Not much time to blog today – my latest project is demo-ing today at the Inc 500 Conference in Chicago – but I didn’t want this post by Steve Smith to go unremarked. I know my opinion of the Netroots doesn’t matter because I’m a turncoat warmonger and all that. But here’s what unabashed leftie Smith has to say:
Huh? Well, feel free to rant away, Mr. Stoller, but it wouldn’t hurt to get a f**king clue. Lefty bloggers are great at raising money for causes, for garnering attention to worthy causes, and for publicizing dark horse challengers, but on a tactical level, they have all the sense of a cage of spastic ferrets being harassed by a deranged hive of wasps. Bloggers can get a Ned Lamont nominated, but actually electing him, or avoiding doing really airheadish things that rile up the opposition, is another thing entirely.
Stoller’s notion that blogs doesn’t have “top-down” organizational control is technically correct (for one thing, traffic-wise, political writing is a relatively insignificant part of the blogosphere), but it still obscures the very negative role the Queen Beez play in determining what the agenda is for the rest of the non-MSM. If anything, it’s “pretty stupid” for Stoller to pretend that within the lefty blogosphere, there aren’t about a dozen bloggers who link almost exclusively to each other, who generate 99% of the press coverage, and thereby set the agenda for the rest of us.
Like it or not, that exclusivity can be a strength, since it keeps us on message and magnifies our influence, but it also backfires on occasion, as Mr. Drum points out in the post referenced above. Depending on the season, we are told by the Queen Beez that we have to elect more Democrats to Congress, no matter what position they take, or we are told that we have to purge the “Bush Dog” Demos at the first chance, or we just sit back and make snarky quips about “Friedman Units” and post photoshopped pics of Joe Lieberman. With that sort of de facto leadership, it’s no wonder we feel like we get snookered at every turn.
I pretty much agree; I think the influence of the netroots is vastly overstated (see: Snakes on A Plane) by the central position they have in the Big Media lens.
It doesn’t mean they (we) have no influence, and it doesn’t mean these tools aren’t useful or moving to change politics. But as long as bloggers are for sale, the reality of a ‘movement’ is tantalizing but just out of reach.
I think the left has a pretty reactionary view of the blogosphere. They treat it strictly as a means to an end. They talk a big game about grassroots organization and energizing the base, but they don’t really respect the medium they’re trying to use. Instead of challenging the MSM, they pander to it for attention. They badmouth FOX, but are unable to Rathergate it. Instead they just piss off Bill O’Reilly, who can punch back with a much bigger fist.
And they’re living on borrowed time with this stuff, because the Democratic Party has yet to wake up to the fact that the major political accomplishment of the netroots has been to cost the party a totally safe Senate seat. I wouldn’t count on the host animal remaining stupid for ever.
If they were a little less doctrinaire and a little more patient, they might see the blogs as a means to build alliances, reconcile different points of view, and acclimate their furry types to political reality.
Thought I would take a peek , a couple of years down the road. Katzman is now trying to hold down two functions by running his sales crap in this blog; the fake posture of this blog has been pretty well abandoned–in fact you could well change the name to “Tons of military manure inc);; no longer the faint whiff of college liberal it is now openly hysterical right wing, and therefore replete with references to “lefties” ; and the effort to write tough has been abandoned as well. Now you just put in military acronyms.
No longer worth while to check the comments to see if you are re -arranging them to suite the days program, or stuffing them with fake enthusiasts. Jesus, you are actually down to funky names. Better register for unemployment pay. By By cowbird.
When the revolution comes, Steve Smith will get no desert.
Stoller’s rant makes the point:
bq. _stupid articles on what the ‘netroots’ does or does not do, such as this one or this one, to take but two examples, that ignore the fact that no top-tier Democrat differs from Clinton on Iraq, are really really stupid._
I’ve read the articles which Mr. Articulate variously calls stupid or really really stupid and their sole fault appears to lie in their failure to reference the mandatory talking point that none of the candidates support Stoller’s preferred policy of immediate teleportation of all American troops out of Iraq.
Nevermind that “the fact” that there are no differences is debatable and debated by readers at “Stoller’s website.”:http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1177 Ignore dissenting views within, mandate orthodoxy without. That’s how facts are disseminated.
Can’t say we’ve missed you, garhane…catch you in a few more years, when you’re ready to debate like a grownup.
A.L.
