at all debatable – Kerry posting diaries on Kos, Cindy Sheehan as a guest of a Democratic lawmaker at the State of the Union, – how in the world can you suggest that “these radical extremists” aren’t sitting at the front of the bus?
If you were taking equal time to trash both sides, that’d lend some credence to your claim that you’re doing this in hopes that the Dems will improve themselves, but the only Republicans I’ve seen you trash lately are Cal state GOP folks – you seem to go out of your way not to directly critique Bush. That’s not gonna endear you to actual Democrats – i.e., the people who you need to convince if you actually want things to change.
Hey, let me restate something. The way for the Democrats to win isn’t to stand up and charge over the tops of trenches into the machine guns, but to build tanks. Forgive me for not signing on as cannon fodder.
Likewise, the fact that you’re hanging out here at WoC – a place increasingly populated with guys like Jim Rockford above, who already profoundly dislike the Democrats – rather than arguing with guys like Kevin Drum or even, horror of horrors, Matt Yglesias, doesn’t suggest that you’re likely to meet with much success. It’s like bitching about unsanitary conditions in the meat packing industry at a vegetarian restaurant – it’s not really gonna change anything with the people who matter. All it really seems to do is validate the increasingly bad opinion of a bunch of guys who were prejudiced towards the left to begin with. You’ve said in the past that it helps you focus your ideas to post things out here, but if you’re increasingly divorced and anathema to actual Democrats, what good are focused ideas gonna do?
I argue with Kevin Drum and Matt Yglesias a lot – less in the last few months, but what you’re really asking, I’m guessing, why I don’t hang out with the kids over there. Party an accident of history – Joe invited me, and Kevin didn’t. But in reality, I think I’d have been chased away from TAPPed even if I had been invited over there.
Lastly, I personally find your priorities to be utterly bizarre for a supposed liberal. You claim to support progressive values, but what “pisses you off” isn’t the actual setbacks that Bush has dealt those values, it’s the fact that the Democratic party isn’t purged of the people you disagree with. You claim that Stein and his ilk are to blame, but given how close the ’04 election was, I’d argue that had a handful of people such as yourself not been so persuaded by the FUD directed at John Kerry, all this talk about electoral oblivion would be directed entirely towards the GOP. Instead you supported Bush… and again, it’s not even that you’re pretending that Bush is perfect, but that you by and large refuse to discuss any issues you might have with the guy, preferring instead to “deflect” talk of torture and avoid blogging about it because you “feel it’s somehow expected of you”. And any damage done to progressive values is the fault of those damn progressives in LA and Manhattan and the Bay Area, and nothing to do with how you, y’know, actually voted.
Yes, you’re absolutely right. Damage done to those progressive values in the last decade of Republican power is directly attributable to the craven, abject failure of the liberal Democrats to manage to mount a sustainable defense. Didn’t you read the post when I asked if Brian Leiter wanted to kill poor people? The Democratic Party as constituted today is the modern version of the Italian army. Expensive, attractive, and useless.
Color me unconvinced, AL. Make no mistake, I think you’re a nice guy, and probably do believe in a lot of lefty stuff… but your words and actions seem to undercut your beliefs, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to keep pointing that out until you can show how what I’ve written above is incorrect or unreasonable.
Well, I’ll try harder to convince you, because when I can enlarge the constituency for building tanks, we might actually win.
Commenter Andy jumps in.
Chris:
I have come to the conclusion that it is of little or no value to view AL’s positions in the context of any alleged political ideology…primarily because I don’t think his views represent a coherent philosophy for the following reasons.
One criticism I have of his blogging is that he trying to represent himself as an important segment of the “center-left” who should be heavily courted by the Dems. This “hook” is supposed to be why anyone should pay attention to what he says. It is the cyber-electoral equivalent of hiking up your skirt to hitch a ride.
But if anything, he has only convinced me that the slice of the political spectrum he represents is small and electorally unattractive (i.e., he’s got hairy legs). Two pieces of evidence support this view: 1) His choice to post on this particular Pro-war blog populated largely by principled conservative/libertarian wing Republicans and lukewarm Bush supporters who are mostly thoughtful and well-tempered, themselves a rare and endangered political breed; and 2) His posts are rarely, if ever, linked to from elsewhere in the blogosphere.
I’m not trying to slam on the dude, really, but his claim to be representative of an important voting sector does not seem to be borne out by even a cursory look at the available evidence (which does not include the supportive anecdotal testimony that he occasionally receives from a fellow WofC poster).
Well, Andy you’re saying things that are empirically verifiable. How do you think the Democrats will do in 06? Let’s have a little bet; what do you think the net change will be in the House and Senate, given how insignificant my little cohort looks? ready to step up and show me what the Kossaks can do?
Oh, and for grins, Technorati will give you an idea of how often I’m linked from elsewhere in the blogosphere (hey, I do have an ego…)
Since someone mentioned my name, I think it’s important to discuss how MY political views have not changed (IMHO) but Democratic politics HAVE.
I volunteered for Michael Dukakis in possibly the most suicidal electoral campaign ever. The idiocy politically of Susan Estrich seems to be washing over the party. I voted TWICE for Bill Clinton and believed then and now he deserved censure not impeachment. I believe Bill Clinton was a reasonably effective President domestically, though greatly at fault in foreign affairs, and was matched by those flaws by Republicans at the time including his immediate predecessor. I believe in Big Government, spending money for infrastructure, taking care of the poor, helpless, disabled, and doing what Hubert Humphrey said were those in the dawn of life, shadow of life, and evening of life. The young, disabled, and elderly.
I believe gays should have the right to marry, but that events in the Netherlands and Canada should give people pause about the slippery slope argument about legalized polygamy which I believe should be outlawed.
I believe unreservedly in a woman’s right to choose.
All this should make me a rock-ribbed DEMOCRAT. However, Dems simply cannot abide people such as myself because of my views on defense, the military, and anti-terrorism.
When Democrats host an event that calls for 75% cuts in the military, host anti-American Cindy Sheehan at numerous events including the State of the Union, and sit on their hands during the lines where Bush says he will not “sit around” and wait for America and Americans to be attacked, it’s shameful, wrong, and political suicide for those who believe a strong military, focused deterrence, and that this country is worth fighting for are important policies.
Dems are NOT a populist party, increasingly (to my dismay) that’s grass-roots Republicans, particularly in the area of Illegal Immigration (which depresses the working man’s wages). Dems are (Roger Simon has written on this extensively) a betrayal of their FDR, Humphrey, LBJ, and Truman roots. A party oriented towards wealthy elites (lawyers, trust funders, etc) who distrust the military, don’t believe America is worth fighting for, don’t think there is a real risk with bin Laden and the Iranians, and find the middle class and it’s values of family, fidelity, and public safety abhorrent.
The Middle Class and people like myself SHOULD be Democrats. We SHOULD be the Majority Party in both houses. Democrats SHOULD be self-evidently the stronger party on National Defense, anti-Crime public safety, and putting Government on the side of getting the bad guys and protecting the good guys. Instead, Democrats have devolved into “small is beautiful” Jimmy Carter/Jerry Brownisms and cast their lot with the glitterati and various interest groups. For the Party that originated efficient and non-ideological Big Government this development is nothing short of shameful.
Kevin Drum doesn’t get it. He’s too tied into People for the American Way, or NARAL, or NOW, or daily Kos and DU. That has not been nor should it be now the Democratic Party. We are only a few minutes on the Atomic Showdown clock from a strike by Iran on a major city (doubtless they already HAVE nukes). It’s as if the Republican Party was arguing in 1944 that the Japanese and Germans were no threat, we should just forget the war.
Anti-War pacifism and an ugly strain of Progressivism has led my Party to forget that defending the nation is the ultimate test of big Government.
Charge the guns! Charge the guns!!! We’ve gone to a lot of effort setting them up, you know.
In fact, as a self proclaimed grievance group(TM), GOP activists hereby declare that we will be highly offended(TM) if y’all fail to oblige.
To which I’ll add that I find myself keeping my subscriptions to various Democratic Party affiliated email lists largely for their over-the-top paranoid enetertainment value. So now you’re going to deprive me of that, too, and force me to get my substitutes from Arab media again?!?
No!
Cindy Sheehan is a heroine! Kos is the engine that will lead you to victory! Ted Kennedy is a great statesman, and John Kerry is a fabulous war hero candidate undermined by a Republican media conspiracy!
The only thing you have to fear, is fear itself! Purge the revisionist enemies killing your party from within – they’re traitors working for Karl Rove, and you don’t need them anyway. The brainwashed masses will all crumble and submit before your superior intellects, if only you go on an all-out offensive to show them that they’ve been wrong all this time. Chaaaaaarge! Or, as THE MAN sez…
Yeeeeeaaaarrrrrrrrghhhhhhhhh!