Let’s see. Even on Wishard’s own argument, the disastrous effect of the netroots has been to change Joe Lieberman from an official Democrat who adopts Republican talking points and sabotages the party to an independent who caucuses with Democrats who adopts Republican talking points and sabotages the party. That doesn’t seem like such a steep price.
He also ignores the influence of the netroots in two upset Democratic wins (Tester Sen-MT and Webb Sen-VA) where they not only knocked out less combative Dems in the primary, but in Webb’s case pretty much singlehandedly defeated the Republican with the macaca moment.
Once upon a time you-all teased Kos for his almost perfectly losing record. Now that he’s doing better, it’s sour grapes all the time.
Andrew:
I’m they think so, which is why the word is out to true believers: Hound Republican candidates at every appearance, in hopes of capturing what you call a “macaca moment”.
That’s almost as pathetic as people who steal celebrity garbage and sell it on eBay. Not exactly the basis for a broadly pragmatic political strategy … but then I guess a pragmatic political strategy is what you would call “sabotage”.
Tester and Webb? Aren’t they Bush Dog Democrats? The crystal ball says “yes.”:http://www.talkleft.com/story/2007/9/5/165652/0835
BTW, Andrew –
Last night’s Republican debate was the most-watched debate yet, even without Fred Thompson. I attribute that to no other reason than the fact that it was on FOX, which has a somewhat larger audience than MSNBC.
The Democrats could be getting that kind of exposure, but the Netroots Commissars won’t allow it because it violates the principles of Dialectical Hysteria or something.
Just one more way they’re helping you out. What would you do without these guys?
who adopts Republican talking points and sabotages the party
Actually this is what I hate about the blogosphere (right and left) in a nutshell.
Lieberman sabotaged the party? Adopted Republican talking points? He crossed the aisle on one (ONE, uno, singular) issue. Iraq.
Other than that he was a model democrat. Except in the blogosphere where the Democratic party only has one party plank – the anti-Iraq plank.
Everyone talks about the microscope of the mighty blogosphere, but forget that what you look at through a microscope is only a part of the total animal.
Complete lack of perspective is what I see.
The right is prone to this as well, but not as badly, due more to a more fractured make up than any real ideological reason, I think.
Well said, Treefrog.
Treefrog: Leaving aside the fact Iraq is the most important issue out there (as you guys like to point out in other contexts), Lieberman’s record on judicial appointments, the bankruptcy bill, and several less important issues is out of the party mainstream.
But you know what? It isn’t that Lieberman casts these votes. So does Ben Nelson. It’s that Lieberman adopts the Republican motto on Iraq that the mainstream Democratic position is near-treasonous. That makes life pretty tough for his Democratic ‘friends’. You didn’t hear Lincoln Chaffee talk that way about abortion.
Glen: Wanna make a cash bet that GOP candidates have someone shadowing their Democratic opponents? Allen wasn’t hounded by the target of the “macaca” moment: he was quietly filming. He’d introduced himself once. Allen decided, out of conviction or expedience, to say something bigoted (twice). It didn’t play well in Peoria. Poor little boy.
Andrew:
Is that how John McCain ran through all his money?
“Here is Kos directing his little Douglas Niedermeiers to videotape everybody.”:http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/5/21/144033/682 I know of no website that makes similar recommendations to GOPers – not even Ron Paul supporters, who communicate with each other by pheromones like hive insects.
Andrew J. Lazarus — Dem conduct in appeasing the Truther element of the Dem Party, that is to say the Nutroots, HAS been arguably treasonous and a disaster for the Democratic Party.
It’s fine to want something else other than GWB’s half-hearted attempts to sometimes fight Jihad (and other times appease it). But Dems are unwilling to give up their religion: PC, Multi-culti, moral relativism, and their desire to “punish” America and Americans for moral vanity/preening. Unwilling to take on their nutcase lunatics, the military-America haters, the anti-Semites, and particularly the Truthers in which all these tendencies exist.
The signal difference in the Left-Right blogosphere is the mocking of the Ron Paul Truthers who can’t comprehend simple reality by the Right, and the obeisance that the Left pays to these lunatics.
This has resulted in no plans, no actions, no alternative to Republicans (DANGEROUSLY UNHEALTHY IMHO for the nation and each party) in any aspect of National Security.
Dems bet it ALL on defeat in Iraq based on appeasing the Nutroots and how loudly they screamed. They’re going after Blue Dog Baird who helped them win Congress and seem to be in purge-mode.
Just a bad idea all around.
[Look around at the Nutroots sites. See ANYONE proposing anything for the Military other than fantasy coups? Any discussion on how to reduce US casualties in anti-AQ warfare? Increasing spending? Better small arms? More men? No of course not that would run against the narcisstic PC-Multi-culti religion of the Nutroots/Dems. Nutroots simply reinforce group-think to post-Orwellian proportions].
There is a ruthless but utterly reasonable alternative to Iraq, one that would secure America’s national security interests, kill Osama and pals, and allow us to leave Iraq to it’s fate without anyone doubting the insanity of attacking the US or it’s strength. One that would play to the Dem positions of disdain for democracy, nation building, freedom, human rights, or anything else but securing America’s freedom from terrorist attacks.
Dems will never propose it though. Go against their PC religion.
*Glen at #13* _I know of no website that makes similar recommendations to GOPers – not even Ron Paul supporters, who communicate with each other by pheromones like hive insects._
“Try this then”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/09/AR2006090901079.html
_”Opposition research is power,” said Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds (N.Y.), the NRCC chairman. “Opposition research is the key to defining untested opponents.””
“Here’s an article calling it standard opposition research”:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14395449/. I believe these people are often referred to as ‘trackers’.
“Here’s advice from an associate of Hugh Hewitt, on his blog”:http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/blog/g/c825d251-6270-4124-8c27-776489acb010
“Here’s LGF”: http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=25575&only&rss
Tracking has been a standard of campaigns for a long time, far longer than cheap video has been around. That DailyKos would use it’s community to do the same thing, to support their side, really should be no surprise. This is nothing new, and nothing to do with “hounding Republicans”.
Then again, you also seem to think having the Democrats debate on Fox would be a good idea. They’re unable to “Rathergate” it, because the people who are watching it just don’t care. Foley a Democrat, sure! Inflammatory statements, printed as questions to make it appears so, sure! That would be a good experiment – ask the average Fox News viewer what mistakes it would take to make them stop watching.
Dave, you should have waited for Glen to make that cash bet.
Sending ‘trackers’ to your opponents’ speeches has been S.O.P. for years. I’d describe it as one of the milder forms of opposition research.
I guess on his planet they do it differently.
AJL
Yes, because nothing says ‘We’re patriotic Americans who just disagree that the war is a good idea.’ like treating a senior senator who crosses the aisle to support the administration as a traitor.
It’s that Lieberman adopts the Republican motto on Iraq that the mainstream Democratic position is near-treasonous. That makes life pretty tough for his Democratic ‘friends’.
Only if they’re afraid of the characterization. Which they seem to be. And which they shouldn’t be. It is a principled patriotic opposition, right?
The country, at the time, was split pretty close to 50% right down the middle as to whether Iraq was a good idea or not. To then demonize, not simply argue with, debate, chide, or even mock, to demonize someone who crossed the line to the other 50%, to photoshop pictures of him in blackface and toss him out of the party, what does that say about how they view that half of America who agreed with him?
When you view half of the US population as an evil enemy, I think it’s safe to say you’ve lost all sense of perspective.
Blogospheric tunnel vision, good for analysis, bad for strategy.
_The country, at the time, was split pretty close to 50% right down the middle as to whether Iraq was a good idea or not. To then demonize, not simply argue with, debate, chide, or even mock, to demonize someone_
Yes, I sure got demonized for opposing the war. Called a traitor, told to leave the country, the usual.
If I was a democrat I wouldn’t like to see a senior legislator in my party doing that. I’d be pretty upset.
Treefrog,
Lieberman wasn’t thrown out of the party. He lost his party’s primary election and then chose to run as an independent. Having lost in the primary and then running outside the party, he was viewed by some within the party as betraying the party, which, under the circumstances is an understandable view. It was the choices he made after losing his party’s nomination and not his stance on Iraq that led some to view him betraying the party.
I think you will find that some Republicans will have similar feelings towards Craig if he insists on keeping his seat, which many will feel will embarass and damage the party.
Treefrog, when last seen, Team We-Are-Winning-In-Iraq was treating three-quarters of the country as the enemy.
mark – that’s just flat not true. Go read Jane Hamsher or MyDD or Kos before the primary. “Rape Gurney Joe” was one of the nicest things they called him.
And nice sleight of hand linking him to Craig; much of the D Senate establishment supported Lieberman in his general campaign; Lamont got very thin support there.
A.L.
Andrew, you were the one that pointed to “macaca moments” as a Netroots achievement.
My point, which remains unchanged, is that this a pathetic sort of achievement. The fact that the other side does it does not make it any less pathetic.