I’ll start from this premise: America is, on balance and by an immense margin, the greatest force for good in the history of humanity.
That bothers a lot of bad people. When I was doing agricultural development work in places like Peru, Colombia, and Chiapas (Mexico) I had a target on my back. Why? Because agricultural development increases both wealth and stability. The bad guys _want_ poverty, pain, and instability. As HRC’s mentor, Saul Alinsky, said “Rub raw the sores of discontent [to strengthen your power].”
Scale up from one agronomist to an entire nation and you’ll find that the opposition is one of degree, but not character. There are a lot of bad people who want the USA out of business because it’s in the way of their plans.
I’ve arrived at a simple-but-functional filtre. Do you define “Peace” as the absence of conflict, or as the absence of _threat_? And ya know what? *If you define peace as the absence of conflict*, in my book (whether an individual, an organisation, or a nation), *then you, yourself, are a threat*.
AL understands that. On the key issue of our times — of all times — vast segments of the Democrat party have gone AWOL, and the progressively powerful extremists within that party are now not only working actively against America’s interests, but persecuting those within their party who stand up for them. And don’t give me that “We’re all patriots” bull$#!+. There a lot of people within America who are not “anti-war.” They’re on the other side.
If the Democrats cannot overcome the dominance of their anti-America extremist fringe they are doomed as a party.
We can discuss and debate and disagree on the question of whether ‘progress’ in America is a function of more (and deeper), or _less_ (and shallower), involvement by government in the lives of individuals — as long as both sides agree that America is a force for great good, faces great threats, and is worth defending with great effort.
FDR, Harry Truman, JFK and LBJ could not possibly win a Democrat nomination for President in today’s world. Just ask Joe Lieberman or Zell Miller or Sam Nunn. The Democrat Party left the American mainstream when it nominated Jimmy Carter at a time when he had already been ostracised and shunned as a hopeless pacifist by his ’46 classmates at the Naval Academy. The die was cast when Carter refused to respond in any meaningful way to the seizure of our diplomats in Teheran — an action understood clearly by the entire world since at least 1648 to be one of the most serious acts of war.
It’s gone downhill from there, and after a generation I don’t think the Dems have too much time remaining to reverse that trend. AL has been trying, and I honestly wish him well, but as the commentary shows, he’s fighting a rearguard action.
Bart,
Being a military dependent in the 1970’s and 1980’s made it abundantly clear to me that those elements of the Democratic Party have not gone AWOL.
*They are on the other side.*
The big government Republicans in charge now are not our friends, but they aren’t active enemies either.
I can live with their piggish thievery of the public purse.
I can’t survive Democrats being in charge of *any branch* of the federal government.
Unless the Democratic Party actively purged those enemeis of America from their party, they are now doomed to join the Whigs in political oblivion.
I don’t come by here because it is a Republican echo chamber, in general I don’t waste my time on such sites. I don’t need a bunch of like minded folks reinforcing my world view. I would rather read reasoned arguments from the opposition party. I would rather have my world view challenged and be forced to rethink and at times reconsider how I arrived at certain positions. Where do you get that in the left side of the ‘sphere? Somewhere that is not 100% DNC talking points or screeching over the top hysteria? AL fills that gap for me – not always, but often. So he is exactly the person you want representing the left/centrist POV. He is one of few I take seriously.
I was raised as a Democrat. That is, my mother was very liberal socially (with the exception of abortion, which she thinks should only be considered when the mother’s health is at risk). I probably never would have considered pulling the R handle.
Then along came Carter. I was extremely frustrated by the hostage crisis. I could not understand why we were so incapable of doing something about it. That, plus his general ineptitude led me to support RR (anyone but Carter). As a return favor, one of his first acts was to slash Pell grants, landing me on the street and cutting short my college years. That led to an enlistment in the Army for the education benefits. That is where I was “mugged by reality”. I knew somewhere in the back of my mind that the Soviet Union was our enemy. But it was more in the abstract way – someday there might be a nuclear war. Beyond nuclear holocaust, I had never paid much attention to exactly what the SU actually was. Six years in Germany cured that. Listening to the stories told by West Germans, recounting the plight of their friends or relatives in the East. Visiting the Checkpoint Charlie museum. Driving the Berlin Corridor and visiting East Berlin, seeing for myself the stark contrast between West and East. Visiting the Fulda Gap and believing with certainty – that is where they will come through. I finally understood exactly what RR meant by “evil empire”. Meanwhile, Reagan’s economic policies were obviously working at home, bringing the country back from the dark Carter years. My conversion to the Republican side was complete.
GW1 kept me in the Republican camp. Yes, the world was still a dangerous place. I became disenchanted when we did not finish the job and push through to Baghdad. I became incensed when we let down the Kurds.
Then the Clinton years. I never liked the man personally, but I didn’t have real issues with him as a president. I approved of some things he did (welfare reform), didn’t think much one way or the other on other issues. In hindsight of course, I have a lot more issues with him. But the Republicans started to turn me off during his presidency. I thought that their shrillness and hysteria, ending in the impeachment fiasco, was totally uncalled for. The world “seemed” to be a safer place. Those sporadic terrorist attacks were “over there” (barring the first WTC attack). If the Democrats had fielded a strong candidate after Bill, I could have been wooed back to the fold. As it was – anyone but Gore.
On 9/11 I was mugged again, like many people. I was grateful I had voted for Bush. I agree with him 100% on the WoT – not so much other things. I had few qualms voting for him a second time because there was no credible choice. But other than the WoT, I don’t agree with much of what this Republican party stands for.
So I am keeping an open mind for 2008. Not for 2006, because I believe the president deserves the support of Congress in our current situation, not blind opposition.
But you Democrats/liberals have over 2 years to woo me back. Not the way you are going though. How can you say your party is not controlled by the fringe elements? Moore at the DNC Convention, the cut-n-run strategy, blind opposition to everything done to fight this war, your minority leader proud that he defeated renewal of the Patriot Act, whispers and fantasies of impeachment for justified monitoring of terrorists, Kerry and Kennedy on dKos, the outrageous and slanderous behavior through the latest confirmation hearings, even up to last night with the Sheehan stunt and generally disrespectful behavior.
So give me a real choice for 2008. But you better clean it up real fast. AL is on the right track. Pushing him out of your midst as you have so many others would be a huge (but typical) mistake.
Never underestimate how the theory of socialism has poisoned the well of liberal thought over the last century. The current generation of mainstream leftists is in the strange position of being stuck with a great many positions without underpinnings, or at least underpinnings they can champion or even acknowledge. The utter defeat of communist theory has made socialism a dirty word in American politics, and that has caused most Democrats to shun the theory and cling to the policies. Hence the incoherence of their message. Republicans are in a strong position because they largely evolved the opposite way. Theory developed over the past century and policy either followed or was folded into the theory (often with questionable logic, granted). Either way, there is a coherant set of arguments with principle behind them, and that is much easier to champion.
The Democratic party’s biggest problem at the moment is that there are 2 entities driving their fundraising:
– the special interests (unions, lawyers, abortion rights, etc) who at the end of the day are protecting their turf and less concerned with idealogy. These groups are extremely top down in dictating their funding and policy, so the typical guy on the street has very little input.
– the angry left (the Deaniacs) who are loud and extremely idealogical. ANSWR and similar groups control the organization of these folks, and they are straight up socialists.
Bart says it better than I ever vould:
Since im in a similar boat to armed liberal, let me respond to one point. Why post (or in my case comment) at right wing sites?
well, I can say in my case its cause of the War. I am more interested in using blogs to follow and comment on the WOT, rather than domestic issues, which I find the MSM are sufficiently informative on. And I simply get tired of arguing this stuff on liberal sites, even sane ones like Yglesias. I dont like Bushs education policy. I dont like his tax policy. I dont like his court picks. I dont like his energy and environmental policies. I dont like his health care policies. I find people who call any supporter of national health insurance a “commie” laughably absurd.
But people who find Hamas and the Israeli military morally equivalent, people who think its imperialist to find it unacceptabl that Iran gets the bomb, they give me the willies. I simply cant look at that stuff and retain my composure for long.
I wont give up my party, in large part because I dont think its truely dominated by those folks (and no, I dont think Kerry is in the front of the bus any longer) But there are quite enough of those folks to make the internal debates deeply uncomfortable.
You could say I avoid the liberal sites BECAUSE I want to remain a Democrat. Id rather listen to a speech by Hillary, or Biden, or Warner, or Bayh, then wade through the comments at Yglesias.
Now Liberals against Terrorism, or Gandelman, or Oxblg are different.
Of course LAT and OX until recently either didnt have comments or were more difficult to comment at. And Gandelemen has too many posts, no real focus, and I find awkward.