The issue is supposed to be whether Netroots is good or bad for the Democratic Party, not whether Netroots is no worse than someone else.
Here are the “achievements” so far:
1. Netroots singled out Joe Lieberman as an enemy of the Democratic Party, and helped to nominate the unelectable Lamont. As a result the Democrats lost a senate seat that was not even threatened, and alienated a man who is widely respected in their own party (outside of the Netroots asylum, that is).
2. Netroots attempted to do the same to Rahm Emanuel, “with Matt Stoller among those leading the charge.”:http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/8/28/131358/640 This effort seems to be on hold, maybe because Emanuel has ingratiated himself, or maybe trashing two Jews in row would have looked … kind of funny.
3. “Kos planned to destroy the entire DLC during the week of September 11, 2005, using some sort of radiation weapon.”:http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/8/22/41845/1251 This effort failed.
4. Netroots got James Webb elected – so you say. Considering that Webb is more conservative than Joe Lieberman ever was, all I can say is keep it up.
A.L., what you say may be true, but I don’t see how it contradicts anything that I wrote. Whatever any particular individual wrote, or anyone personal feelings about Leiberman before or after or during the election, he was not thrown out of the party. He ran. He lost. He ran as an independent AGAINST the nominee of his former party and many people did feel this was a betrayal. I mean, for heaven’s sake, you can always find a dozen democrats who have written an opinion on any topic, but it is misleading to take those dozen individuals and imply that they represent the party at large, or the left as a whole, or whatever larger group of people you are talking about it.
In short, to leap from the statement that some people demonized him to “he was thrown out of the party” is to mischaraterize the situation. Your own comment that “much of the D Senate establishment supported Lieberman in his general campaign” seems to support what I wrote rather than back up your claim that it was “flat not true.”
Glen, so many misconceptions, so little time.
First, Lieberman caucused with the Democrats (as did Bernie Sanders) making the Dems the majority party in the Senate. The sense in which the Democrats “lost” his seat is therefore pretty nebulous. Second, Ned Lamont’s “unelectability” is a lot clearer in hindsight. He appears to have been blindsided post-primary by Lieberman’s decision to run outside the Democratic Party, and perhaps even the the Republicans’ failure to nominate any sort of serious candidate (I wonder why?). Third, the “respect” for Lieberman ebbs by the day. His principal shtick was to get on talk shows as the “bi-partisan” Democrat sabotaging Democratic programs. That isn’t so effective any more. Nor, of course, is getting much naches from his participation in the Iraquagmire. (As an aside, there was a lot of talk about Lieberman as betraying the Democratic Party before the primary, and it was well-deserved. I wonder how those Democratic Senators who stuck with him out of personal friendship feel with Lieberman endorsing Susan Collins over the Democratic challenger in Maine? Like freiers, I imagine.)
Moving away from Holy Joe… all but one of the major Democratic presidential candidates checked in at the Yearly Kos convention. The DLC annual meetings? Not so much. Whatever secret weapon Kos wielded worked, albeit on time delay.
Glen, you’re trapped in a 2005 time warp.
Oh, and I forgot this coup:
5. Netroots sank the FOX debate.
Since this was such a great idea, Democrats should stop running political advertisements on all FOX affliates – in fact, they should stop spending on all corporate media and advertise exclusively on Air America.
Then they can accomplish their other goals:
– Get rid of all the DLC Democrats. Not excluding Ms. Rodham, either.
– Get rid of all the Blue Dogs. That would have to include Webb and Stephanie Herseth, who they take credit for electing, but consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.
– Get rid of any Democrat connected to a pro-Israel lobby. “They claim to be neutral on the Israel-Palestine issue”:http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/7/17/131952/052, but like the “neutral, even-handed” far right, when they do stir themselves they march to the intifada tune.
I am convinced that the Fox boycott is a Clinton conspiracy. Obama and Edwards (and whomever else) need something to happen. If they appeared on Fox, two things might happen: (1) they get treated unfairly and motivate their base or (2) they show crossover appeal. In fact, its possible they could both rally the base and show crossover appeal. Instead, nothing happens and the air of inevitability continues.
Andrew:
You said it.
You’re claiming that in Lamont-Lieberman, you won by losing. You’d better get used to that kind of logic.
On the one hand you congratulate yourselves on having Lieberman in your caucus for the nonce, while hoping that “Holy Joe” the Traitor and Saboteur falls through a crack in the earth.
But you brought up another major Netroots accomplishment: They managed to drag every Democrat to YearlyKos, where that powerhouse John Edwards won the straw poll. Go, Netroots!
I’m sort of torn on the Lieberman debate.
On one hand, Lieberman as an independent is more important to the democratic party than visa versa. (He’s Obi Wan K’nobi) OTOH, that’s primarily as a result of the current configuration and could change in two years. And I don’t think Lieberman votes Rebulican enough to ever carry through with any implied threat to bolt.
The real problem is the opportunity cost — whatever time, money, energy and thought put into bringing him down would have been better spent elsewhere.
PD Shaw –
The problem with that theory was that Netroots killed the debate by going to work on John Edwards first. Obama was the next to back out.
Hillary’s orbital mind-control platforms notwithstanding, it seems an unlikely conspiracy.
*Glen at 21*
Holy cow, you both cannot read dates and don’t understand metaphors. Thankfully, that’s never stopped anyone from posting on the internet. Don’t worry, the “winds” of this site won’t blow you away, they’re not real gusts of air. And people can’t really read you like a book, you don’t have pages.
Seriously though, good trolling – without that one, I never would have gotten that you weren’t serious.
Dave, what are you talking about?
*Al at 20*
_mark – that’s just flat not true. Go read Jane Hamsher or MyDD or Kos before the primary. “Rape Gurney Joe” was one of the nicest things they called him._
Since we’ve all heard stories where rape victims have been beaten to the point of hospitalization(and are already victims of a violent act), suggesting that all they have to do is call a taxi to go somewhere else – for birth control – was a bit of a mistake. Bloggers use obnoxious hyperbole against people they don’t like, who take positions they don’t like. Meh.
_And nice sleight of hand linking him to Craig; much of the D Senate establishment supported Lieberman in his general campaign; Lamont got very thin support there._
Politicians, despite all their flaws, are very good at math and reading people. They know that 50v49+1 when the tiebreak is against you is worse than 51v49, especially when lucrative… errr, beneficial chairman positions are in play.
And they know that their almost impossible to remove senators hold long grudges. Aside from the 20 years of friendship much of them had.
This is exactly why the R’s have been hostile to Craig (Republican gov) vs Vitter (Democratic Gov) – going one more down doesn’t help anything. Aside from the near-gay stuff.
Well Glen, this is what you posted earlier.
_3. Kos planned to destroy the entire DLC during the week of September 11, 2005, using some sort of radiation weapon. This effort failed._
this is FTA.
“We need to make the DLC radioactive. And we will. With everyone’s help, we really can.”
This is a metaphor.
_Bloggers use obnoxious hyperbole against people they don’t like, who take positions they don’t like._
And then when their comment sections fills up with prison rape jokes, like they have at FireDogLake, bloggers oddly have the temerity to be offended.
Yes, I sure got demonized for opposing the war. Called a traitor, told to leave the country, the usual.
I’d think the want-to-be future leaders of the Democratic party ought to be aiming for a level higher than ‘Internet Troll’.
So far the effective power of the netroots has been almost exclusively negative. The power to destroy may mean the power to own, but as time goes on you end up owning less and less.
At some point the ‘roots are going to have to make the moderates want to go along with them if they want to actually win.
The foaming at the mouth over the top rhetoric and demands for ideological purity are…hindrances…to this.
Sure the right has some of this as well, but they aren’t swinging primaries, for a variety of reasons. ‘With great power comes great consequences’, the blogosphere (as a whole) really needs to work on the lynch mob mentality issue.
One of the odder things about the vocabulary of the right is that the so-called pro-Israel lobby doesn’t agree with about half of Israel. It shows a certain paucity of imagination to see the netroots as some anti-Semitic conspiracy, but it seems that’s how it is with conspiracy theorists.
When Lieberman ran in the 2004 Democratic presidential primaries he scored in the single digits. Stop confusing “Fox News’s Most Popular Democrat” with someone popular with the Democratic Party voters, netroots or otherwise.
I notice at OpenLeft they’ve named Lipininski as Bush Dog Number 1 to be defeated. He reprepresents a blue-collar, Catholic, ethnic, Reagan-democratic enclave which is not ripe for redesign by Merlot Democrats. Lipinski is also a product of the democratic machine, which presumably means the nutroots are going up against names like Daley, Madigan & Hynes. Sounds stupid, really, really, really stupid, but might be entertaining.