And of course WOC has Dan Darling, who so often comes up with an interesting tidbit.
No personal anecdote here, except to say that I share a lot of Jim Rockford’s thoughts (#1).
Apparently, there are “3 – 4 million [of us] Gore voters who voted for Bush. [We] are not coming back to a MoveOn-dominated Democratic Party.”:http://www.dinocrat.com/archives/2004/12/12/3-4-million-democrats-voted-for-bush-a-statistic-of-staggering-importance/
“FDR, Harry Truman, JFK and LBJ could not possibly win a Democrat nomination for President in today’s world. Just ask Joe Lieberman ”
i was a lieberman man in 2004. But lets be honest – Joe wasnt the most charismatic leader possible. His personal defeat hardly means the a Dem hawk cant win. And I would question whether Carter was a pacifist – it was under him that we started the flow of money to afghanistan that ended up bringing down the USSR.
I note that when Ronald Wilson Reagan took office, he did NOT go to war with Iran, but completed the deal for hostage release.
Belmont Club has a post describing Rahm Emmanuel, a professional and intelligent politician, describing the campaign points for 06. Absent was any discussion of National Security and public safety, and when the audience wished to discuss these issues Emmanuel’s response was that Democrats essentially would avoid discussing the issue.
I can’t believe that the PArty that originated Four Freedoms (freedom from want, freedom from fear, freedom of religion, freedom of speech) and the Good Neighbor policy is stuck in the fever swamps of isolationism and cowed by Kos and ANSWER and Dean.
Americans want a “full spectrum” set of policies, yes Bush is intensely vulnerable to domestic issues, but when Iran threatens to nuke Israel AND US, Al Qaeda is just waiting to attack us again and outdo 9/11, not addressing this issue is a vast mistake.
In one sense politics is like a service business. You want the most customers based on a set of services that addresses their core needs better than your competitor. Democrats should have a built in institutional advantage since their party originated the “power of bigness” which plays to the advantages of scale. Big problems needing big solutions should be a Democratic advantage, yet in issue after issue (such as Rudy’s public safety campaign in NYC) it’s gone to Republicans over Democrats.
That Kos plans to runs primary opponents to defeat Lieberman, Miller has been exiled, and most of the Party hates the military viscerally.
Once more into the breach…
bq. Here’s where we call in rockclimbing ‘the crux move.’ The problem is simple to me; on one hand I think the position is reprehensible, but there are a lot of views I don’t like. The issue is first whether this is a position that is likely to be one that attracts voters; and second, if it did attract voters, would it be good policy? People vote for parties because of the people associated with it – do they trust, respect, and like them? Do they believe they can lead them to the future they are promising? Do they believe that it’s a future worth having if they get there? So what does this column by Joel Stein tell us about where liberals want to take us? Ands does it paint liberals as people worth following?
Again, I point this out: Joel Stein _one guy_ who writes _opinion columns_. More specifically, at no point does he say that his opinion is, or should be, how the Democrats act – indeed, the terms “Democrat” and “party” appear at no point in his column. You, AL, are free to accept his views, reject them, argue with them, ignore them, or buy as many copies of that particular LA Times issue as you can find and use Stein’s column as toilet paper in perpetuity – I don’t care.
But arguing that Stein is somehow a representative mouthpiece – official or unofficial – for the Democratic party is ridiculous. *Nobody will ever vote for Joel Stein, because Joel Stein is not running for office.* It’s highly unlikely Joel Stein will ever even directly _advise_ anyone running for office. And, oddly enough, the vast majority of Democratic officials on the national level that I personally have ever run across would find Stein’s opinion at least as repugnant as you do, AL – most because they genuinely disagree with him, and the rest because they know it’s horrible electoral politics. But by the same token, they’re not gonna jump up and down and do everything possible to disown Stein, any more than they’re gonna jump up and down to disown equally unpopular viewpoints, such as, say, liberals who’re against a flag-burning amendment. (What’s your opinion on that one, btw? Should we sacrifice the spirit of the 1st amendment in our pursuit of votes?)
Now, you do get into the idea that people vote for a party because of the people associated with it… which is something I touched on myself earlier, and you nicely sidestepped. We’ll get to that in a bit.
bq. Donno, I’ve been saying for a pretty long time that there are unavoidably bad consequences to doing the kind of things we’re doing. Bad stuff is going to happen. Some of it by accident, some by hazard, some because people are human and fallible. Now if you study history at all, and look back to World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, the reality is that torture – as we’re defining it in Iraq and Afghanistan – isn’t in the same league, ballpark, or sport as what the Good Guys did then. Is it as good as it should be? No. Is it as good as I thought it was? No. Does this single issue devalue everything that I thought the war is supposed to accomplish? Mmmm. Nope.
The thrust of my comment was _not_ saying “AL doesn’t realize the truth about torture, more the fool he!” Instead, it pretty clearly laid out the argument that, y’know, maybe the torture issue in general is more worthy of a heated condemnation than a Joel Stein column.
(And ironically, although the above paragraph boils down to grandstanding about how AL understands The Unavoidable Complexities Of War (and all the other liberals presumably don’t) AL manages to sidestep the point the rest of the left has been making for quite some time now – that whatever atrocities were committed by stressed out GIs at the bloody edge of the battle in wars past, this time around is relatively unique because _torture orders are coming from the President down_. Funny, that…)
bq. Here I’ve gotta call bullshit. I took a stand when I wrote my post. It may not have been as vehement or definite a position as Chris wishes I would have taken, but I’ll also suggest that Chris – who wants to see the war ended and Bush defeated as primary issues – sees the world differently than I do – who sees succeeding in the conflict with the jihadis as the primary issue. Each of us picks the aspect of the news that reinforces the issue we care about.
Interestingly enough, “bullshit” is exactly what I was thinking when I read the phrase “Chris – who wants to see the war ended and Bush defeated as primary issues”.
I’ve written more than a few comments on this board, many of them attached to AL’s posts. In all those posts, I have never written anything that states, directly or indirectly, that “ending the war” and “defeating Bush” are my primary concerns. Therefore, AL’s remarks above are, in fact, unsubstantiated bullshit.
Let’s get something straight: the well-being of the United States of America _is_ my “primary issue”. The war with Islamic radicals _is_ the most important issue facing this country today, partially because we could all wake up tomorrow to see a mushroom cloud over a major US city, and partially because, even if that doesn’t happen, the choices we make in fighting this war will have massive effects on our freedoms, our image, and our economy for generations to come.
That being the case, I’m ok with virtually _any_ strategy that _does_ lead us to victory. If we _can_ win the war in Iraq in a decisive and unequivocal manner, then I’m fully on board with that, and if Bush is the leader who can win this war, then I say more power to him. But, as I’ve pointed out here again and again , we _don’t_ seem able to win the war in a clear fashion, Bush _isn’t_ leading us towards victory, and both AL and WoC in general haven’t been doing a great job of demonstrating the contrary. (Once AL himself agreed with that assessment, but…)
And here’s the thing: mushy arguments about “we all see things differently” aside, by getting all hot and bothered over a freakin’ LA Times opinion column and virtually ignoring the torture issue – which, whatever else you think about it, is doing massive damage to the country’s resolve to fight both the Iraq war and the greater war against radical islam – AL is _still_ failing to justify continuing the Iraq war effort. At the end of the day, he comes off as someone who’ll carry a huge amount of water for Bush as long as it’s related to the Iraq war… which pretty much kills AL’s “liberal” credentials when it comes to making arguments to most people on his supposed side.
Which has been my point all along.
bq. I don’t think the first point – “that the Democrats are under the sway of these radical extremists, and that said extremists are destroying the party’s effectiveness” – is at all debatable – Kerry posting diaries on Kos, Cindy Sheehan as a guest of a Democratic lawmaker at the State of the Union, – how in the world can you suggest that “these radical extremists” aren’t sitting at the front of the bus?
Er, because the Democratic party is not a monolithic entity? Because neither Kerry nor an unidentified Democratic lawmaker speaks for the whole of the party, and everything you’ve cited above falls under the category of “anecdote, likely related to PR showboating” rather than “data establishing a broad trend”?
More importantly, I think it’s worth quoting my original post to illustrate just how huge an evasion your above paragraph actually is:
bq. _You keep harping on the idea that the Democrats are under the sway of these radical extremists, and that said extremists are destroying the party’s effectiveness. The first part of that statement is debatable, *but even taking it as true for the sake of argument*, how does that make the Democrats any different from the Republicans, who are at least as influenced by the worst elements of their party? Are you somehow under the impression that Tom Delay, Grover Norquist, and James Dobson are appealing figures to most of the country, or that they don’t hold considerable sway over the right wing?_
(Emphasis added.)