_I notice at OpenLeft they’ve named Lipininski as Bush Dog Number 1 to be defeated. [….] Sounds stupid, really, really, really stupid, but might be entertaining._
I figure, “netroots” are actually disorganised. Individual people take whatever initiative they want, and anybody else who wants to participate jumps in.
So there isn’t much opportunity cost. If somebody gets excited about taking a stupid initiative, their effort isn’t something they’d otherwise be putting into a better plan. They wouldn’t be excited about the regular plan.
If they actually get some kind of unexpected result, then maybe somebody else can capitalise on it. And if not, no harm done — unless they manage to start something they can’t stop. I notice independent kurds getting kurdistan into a low-level war with turkey while other independent kurds get kurdistan into low-level war with iran. Better to avoid that kind of independent initiative….
Glen – I’ve actually got to give that one to Kos – the candidates all came and tugged their forelocks at his convention and dodged the DLC one this year – I’d say he’s kept his work and won on that one.
AJL – it’s odd though, isn’t it, that the rise in anti-Israel sentiment in Europe is matched so equally with the rise of anti-Semitism?
A.L.
*PD Shaw at 36*
_I notice at OpenLeft they’ve named Lipinski as Bush Dog Number 1 to be defeated. He represents a blue-collar, Catholic, ethnic, Reagan-democratic enclave which is not ripe for redesign by Merlot Democrats_
They believe that Democrats who enable Bush hurt the party as a whole, and they believe based on his votes, that he is an enabler. Ignoring the times he votes with them.
If the district is likely to vote Dem regardless of who is running, why not try to reshape it? After all, generic D would beat generic R in a ballot, something that likely will stay the same next year – and it’s not like Pera (their ideal replacement) is a Merlot drinking, tie dye wearing, VW van driving hippie.
Dave:
Yeah, that’s what I said. Note that Kos wrote (on August 22nd): “Two more weeks, folks, before we take them on, head on.”
This means that the attack was planned for the third week, which was the week beginning Sunday, September 11th. Fortunately, America was not caught napping a second time.
You mean … Kos doesn’t really have a dirty bomb? God, what a relief.
A.L.:
True, and the DLC made it easy for him by being a bunch of pussies.
But so far as being radioactive, have you noticed that a member of the DLC (who is not a pussy) is leading the Democratic presidential pack by miles?
_They believe that Democrats who enable Bush hurt the party as a whole, and they believe based on his votes, that he is an enabler. Ignoring the times he votes with them._
Which is most of the time. According to Progressive Punch, Lipinski votes with progressives 83.50% of the time, compared with 90.57% for Obama and 76.70% for Lieberman. There are 277 less progressive members of the House. He is a pro-life Democrat that is a reliable vote for progressives on issues like labor, environment and working-class entitlements. Heck, he votes with progressives 86% of the time on issues relating to war. But he voted against the nut-roots on two bills, that’s why he is Bush in sheep’s clothing.
_If the district is likely to vote Dem regardless …_
In 1994, Lipinski’s father nearly lost the district to a Republican. He then entered into some sort of agreement with the Republicans that they wouldn’t organize opposition to him. I don’t think the nutroots understand the local politics from googling the internet from Starbucks.
It never takes long to find the misogyny and homosexual panic at the root of some people’s “political” beliefs, does it?
It never takes long for mind-reading pop psychological analysis drive-bys to arrive, does it?
I guess Andrew is out of arguments. It’s time for his concession speech.
I wasn’t aware that “the DLC are pussies” was really an argument which I was expected to contest. Indeed, it was part of Glen’s oh-so-gracious concession speech on the relative importance of the Kos Netroots and the DLC. (I refer you to comment 38.)
If Nortius is not too busy, perhaps he(?) can explain to me why Glen’s shallow pussy-loathing analysis of the DLC and the Democrats is more intellectual and more welcome on this thread than my anti-pussy-loathing rebuttal. I’m not getting something here.
Andrew:
First of all, I’ve never been arguing about the relative importance of Netroots and the DLC. My point, from the beginning, is that their attempts to damage – destroy, really – the DLC is one of the many NEGATIVE contributions of the Netroots.
The extent to which they have succeeded in that is a separate issue. Before your victory party gets too carried away, remember that DLCer Hillary Clinton is the leading candidate. The DLC includes Al Gore, Evan Bayh, John Kerry, Diane Feinstein, and John Edwards, so you’ve got a ways to go in getting rid of people.
I suppose in the case of someone like John Edwards you’d argue that he doesn’t really support the DLC, in which case all your treason and sabotage remarks about Lieberman might apply to Edwards, too.
And yes, the DLCers are letting the kids run and play and pee on their shoes – for now – because they are being pussies (i.e., milquetoasts, fainthearts, jellyfish, sissies, chickens, gutless wonders, etc.) – because it is primary season and during the primary season Democrats have to pamper the left.
As I have said many times, some day the Netroots are going to have a showdown with Hurricane Rodham Clinton, and we’ll see who’s laughing after that.
_In 1994, Lipinski’s father nearly lost the district to a Republican. He then entered into some sort of agreement with the Republicans that they wouldn’t organize opposition to him._
I wonder what sort of agreement that was. I could imagine it might be something that would get liberals who care about some issues mad at him. This could be a very interesting story indeed. I can’t right off imagine what sort of agreement my GOP representative could make with the democrats that would get them to agree not to run anybody against him, right after they nearly win one.
Quoth AJL:
bq. I’m not getting something here.
Indeed. What you’re not getting is that I was acting in my capacity as just another poster. You write a drive-by, *I* write a drive-by.
Captious criticism begets more of the same.
You want substance, write some. You’ve shown yourself capable of it, when you’re not focused on imputing motives that are a product of your own reaction to your own hot buttons.
Glen got a rise out of you. Super. Is your claiming you know his mind’s inner workings the best response you’ve got?
I wasn’t defending Glen’s post, I was criticizing yours.
Your communication was of the form “if Glen wrote w he must have attributes {x,y,z…}.” You respond to my post that “If AJL wrote p he must have attributes {q,r,s…},” as if it were a defense of Glen. But Glen doesn’t need my help, and I wasn’t offering it. I consider the conclusions you reached and expressed to be suspect. I used a similar curt form because your post deserved no better, IMO. I played your game back at you. Mostly to show how easy and pointless it is.
You might try dropping in something like “pusillanimous” or “craven” and reinterpret Glen. Or you might not. I’m not saying I agree with Glen; I’m not saying his analysis is particularly deep. But your response was a drive-by that you seem to think was not only justified but crushing.
As they say (too much) in Southern CA: …not so much.
Cordially,
Nort the genial
Nortius, frankly I think you are too easy on him. That kind of drive-by has a special odor of its own IMO.
But let us return to our muttons: Is it fair to say (or even more important, is it fact) that the DLC is “letting the kids run and play…” etc. for only as long as is politically expedient, just to use the fringe during the primaries, and will then try to quash (or ignore) them during the election run-up? If true, is there more to the story?
Is it not possible that the DLC is of two hearts about such folks? More than once, the same sort of charge shows up leveled at the Repubs, about their poorer (read weirder) cousins: “They let them play because they like to watch them having the fun they can’t.”
How does a reasonable person figure out what the hell is actually going on? How much does that matter? How different are questions like these from captious psychoanalysis of posters in WoC threads? 🙂
Here is what I say will happen, and a year from now people can link to this and crow about how wrong I was.
1. Hillary Clinton is going to be nominated as the Democratic candidate, and some very tough and serious-minded people are going to take over the job of electing her president.
2. Clinton is going to have an Iraq policy. It will not be a Netroots policy. It will not be a John Kerry anti-pro-whatever policy. It’s going to be vague around the edges and it will be larded with a lot of gratuitous Bush-bashing, but the core of it is going to be no cut-and-run, no embracing defeat in Iraq, no abandoning the War on Terror.
The Netroots will just have to eat this, because they’ll have nothing to say about it.
3. Clinton will embrace Petraeus and surround herself with the troops. The Netroots people will be nowhere to be seen. The Clintonites are not going to reward them for trashing Hillary all these months. The Clintonites have long memories. Even if they didn’t, they aren’t going to waste time defending everything that Kos pops off with.
4. Kos and the gang can collect contributions and meddle in congressional races, but they’re going to spend most of their time shoring up their sinking credibility.
On the occasion when the Netroots talk about themselves instead of all the people they hate, they often claim to be non-ideological believers in “winnerism”. That would be silly if it were true, which of course it isn’t. Their base is hard left and nothing else. They’ve been all brag and boast and no teamwork, and when they’re sitting on the sidelines there is going to be an awful sense of disillusionment among the people that really believed all that stuff about “owning the Democratic party.”
Netroots has the same identity problem that previous leftists had; they insist on pretending to be something other than what they are. They label everybody else and pretend to be above it themselves.