And here we return yet again to the idea that “people vote for parties because of the people associated with it.” This is, unsurprisingly, a gross oversimplification of why people vote – some people vote on the basis of a candidate’s concrete policy proposals, or how they think the guy will do in office in general. (I do, for the record.) Some people vote on single issues, or (vanishingly) out of pure party loyalty. And yes, some people vote one way out of distaste for the people associated with the other guys… although, on balance, both sides have their black sheep, and the effectiveness of that tactic basically boils down to how well a given side’s PR machine works.
And, in Bush’s case, the fact that he’s managed to get you to think Joel Stein is more of an albatross than Delay, Norquist or Dobson speaks wonders of his PR machine’s effectiveness.
bq. Hey, let me restate something. The way for the Democrats to win isn’t to stand up and charge over the tops of trenches into the machine guns, but to build tanks. Forgive me for not signing on as cannon fodder.
What on earth does this have to do with what I wrote? Nobody’s asking you to be cannon fodder – I’m simply pointing out that _nobody is going to listen to your advice about building tanks_, given how vehemently you’ve been supporting the other side.
bq. I argue with Kevin Drum and Matt Yglesias a lot – less in the last few months, but what you’re really asking, I’m guessing, why I don’t hang out with the kids over there. Party an accident of history – Joe invited me, and Kevin didn’t. But in reality, I think I’d have been chased away from TAPPed even if I had been invited over there.
Actually, I don’t think I’ve seen you argue with Kevin Drum in at least the past year… but that’s neither here nor there. Regardless of “accidents of history”, my point remains that any and all of your policy recommendations go unheeded, because almost nobody at WoC has any love for the Democrats in the first place… as the comments preceding this one more than attest to. And even if they “chased you away” at TAPPED, at least they’d be listening to you more than they are now.
bq. _And any damage done to progressive values is the fault of those damn progressives in LA and Manhattan and the Bay Area, and nothing to do with how you, y’know, actually voted._
bq. Yes, you’re absolutely right. Damage done to those progressive values in the last decade of Republican power is directly attributable to the craven, abject failure of the liberal Democrats to manage to mount a sustainable defense. Didn’t you read the post when I asked if Brian Leiter wanted to kill poor people? The Democratic Party as constituted today is the modern version of the Italian army. Expensive, attractive, and useless.
Wow, nice grandstanding! Also, a great example of why few Democrats will ever listen to you as long as you’re spending so much time tearing the party apart while generally turning a blind eye to _what the guys who are actually in power are up to_.
This next bit’s addressed to Andy, but I’ll get my two cents in…
bq. Well, Andy you’re saying things that are empirically verifiable. How do you think the Democrats will do in 06? Let’s have a little bet; what do you think the net change will be in the House and Senate, given how insignificant my little cohort looks? ready to step up and show me what the Kossaks can do?
I’ll begin by pointing out that you’ve tried to make this bet before as part of a twofer, and lost the other part of that bet rather spectacularly. (What “good bottle” did that guy get, btw?) I’ll also repeat that gerrymandering will make it hard for anybody to change the balance in the House, at least, and that the Kossaks are hardly the whole of the Democratic party. That said, I do think the Dems will retake the Senate, and that, if you can point to Democracy Corps polls as evidence of how awful Democrats are I can do the same for Republicans.
When you define the “good bottles” in question, I’ll start giving hard numbers for the bet.
”Well, Andy you’re saying things that are empirically verifiable. How do you think the Democrats will do in 06? Let’s have a little bet; what do you think the net change will be in the House and Senate, given how insignificant my little cohort looks?”
The first sentence here is correct, but those that follow don’t address the point at all. Past or future electoral outcomes will not provide a reliable or reasonable method for testing your claim that your views represent a voting block that is important for the Democrats (or falsifying my claim that they do not).
The reason this won’t work is because there is no way to draw a causative connection between your particular views and those that drive voters to the polls. In addition, the outcome of the election is irrelevant to the hypothesis, since even if your views represent a substantial fraction of voters they may not necessarily represent the single largest fraction or be significant enough to sway any given election. In other words, a Democratic electoral failure will not prove your claim, nor will success negate it (or the opposite…).
The whole notion is kind of silly, really, since there are so many variables influencing voting outcomes (didn’t Chris mention gerrymandering above, e.g.?) that efforts to use them to try to measure public sentiment on any single issue are meaningless.
On the other hand, your suggestion to mine Technorati data for evidence against my claim that your ideas do not provoke much attention in the blogosphere IS sensible…so why not go ahead and do the comparison? That would be empirical.
As are “public opinion polls”:http://www.pollingreport.com/iraq.htm.
1/23-26/06
Do you approve or disapprove of the way Bush is handling the situation in Iraq?”
Approve: 39%
Disapprove: 60%
“Which political party, the Democrats or the Republicans, do you trust to do a better job handling the situation in Iraq?
Republicans: 40%
Democrats: 47%
Neither: 9%
The weakness of this data is that it may not represent voter sentiment….but at least its quantitative.
Chris –
Longer response tomorrow.
Andy –
I’ll suggest that I’ve covered your poll with “this old post”:http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/007770.php Note the key point: “Polls don’t pass laws.”
And you just go on believing that disaffected “security Democrats” aren’t a relevant electoral factor…
A.L.
Chris –
You say the Democrats will retake the Senate in 06?
As in a Democratic majority?
Hmmm. I’ve got a bottle of 01 Windward Pinot I’ll put up on that. You?
I need to dig a little into the specifics of the races, but my non-quantitiative take had been that the Dems would pick up 2 – 5 seats in the House and maybe 1 – 2 in the Senate.
Watching the Democratic response on TV the other day, I’d be rolling that the other way (an unheard-of loss of seats by an opposition party in 2nd term midterm elections. The Democratic ‘vibe’ was that poor.
But I also may have been in shock from the whole television thing.
A.L.
“FDR, Harry Truman, JFK and LBJ could not possibly win a Democrat nomination for President in today’s world. Just ask Joe Lieberman or Zell Miller or Sam Nunn. ”
We don’t have to go all hypothetical and theoretical on this. Consider the recent history of Martin Frost.
(we now pause for most of the world to say, “Who?” )
Texas (west-ish Dallas) member of the US House of Representatives Martin Frost, Democrat, economist, banker, and husband of a two-star general of the US Army — was up for aposition as majority leader of the House in –I think — ’03.
Lost soundly.
A redistricting ploy initiated by Tom Delay led the Texas state legislature to re-draw the map and pitched Frost up against fellow incumbant Pete Sessions (north-ish Dallas) in the ’04 elections. Sad little poetic ending: Frost lost.
Congress is the poorer for it. Not to say much evil of Sessions, but one Texas Republican more or less isn’t much difference compared to the loss to the inclusiveness and diversity of the Democratic Party that fell with Frost’s departure.
Hawkish Democrats like Mr and General Frost, living in a major media market like Dallas/Fort Worth, would seem to still be a incalculably valuable asset to a party trying to reach out to a “liberal hawk” demographic.
If such a party existed …
“And you just go on believing that disaffected “security Democrats” aren’t a relevant electoral factor…”
Well, since you’ve chosen to dodge this issue and make silly bets rather than trying to prove me wrong, I am left with no choice but to continue to believe it until presented with empirical (your word) evidence arguing against it. At which time I might change my mind.
“Polls don’t pass laws.”
You’ve fallen back on an inaccurate cliche in an attempt to dismiss quantitative evidence that argues against you. I had a suspicion, when writing my post, that you might choose to employ such a tactic…and I’m sorry that you did. It only serves to illustrate that you do not take these issues seriously enough to put any real thought into them.
Just for the sake of civil debate, however, I’d like to ask you to articulate clearly (please, this evasiveness is getting tiresome) an explanation for these comments:
“You say the Democrats will retake the Senate in 06?
As in a Democratic majority?
Hmmm. I’ve got a bottle of 01 Windward Pinot I’ll put up on that. You?”
Since electoral politics is strategic, predictions such as these can be approached analytically by breaking down individual races in different states and districts.
Within each separate case, then, the views and positions of the candidates can be measured against your “tough on national security” litmus test*.
This might provide some test for the validity of your claims, although as I said above, the lack of causality makes it weak evidence at best.
What I am saying is that trying to make broad predictions based on some vague sentiment about “Kossacks” or broad generalizations about “Democrats” (ala Jim Rockford above) are worse than meaningless, they are naive.
I highly doubt you have it in you to do this kind of analysis. But without this level of scrutiny, you must acknowledge that your assertions are unsubstantiated, unverifiable, and therefore without value.
Incidentally, this kind of analysis is EXACTLY what Kos/MyDD engage in. So whether you agree with their opposition to Bush or not, they are much much further along than you (light years, really) in enhancing the representation of THEIR views. “As I’ve said before,”:http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/008006.php#c33 your efforts here can more accurately be viewed as working against many of the beliefs you claim to have.
I don’t think you can make that same claim for Kos, because a large number of military people and vets (e.g., The Fighting Dems) support his efforts and participate in the discussions on his site. WofC by no means has a corner on this market, you know.
Anyway, no matter what kind of approach I take here, I am growing doubtful that I will ever be able to get you to acknowledge some of these points. You are offended by some of the things that are said by Democrats or Liberals, and you cannot get past that. Too bad, it’s but no skin off my back.
—-
*It is still not entirely clear to me how you define this, by the way.
Oooh, Andy, that stings.
Actually, I’m pretty good at reading and using polls, having helped lead 9and win a few election campaigns in my time. But since I do this in about an hour a day – while the Kos and DD communities involve people who are currently doing it for a living – I can only hold out Kos’ stirling electoral record. He’s 0 for what – 5? 6? I’ve done better than that.
I’m also pretty good at knowing that much of the data that comes out of polls is a long way from being information – a key difference. Bush is getting hammered? Well, let me suggest that you go to the polls on past wartime presidents – Truman, who didn’t run for a second term because he would have lost, LBJ, the sainted FDR. Churchill in the UK. We read the hagiographies on them now and don’t understand the real tenor of the times.
The interesting question, if you’re feeling so analytical – is why is it, in the face of a hostile media, Bush and the war are doing so well?
So no, I’m not going to play polling games. I will suggest that there is a long history of political writing – going pretty much all the way back to the first political writings – in which people used personal experience, argument, and their perception of the times and place they lived in to discuss what politics were and should be.
I want to see a Democratic party that can win and deserves to. You believe that we have that party; that’s OK that’s why they run races. “When the flag drops, the bullshit stops,” as they say.
A.L.
As a pro-defense democrat, I find AL’s writing here immensely helpful. The political battle in the US is for the center, and I think that the (entirely justified, in my experience) perception that the Democrats are weak on defense issues has hurt them in national elections. Pretending they aren’t, and that the centrists are merely bamboozled by Rove’s Machiavellian cunning and/or Bush’s idiocy (whatever), and that if the Republican leadership are criticized loudly/weirdly enough, the masses in flyover country will see the error of their ways, is a recipe for failure. As a party we need positive proposals that address the threats this country faces, and I appreciate AL’s hammering on this point, especially outside traditional liberal echo chambers.
The criticism that AL lacks liberal bona fides because he a) discusses and supports the WoT and b) does so in a (gasp) predominantly non-liberal forum is symptomatic of the problem facing the Democrats, and the Left in general. Purging the ranks with Liberal Purity tests isn’t productive.
I look forward to the day when civil libertarians and Republican libertarians to flee each party in horror and form some viable mainstream party (ie., Democrats without the socialists, Republicans without the theocrats). But until that Glorious Day, we have to work with what we have, eh? Don’t let the critics get you down.
“I can only hold out Kos’ stirling electoral record. He’s 0 for what – 5? 6? I’ve done better than that.”
I wasn’t aware that Kos was a candidate in any elections. And how hare you measuring this? What are the 5 or 6 cases you’re using as an example here? And what are you saying, that without his website Dems would have done better?
“The interesting question, if you’re feeling so analytical – is why is it, in the face of a hostile media, Bush and the war are doing so well?”
How do you define “doing so well”?
Unfortunately, your aversion to “polling games” and reliance on personal experience and perception makes it virtually impossible to prove you wrong. Hence, your opinion is useless as an testable theory. So keep up the good preaching work, brother, because Faith will carry your flock, not reason.
And your “hostile media” quip is off base as well, I’d say. Another irrelevant opinion tossed into an already confusing-and confused-argument.
“Oooh, Andy, that stings.”
Retreating once again behind the false pretense of personal affrontery, I see.
Thanks for the “debate”, anyway. I have a much clearer picture of where you stand now as a result. And I can see that further discussion would be both fruitless and frustrating.
I’ll wait for AL’s longer response before replying to him, but something GeneThug said deserves a response:
bq. The criticism that AL lacks liberal bona fides because he a) discusses and supports the WoT and b) does so in a (gasp) predominantly non-liberal forum is symptomatic of the problem facing the Democrats, and the Left in general. Purging the ranks with Liberal Purity tests isn’t productive.
Yeah, that’s not a distortion of what I wrote _at all_. Let’s clarify: AL’s “liberal bona fides” are lacking not because he supports the War on Terror, but because he supports the war in *Iraq*, and has continued to do so *even as he admits Bush is blowing the whole thing*. This has nothing to do with a “Liberal Purity” test – it has everything to do with his credibility in _changing Democratic minds_ which is (theoretically) the reason he’s so eager to trash other lefties.
And the problem with him writing here at WoC is not that he’s assocaiting with the unclean, or some other such straw man, but that _few Democrats are gonna listen to his appeals for change in this forum_. If you want to convert the heathens, you don’t do it by preaching at a freakin’ seminary.
Here’s a tip, Gene: if you’re gonna adopt a world-weary “all the fools in my old party just don’t realize how wrong they are” persona, it probably helps if you _accurately state_ what their arguments are, rather than just going with the easy misprepresentation and moving on.
As an aside, AL quipped above that we should take a look at Technorati to see how often he’s linked by other blogs. The problem is, doing just that merely proves what I’ve been saying all along – that AL _isn’t_ linked to that frequently, and that the guys who link to him are almost entirely pro-war conservatives to begin with.
On the other hand, it’s very enlightening to compare AL’s hits with a similar search for Daniel Drezner – a nominal conservative/libertarian who went over to the Kerry side out of disgust for Bush. Interestingly enough, Drezner – although, like AL, someone who only blogs as a part-time thing – is far more widely linked to, and, more importantly, is someone who still enjoys a great deal of linkage among conservatives, probably because he manages to critique his former candidate without frothing at the mouth over how much he hates his own party.
Food for thought.
Chris;
Thanks for making the effort to do what AL himself suggested we should do to refute our claim that his views are not widely appreciated.
Now I see why he declined to follow up on this when I specifically asked him to provide this info, above.
He probably doesn’t believe in playing “Technorati Games” anyway….
Chris,
> AL’s “liberal bona fides” are lacking not because he supports the War on Terror, but because he supports the war in Iraq, and has continued to do so even as he admits Bush is blowing the whole thing.
I didn’t mean to distort your position, but on the other hand, I’m wasn’t writing about you in particular. I don’t believe clarifying your position makes an significant a difference as you suggest, though. Some of us Democrats do actually view the war on Iraq as part of the global War on Terror, and Bush&Co. as that war’s imperfect but necessary executor. If you disagree, fine. I voted against the guy twice (it’s a stem cell thing), but I still want us to win – in Iraq and the larger arena.
‘Sides, regardless of how many other Democrats read WoC regularly (and absent a poll or something, how would you really know?), how many centrist conservatives might read AL and decide that liberals/Democrats aren’t all inept re:foreign policy (a common enough charge)? Preaching to heathens is harder than preaching to the choir, but it has its place as well.
Chris –
You wrote this:
“AL’s “liberal bona fides” are lacking not because he supports the War on Terror, but because he supports the war in Iraq, and has continued to do so even as he admits Bush is blowing the whole thing.”
Is that really what you meant?
A.L.
bq. _”AL’s “liberal bona fides” are lacking not because he supports the War on Terror, but because he supports the war in Iraq, and has continued to do so even as he admits Bush is blowing the whole thing.”_
bq. Is that really what you meant?
Well, the following sentence…
bq. _This has nothing to do with a “Liberal Purity” test – it has everything to do with his credibility in changing Democratic minds which is (theoretically) the reason he’s so eager to trash other lefties._
…tends to undercut the idea that “liberal bona fides” or any other kind of official stamp of approval is particularly important, beyond the ability it gives you to talk to other like-minded people. So, no, I don’t think you’re any more or less of a liberal in any official sense (whatever that means). But I do think that posts like this tend to undercut the idea that the direction you’d like to take the party is a particularly viable one.
Is that reasonable?
Chris –
OK, now I’m really confused.
How is it that a post hammering the Administration for cheaping out on reconstruction spending – which, as limited in efficiency as it has been, is the major rope holding up Iraqi civil society and therefore leading us out of the war – “undercut[s] the idea that the direction you’d like to take the party is a particularly viable one” ??
Not being cute or snarky, just puzzled as hell.
A.L.
The Italian army. Is that at Stalingrad or Tobruk?
That was truly funny
Unfortunately too much of what your saying about the Democrats is true. “Yes, you’re absolutely right. Damage done to those progressive values in the last decade of Republican power is directly attributable to the craven, abject failure of the liberal Democrats to manage to mount a sustainable defense.”