IN SHORT: All I’m really saying is that Hillary, win or lose, is not going to make the same mistakes John Kerry did.
She’s not going to overlook the fact that Kos has been trashing her (as he trashed John Kerry) and cuddle up to him until he comes out with something so embarrassing that she has to pull her ads off Daily Kos (as Kerry did).
She’s not going to peddle a “secret policy” on Iraq, as Kerry did, in order to avoid offending a bunch of anti-war “winnerists” who can do nothing for her except sink her.
If she’s not that smart, then I’ll eat these words.
Thanks, Glen, for a smokin’ line drive. Anyone still think that Glen is experiencing homosexual panic here? ‘Cause I, for one, am just not seein’ it…
I’m not sure what homosexual panic is, exactly, but I doubt if you can catch it over the internet.
To add one more thing about Netroots: Netroots is not just another left activist group, it is a leftist group that is determined to exercise influence through the Democratic Party.
It has adopted a minimal form of discipline in light of that. It attempts, not always successfully, to quash Trutherism and other forms of Wowserism in its ranks. It savagely opposes Naderites and third party splitters. And it tries – again, not always successfully – to avoid issues that show the sharp contradiction between the far left and the traditional Democratic party, chiefly the issue of Israel.
Their main method of dealing with such issues is to try to get rid of the Democrats who talk about them. The Netroots, really, is anti-foreign policy.
The whole question comes down to whether you believe that this group can accomplish its goal. A lot of people from left to right think that it already has. I say it hasn’t, and won’t, and that its best days are already behind it. To the extent that the Democratic Party has a strong future, the Netroots have no future. Kerry and Edwards were weaklings; Hillary Clinton isn’t.
I’m trying to be brief. There is a lot to be said about this subject.
re Lipinski
_I wonder what sort of agreement that was._
Lipinski’s father had a nonaggression pact with the local republican leader (and later state party leader). The deal probably included bipartisan efforts to bring money to the area. The “deal”:http://www.ourcampaigns.com/NewsDetail.html?NewsID=17816 apparently doesn’t protect Lipinski’s son.
_I could imagine it might be something that would get liberals who care about some issues mad at him._
I suppose, but they would have to sort out which deals the machine Democrats execute are corrupt and which are not. These issues don’t begin or end with Lipinski or the boundaries of his district. Some of these deals involving Lipinski are probably aimed at placing a progressive in the Illinois Governor’s mansion in 2010.
I’m not here carrying Lipinski’s water; I’d probably vote against him, but targeting him seems silly or disingenuous in characterizing this as helping the progressive cause.
I appreciate Glen’s managing a comment that isn’t based on what seems most macho and least effeminate foreign policy.
I’m not as convinced that Hillary is the nominee, but I think she’s the front-runner, so let’s assume that’s the case. That’s about the end of the agreement.
Twelve months from now, Iraq will be the same mess, just as Terri Schiavo would still be brain-dead, even if the GOP Family Values Wing had kept the plug in. And the Petraeus surge will be a sort of running joke, not unlike Atrios’s use of “Friedman Units” to show how for Iraq War fans the crucial moment is always six months down the road. (As a Brazilian friend of mine said, “Brazil is the country of the future. And always will be.”) There won’t be a question of embracing defeat in Iraq, but there will be a question of acknowledging pre-existing defeat in Iraq, something that has already occurred now, much less next year, just as no one exactly “embraced” Terri Schiavo’s brain death, but acknowledged it. Yeah, Hillary will probably be talking about some sort of slower pullout than, say, Edwards or Obama, but only around the edges. Clinton might have the international cachet to get some MNF cover for our retreat. As for the War on Terror, all the Democratic candidates, maybe even cult-idiot Lyndon LaRouche, will pursue this in a more intelligent and successful way than the Republicans.
The (sad) truth is that while the Clintons had a bright future under Bill Clinton, the Democratic Party did very badly. Not only did we make little progress towards retaking Congress, including the extremely disappointing DLC-infused 2002 campaign, we grew weaker at the state and local levels. The netroots have a lot to do with reversing this. The netroots did a much better job than the DCCC at finding real upset candidates. (Rahm Emmanuel’s BFF Tammy Duckworth did no better than the 2004 no-name candidate in that campaign despite the overall pro-Dem trend!) Kos and company aren’t going to be shrinking away. I suppose some members of the netroots are “hard left”, but many are simply Democrats who feel that the Lieberman-Clinton-Gephardt bipartisanship (some health care plan that got us!) axis did nothing for the Democratic Party.