Andy, if you’re not aware of Kos’ involvement (and I’m not talking as a paid consultant) in the last cycle – in the form of targeting races, raising funds etc. – and his record in same – you’re not playing with a full set of cards here.
And I just adore your notion that “Past or future electoral outcomes will not provide a reliable or reasonable method for testing your claim that your views represent a voting block that is important for the Democrats (or falsifying my claim that they do not).” So basically, your sole interest is in proing in some stastically valid & empirically verifiable way that a specific theme is one that will drive voter behavior.
I don’t know how to break this to you, but this is about the least quantifiable and empirically verifiable enterprise one can engage in. If you could do such a thing – if you, or I was capable of data-gathering and analysis at that level of accuracy, we’d be fabulously wealthy because we’d be able to predict markets.
That’s a bit of a fool’s game, but people keep trying, and you can too should you care to.
So I’ll take you up on your offer to take a pass on discussing this with me, and send you to Coventry.
Now I need to compose a reply to Chris’ more challenging posts.
A.L.
bq. How is it that a post hammering the Administration for cheaping out on reconstruction spending – which, as limited in efficiency as it has been, is the major rope holding up Iraqi civil society and therefore leading us out of the war – “undercut[s] the idea that the direction you’d like to take the party is a particularly viable one” ??
bq. Not being cute or snarky, just puzzled as hell.
Actually, that wasn’t the post I meant to link – this one is, although the torture post and the post I did link to above both hit on the same point obliquely.
You’ve been a supporter of the war, and have claimed, over and over, that the Iraq war is the best way to win the greater war on terror, and that supporting Bush is the best way (or rather, in your terms, the only viable alternative) to win the war.
However, if even you’re now making a stink about how Bush’s FISA games are destroying support at home, how torture is a bigger problem than you previously admitted to, how the administration’s troop deployments are “a move in such a wrong direction that I’m speechless”, and how the administration isn’t spending enough money on “the major rope holding up Iraqi civil society”, then all that casts doubt on the positions you’ve been taking, and your future credibility.
In short, you’ve been trying to convince moderate Democrats that an invasion, launched on debatable terms, led by a Republican president whom they generally weren’t crazy about to begin with, was the right thing to do for the good of the nation. Had the war been relatively quick and successful, or even had most Democrats gotten the impression Bush was making a good faith effort and working at the edge of his competency, I suspect maintaining support for the war wouldn’t have been nearly as difficult as it’s been. (Victory has a thousand fathers…) But even you seem to be admitting that’s not really the case, which makes selling the war all the more difficult for you.
I hope that clarifies things.
And Andy, for the record, I gotta admit I’m not super familiar with Technorati, and there’s an outside possibility I’m misinterpreting the data. But that said, I do agree that AL’s Technorati remark seems to fit into the “enough rope to hang himself” category.
OK, here we go…
The problem is that if you let people who side with you say repugnant things, without any response from you – you risk being tarred with what they say (vide the folks who protested the war alongside ANSWER).
Actually, not. Look, I’ll see if I can make my point again, more clearly. Bush is doing stuff I consider to be Bad Stuff. I would like to see it changed. Changing it, however, requires a couple of things, one of which is electoral victory – the other of which is being worthy of that victory. I don’t think the Democratic Party, as managed today, is capable of delivering that victory, for a variety of reasons. And if it won, i don;t think it’d do the things it needs to to meet it’s goals (help the little guy, etc.).
I can rail against the Bad Stuff, and talk about Bush’s horrible energy policy, or the ridiculous stem cell policy, or his bad tax policy. If I put all my energy into one smallish issue, I might help tip it a fraction in a direction that I’d approve of.
Or, I can put my modicum of energy into reforming the Democratic Party. As I see it, noting is going to happen until the party realizes it needs to be reformed – a process which is slowly beginning to take form. So I can devote myself to the issue of – say – torture, but then in so doing I lose the chance to win the war I want to win, which is much larger in scope.
Additionally, and I hate to say it, but for the most part the folks who have been raising the torture issue haven’t been doing so unaware of the larger context in which the discussion will take place. It’s a proxy issue against the war and against Bush, and as such I’m very careful in approaching it because, as you note below, I Understand The Unavoidable Complexities Of War. Actually, I don’t think other liberals do. I’ve remarked frequently on how profound their misunderstanding is when they comment on – say the Sgrena shooting.
No they aren’t, and you have no concrete basis on which to make that statement. Look, I’ve spent days with Paul Holton (“Chief Wiggles”), who was a senior interrogator in Iraq, and had direct discussions with him about this issue. Had there been a commend-level directive to abuse prisoners, he would have known about it. he didn’t. Or he’s an incredibly good liar.
The torture/treatment issue deserves far more than I can give it here; suffice it to say there’s a complex legal issue because of the status of the people captured, a simple moral one about what we expect from our people, and a complex moral one because we know going in that they will not always meet those expectations. We can react in one of two ways; stop capturing and interrogating people, or try to do it better. (See my old posts on the Central Park ‘wilding’ outcomes). I’m all about trying to do it better.
Chris, I’m willing to accede that you have not said either of those things. Your views, nonetheless, are substantially congruent with a large population of people who have taken those positions, so you’ll forgive my confusion.
I think Bush has failed on a large number of counts. But I don’t get to invent my President by writing him up as a fictional character. We elect from the candidates we’re given, and one of the roots of my complaint with the Democratic Party is the incredibly shallow pool of leaders it has managed to cultivate in the last decades.
Today, knowing everything I know about what Bush has done wrong – and about how Kerry has comported himself since the election – my only regret about my stance in 2004 is that I didn’t commit to Bush earlier or support him more vocally.
We’ll get to this in a bit…
Oh, please. No, the Democratic Party isn’t a monolithic entity. but this is like saying that Exxon wasn’t responsible for the Exxon Valdez because the CEO wasn’t at the helm. The party stands for things, or it doesn’t. it puts certain people forward as exemplars, or it doesn’t. It does stand for something, and it does put certain people forward. David Duke is against the war in Iraq, but I don’t see Hillary cozying up to him; there’s obviously some conscious choosing going on, and those choices matter.
Yes, the GOP is full of people who I find silly or whose views I find repugnant. That’s why I’m not a Republican, and am unlikely to become one.
“We got outPR’ed” That’s the last refuge of a losing side. First, PR is one of the core functions of a political party; you call it PR, I call it public politics, and a form of praxis (as in human action in public).
As opposed to my own moral judgment? I’ve been down this road before, and it’s incredibly offensive to me that people assume that I’m unable to make my own – conscious – decisions about issues like this. I’m obviously like a passive consumer, hooked to the glass teat of the TV, just buying what my corporate masters push down my throat. Give me a break, Chris – you don’t really believe that, do you?
I’m not slamming DeLay, Norquist, and Dobson because they aren’t shitting in my living room. They aren’t sullying – and weakening – something that I hold dear. There ought to be a county full of pissed-off Republicans who are outraged at what they’re doing to the Grand Old Party. I hope and wish there are. But that’s not the problem I’m signed up to solve.
Supporting the other side? I’ve supported Bush in the election, and supported the war, but my criticism of the Democrats has had a simple goal – getting them to a place where I think they can win.
It’s an interesting question, and I’ve been wrestling with it a bit; how to take my dissatisfaction and make it into a concrete set of programs (in the reforming the Democrats sense, not in the running the country sense) and make them as effective as possible. I’m not convinced that WoC isn’t/couldn’t be a great platform for that – but I fully admit that this is something I’d like to have an answer for and don’t.
I see it more as an anodyne to the “It’s the bad PR from the mean Republicans, we’re really doing just great!” that I see all too often on MyDD and similar.
Yeah, I got clocked by Marc Cooper on that one. I cannot believe the Governator ran such a pathetic campaign; I could have done much better, and I’m no pro. As I’ve noted, I’ve got a good Pinot sitting in the rack that can be yours if you sign on the line and prove to be right.
I’m just flat gobsmacked that you’d make Iraq the litmus test here (which is why I asked you about this upthread). If that’s the case – and I’m not sure you’re wrong – the Democratic Party is well and truly cooked, because if they are going to say you have to be pro-choice and anti-war to be a member, they’re a permanent minority. We’ll forget the moral dimensions of both of those filters, and the ‘big tent’ question as well.
Yeah, but you can work up some pretty good sermons, which you can then take out into the hinterlands. They go to seminaries for a reason, you know.
First, I simply think Drezner is a better blogger than I am. He’s a better writer, and a more incisive thinker. But I think your counts are wrong; if you look at our site technorati links, a bunch of them are mine, but aren’t included in your search.
But looking at them, I’m a bit bemused, because I’ve had three things get pretty broad coverage in the last week or so; one was a pushback on those who want to invade or bomb Iran right now; one was slamming the Army for letting off someone who killed a prisoner, and questioning my own justifications for pushing back on the torture issue; one was slamming the Administration for considering abandoning civil reconstruction in Iraq.
How is it, exactly, that I’m shilling the GOP party line?
OK, it’s late and I have to go do a conference call…
bq. The problem is that if you let people who side with you say repugnant things, without any response from you – you risk being tarred with what they say (vide the folks who protested the war alongside ANSWER).
Context, as always, matters hugely in something like this. As I keep pointing out, Stein is his own man – you have to do an awful lot of hand-waving to decisively link him to mainstream Democrats. I think, on balance, most people recognize that… just as they recognized that millions of people marching across the country weren’t doing it for the joys of communism, but because they were genuinely concerned about the war, and _only_ the war. (I never heard much about the ANSWER stuff beyond right-wing blogs, even though I knew many conservatives who were well aware of ANSWER’s role in the marches.)
On the other hand, the Republicans have shown that you can be quite close to some real loonies, and still come out unscathed. Case in point, take a look at Marvin Olasky, who’s a right wing columnist at least as fringe as Stein, but who, unlike Stein, was a close personal friend and advisor to President Bush. I’m quite certain that what Olasky writes is anathema to many Republicans – probably most Republicans, including many on this board. But you don’t really see many Republicans denouncing the guy, probably because they understand that it’s counter-productive to trash your own side when there are bigger stakes at play.
bq. bq. The thrust of my comment was not saying “AL doesn’t realize the truth about torture, more the fool he!” Instead, it pretty clearly laid out the argument that, y’know, maybe the torture issue in general is more worthy of a heated condemnation than a Joel Stein column.
bq. Actually, not. Look, I’ll see if I can make my point again, more clearly. Bush is doing stuff I consider to be Bad Stuff. I would like to see it changed. Changing it, however, requires a couple of things, one of which is electoral victory – the other of which is being worthy of that victory. I don’t think the Democratic Party, as managed today, is capable of delivering that victory, for a variety of reasons. And if it won, i don;t think it’d do the things it needs to to meet it’s goals (help the little guy, etc.). I can rail against the Bad Stuff, and talk about Bush’s horrible energy policy, or the ridiculous stem cell policy, or his bad tax policy. If I put all my energy into one smallish issue, I might help tip it a fraction in a direction that I’d approve of. Or, I can put my modicum of energy into reforming the Democratic Party. As I see it, noting is going to happen until the party realizes it needs to be reformed – a process which is slowly beginning to take form. So I can devote myself to the issue of – say – torture, but then in so doing I lose the chance to win the war I want to win, which is much larger in scope.
A lot of my counter-argument to this was in my comment #29. The things I’ll add here is that the above paragraph suggests to me that the divide between you and the Democrats is even larger than I had imagined – that it’s not just a matter of thinking Democrats were wrong on Iraq, but that they are, at some fundamental level, unworthy to lead the country, and that Bush is a preferable leader in general. (You echo this sentiment further down, as well.)
I would suggest that what you’ve outlined above is, from the standpoint of the reform work you say you’re interested in, bad news in two ways.
First, from an absolutist standpoint, I think relatively few Democrats see the Iraq war as the kind of all-important struggle you do. I think many Democrats believe it’s important – that we have strategic interests in a free Iraq, and that it has become part of the war on terror – but that “losing” Iraq does not mean an inevitable worldwide triumph of radical Islam, any more than withdrawing from Vietnam inevitably led to global communism. More importantly, I think most Democrats think a _poorly executed_ war in Iraq is worse than _no war at all_, and that the way the administration’s response to the war has changed us – torture, spying, and the executive’s newfound power of indefinite detention chief among them – is a greater concern than the Iraq war itself.
Now, I *know* you disagree strongly with the above statements. I know that you, and the vast, vast majority of WoC posters and commenters can and have produce volumes arguing the exact opposite. But this is, in many ways, an unbridgable gap – there’s simply a large portion of lefties that you’re never gonna convince that a certain amount swallowing Bush’s mistakes is a necessary and unavoidable precondition for protecting the country.
Beyond that, from a tactical standpoint, there are those on the left who you _might_ be able to convince that supporting Bush’s prosecution of the war is the right thing to do. But to convince those folks (and I count myself among this group) you have to demonstrate a couple of things – that Bush _can_ win the war,that Bush _is currently doing the things he needs to win the war_, and that any excesses or mistakes Bush makes while prosecuting the war are both tolerable and manageable. The question of “can we win the war” is always gonna be arguable, but the question of “is Bush currently doing the things he needs to do” is not one you’ve been positively arguing – quite the opposite, lately – and the way you’ve largely ignored Bush’s errors, for what ever reason, makes the third part of the question almost entirely a lost cause.
And, again, I want to be clear on this: I think torture is a big deal, and that all pro-war folks should be a lot more worked up about it than they are. But even if you don’t, the fact that you’re visibly _not_ worked up about torture (your last post on the subject aside) means that people who _do_ find torture to be an important issue are that much less likely to listen to you. In short, a certain amount of “friendly camoflage” on this issue might do wonders as far as your ability to convince other liberals.
bq. bq. …this time around is relatively unique because torture orders are coming from the President down. Funny, that…
bq. No they aren’t, and you have no concrete basis on which to make that statement. Look, I’ve spent days with Paul Holton (“Chief Wiggles”), who was a senior interrogator in Iraq, and had direct discussions with him about this issue. Had there been a commend-level directive to abuse prisoners, he would have known about it. he didn’t. Or he’s an incredibly good liar.
My apologies – I should have phrased that more concisely. What I whould have said is that – although the Bush administration is, as a rule, not issuing blanket orders that every “enemy combatant” should be given a spin on the Wheel ‘o Pain – it _is_ the case that the Bush administration has been setting policies and making legal arguments that increase the liklihood of prisoner abuse, and legalize certain practices which most people would consider torture (i.e., waterboarding).
On the one hand, I admit that there’s a difference between what I wrote above and “command-level directives to abuse prisoners”. On the other hand, I still think what the administration’s been doing is extremely serious, and I think many, many, many Americans have an extreme distaste for any line of reasoning that begins “torture is a very complex issue that we have to examine carefully…” For them, torture is torture is torture is not something the US should be involved in, and I can’t say I blame them for taking that stance. And again, if you, AL, can’t recognize that, you’re never gonna be able to convince most liberals about jack.
bq. Chris, I’m willing to accede that you have not said either of those things. Your views, nonetheless, are substantially congruent with a large population of people who have taken those positions, so you’ll forgive my confusion.
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and suggest that, just as you’ve admittedly misinterpreted me on these issues, you’re also misinterpreting “the large population of people who have taken those positions.” Namely, that they’re motivated solely not by outright hatred of Bush and th war, but that they see both Bush and the war as ultimately detrimental to the well-being of the United States. Unless and until you’re willing to admit that most of your fellow citizens who disagree with you are at least as rational, intelligent, informed and well-meaning as you are, you’re never gonna be able to change their minds.
bq. I think Bush has failed on a large number of counts. But I don’t get to invent my President by writing him up as a fictional character. We elect from the candidates we’re given, and one of the roots of my complaint with the Democratic Party is the incredibly shallow pool of leaders it has managed to cultivate in the last decades. Today, knowing everything I know about what Bush has done wrong – and about how Kerry has comported himself since the election – my only regret about my stance in 2004 is that I didn’t commit to Bush earlier or support him more vocally.
I can’t keep repeating myself about an unbridgable gap between you and other Democrats indefinitely, so I’ll simply ask you this question: at what point, to you, does a poorly-executed Iraq war become worse than no Iraq war at all?
bq. Oh, please. No, the Democratic Party isn’t a monolithic entity. but this is like saying that Exxon wasn’t responsible for the Exxon Valdez because the CEO wasn’t at the helm. The party stands for things, or it doesn’t. it puts certain people forward as exemplars, or it doesn’t. It does stand for something, and it does put certain people forward. David Duke is against the war in Iraq, but I don’t see Hillary cozying up to him; there’s obviously some conscious choosing going on, and those choices matter.
Am I allowed to cry “Irrational Democrat Hatred Syndrome” here? Exxon is a hierarchical corporation, with the power to hire and fire and the legal obligaton to ensure a certain amount of quality at all levels of the corporation. The Democrats are a group of elected politicians who – especially when there’s no Democratic president in office – answer to no central authority, and who each pursue their own interests to a greater extent than the party’s interests (however those are defined). There’s a certain amount of inevitable variation of opinion, and while Cindy Sheehan might fit inside that box for some Democrats, David Duke will not.
Now, you can certainly argue that there should be a greater amount of party discipline, so that somebody should have the power to tell Kerry “get your ass out of Kos’s website”, but A) the Republican legislative follies of the past few years have demonstrated that that centralized authority can be abused fairly easily, and B) that kind of central discipline seems to be the direct opposite of the “big tent” argument you make below.
bq. bq. And yes, some people vote one way out of distaste for the people associated with the other guys… although, on balance, both sides have their black sheep, and the effectiveness of that tactic basically boils down to how well a given side’s PR machine works.
bq. “We got outPR’ed” That’s the last refuge of a losing side. First, PR is one of the core functions of a political party; you call it PR, I call it public politics, and a form of praxis (as in human action in public).
I’ll take some time to note that A) your comment above is largely irrelevant to what I was saying about how both sides have their problem children, and B) your response is cynical and essentially untrue. The crap Lee Atwater pulled back in the day, and the crap pulled by Bush against McCain in 2000 isn’t “praxis”, it’s pure spin and sludge. Dirty tricks and misdirection will only get you so far, and I truly hope we’ll see that hammered home in ’06.
bq. bq. And, in Bush’s case, the fact that he’s managed to get you to think Joel Stein is more of an albatross than Delay, Norquist or Dobson speaks wonders of his PR machine’s effectiveness.
bq. As opposed to my own moral judgment? I’ve been down this road before, and it’s incredibly offensive to me that people assume that I’m unable to make my own – conscious – decisions about issues like this. I’m obviously like a passive consumer, hooked to the glass teat of the TV, just buying what my corporate masters push down my throat. Give me a break, Chris – you don’t really believe that, do you?
I find your absolutism on this question kinda tedious – no, you’re not a passive consumer, but neither you nor anyone else is entirely immune to spin and rhetoric, whether it’s carried out by Bush directly or by proxy right-wing sites. Given that you spend most of your time exclusively hanging out at right-wing blogs, and given that even in this very conversation you’ve made uncharitable and uneven references to Democratic position, no, I’m not gonna apologize for suggesting that at least part of your opinion derives from Republican PR.
bq. I’m not slamming DeLay, Norquist, and Dobson because they aren’t shitting in my living room. They aren’t sullying – and weakening – something that I hold dear. There ought to be a county full of pissed-off Republicans who are outraged at what they’re doing to the Grand Old Party. I hope and wish there are. But that’s not the problem I’m signed up to solve.
Again, I find this absolutely bizarre coming from a self-proclaimed liberal. Whatever your irreckoncilable issues on the war might be, and however pissed off you are about what fringe liberals are doing to the Democratic party, isn’t what Norquist etc. are doing to the *whole country* that much worse?
And there _aren’t_ guys on the Republican side taking on Norquist et al. Regardless of if there should be or not, can’t you admit that what you’re doing represents an unmatched boon for the Republicans?
bq. Supporting the other side? I’ve supported Bush in the election, and supported the war, but my criticism of the Democrats has had a simple goal – getting them to a place where I think they can win.
Again, we’re not even winning the Iraq war, so how can liberals trust your recommendations for the party?
bq. It’s an interesting question, and I’ve been wrestling with it a bit; how to take my dissatisfaction and make it into a concrete set of programs (in the reforming the Democrats sense, not in the running the country sense) and make them as effective as possible. I’m not convinced that WoC isn’t/couldn’t be a great platform for that – but I fully admit that this is something I’d like to have an answer for and don’t.
In both the “running-the-country” sense and the “reforming-the-Party” sense, I think it boils down to one thing: you gotta be in it to win it. The Democrats can propose all they want, but it just doesn’t mean much until the Republicans screw up enough for the Dems to get back in power. And you can propose all you want, but as long as you’re shunning the party, it means diddley.
bq. I’m just flat gobsmacked that you’d make Iraq the litmus test here (which is why I asked you about this upthread). If that’s the case – and I’m not sure you’re wrong – the Democratic Party is well and truly cooked, because if they are going to say you have to be pro-choice and anti-war to be a member, they’re a permanent minority. We’ll forget the moral dimensions of both of those filters, and the ‘big tent’ question as well.
I too have to head out soon, so I’ll point the following out and leave it at that: I’m not making Iraq a litmus test, and I’m certainly not making abortion a litmus test. But parties tend to form on opposite sides of political fault lines, and that’s what’s happening here… it’s pretty much unavoidable. And as far as big tent stuff, I’ll note that _you’re_ trying to push _Stein_ out of the party, but that Stein’s not trying to do the same to you.
Food for thought.
Actually, the reason I haven’t denounced Olasky is simpler. Marvin who?
This is rather the point for the Democrats. Callimachus “looks at coverage post 2006 SOTU speech,”:http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/008040.php and compares coverage levels of the Democratic spokesperson to coverage of Cindy Sheehan, brought in as a guest of a Democratic legislator. Guess who comes out way ahead?
Unsurprisingly, guess who is seen as representative of your side? Now look to the Alito hearings. who does everyone remember? Kennedy. Clue: recent poll of university students (not a wildly right wing crowd) revealed that they knew 2 things about him: he was fat and drunk. Naturally, the liberal professor was horrified. Nut who was the Dems’ big “viewer takeaway” spokesman on Alito? Yup.
I, for one, think all that is utterly fantastic. And the wildly hilarious part is that a media which leans wildly left-wing in survey after survey actually thinks they’re doing you guys a favour.
Keep doing it.
Chris – this is getting buried by later posts, but I’d like to continue it if you’re willing to. I’ll try and frame up a new post that broadens the discussion, and let’s see who else we can get involved.
Two points to consider – 1) I don’t just hang out reading right-wing blogs. Here’s my Bloglines list of feeds (it’s public):
http://www.bloglines.com/public/ArmedLiberal
and 2) I never called for Joel Stein to be removed from the Democratic Party. I did call for the Democratic leadership to read what he’d written, look at what they are saying, and realize how close the two are – and that that’s a bad thing. To quote:
“But I do want to suggest one thing – that the liberal, democratic, anti-Bush part of the house ought to read this article, look in a mirror and worry. Because the ‘bubble’ that Stein has always lived in – of elite schools, jobs, friends, and perspective – is worryingly close to the Hollywood/ Silicon Valley/ Manhattan core of funders, intellectuals, and media figures that form the schwerpunkt of the Democratic Party right now.”
A.L.
AL-
Whether we continue this, and in what fashion, is, as always, entirely up to you – although I gotta admit, I certainly can’t say I haven’t had a chance to say my piece.
I will say that this conversation has, inevitably, widened well beyond its original scope, and that I think the core of what we’ve been talking about it pretty well encapsulated by my post #29. Focusing on that might be a good way to prune the argument.
A few other things:
– Searches for “Winds of Change” and “www.windsofchange.net” at Technorati don’t offer much in the way of clarification – there’s a lot of noise in the search, and it’s not immediately clear what’s a genuine linkback and what’s a permanent sidebar link. I do admit that a search for “Armed Liberal” isn’t getting all your stuff… but then, I think there’s probably stuff under “Dan Drezner” rather than “Daniel Drezner” that I haven’t really taken into account either. Regardless, I think the comparison I made is close enough for a back-of-the-envelope calculation, and that my original point – how Daniel’s still widely linked by conservatives – still stands.
– My phrasing “exclusively hanging out at right-wing blogs” was poorly chosen, and your blog links are fairly well spread out. (There looks like a slight rightward bias to me, but then there’s certainly a similar bias in my own blog reading, so can’t complain about that. Regardless, you do _post_ here pretty exclusively, so I think a lot of the original sense of my remark still stands.
– Even if you’re not explicitly calling for Stein to be removed, I’m not sure what the end difference really is. If the relationship is “worryingly close”, as you say, what’s the Democratic party supposed to do with that information, other than censure of Stein and his ilk?
– And yeah, you have been much more harsh against the Bush lately. Part of my argument is that had you been posting like that since the beginning of the Iraq war, you’d have more credibility in attacking your own side. (But, of course, the flipside is that, had you been posting like that since the beginning, you might not really be a Bush supporter any longer, given the preponderance of evidence against GWB’s competence.)
Joe-
What can I say? I’m sorry you’re ignorant about the direct philosophical underpinnings of GWB’s governing philosophy. I’m sorry you keep focusing on hitting whipping-boys like Sheehan and Kennedy rather than the underlying issues they represent. (You sure as hell don’t have to like what Cindy Sheehan stands for – I don’t – but should she have gotten arrested for wearing an anti-Bush t-shirt?)
And I’m really, really sorry you so rarely address the mounting problems of the war you’ve so vigorously supported with positive solutions. But I guess it is easier to attack the other side, rather than addressing your own side’s failures.