I've mentioned frequently that one reason I'm not a Dem and why I find them so disheartening in the face of the united message and movement of the Busheviks is that they have no principled message of their own around which to rally voters and base the policy choices that voters say they want. Here's a perfect example, in a book review critical of the sad Matt Bai who nevertheless says the same thing in his new book, an example that claims to refute the point:
At its most fundamental level, Bai's "no new ideas" argument seems flawed. He has organized his book around a false dichotomy; nobody is against smart ideas, but what good are ideas without political power and without the fundamental vision that has been the foundation of progressive values for decades?
But the basic tenets of progressivism -- fairness and equality; human dignity and the ability to earn a living and support a family, no matter if it is gay or straight, married or not; corporate responsibility and an end to the rampant political corruption and corporate cronyism that so dominates the Republican party; affordable healthcare for all; green economic development; cutting back a bloated military budget and investing in infrastructure and education, and real security without fear-mongering -- none of these ideas are new. And if a candidate ran on them aggressively, and had the necessary resources, he or she would be on the road to getting elected.
Excuse me, but . . . wuhhhhh???? The argument is that the Dems don't have a central message that can be their image, their brand, their reason for being, and this guy argues, "nuh-uh, we have fairness and equality; human dignity and the ability to earn a living and support a family, no matter if it is gay or straight, married or not; corporate responsibility and an end to the rampant political corruption and corporate cronyism that so dominates the Republican party; affordable healthcare for all; green economic development; cutting back a bloated military budget and investing in infrastructure and education, and real security without fear-mongering." Gosh, what a precise and memorable thing to say. And people have a hard time believing that the Dems stand for some THING?
And this review is being linked to by one of the more popular second-tier blogs as if it says something meaningful. That's the Dems' problem in a nutshell. People want to be inspired, they want to believe in a better future, they want something to look forward to, and the brighter minds of the Dems say, "Here it is--fairness and equality; human dignity and the ability to earn a living and support a family, no matter if it is gay or straight, married or not; corporate responsibility and an end to the rampant political corruption and corporate cronyism that so dominates the Republican party; affordable healthcare for all; green economic development; cutting back a bloated military budget and investing in infrastructure and education, and real security without fear-mongering." Against a strong political party, the Repubs wouldn't have a chance without cheating again. But I won't be surprised if they win the White House in 2008 straight out. And, even though the review is right that Bai is a Beltway tool, this is why Beltway tools are not going away any time soon.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Exactly My Point
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Important Questions and Less Important Conferences
While Kos convenes the folks who whitewash his fence while he brings in the money and recognition in their annual self-referential, self-reverential backslapping and echo of every issue and pronouncement of the 1990s, Lambert asks the question that historians will be pondering about the Democrats after their failure is complete (as this proves it will be), the most important question facing this democracy, the one that Kos, with all his wisdom and experience, has said is silly:
"What is the Democrats' plan to restore Constitutional Government?"
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Daniel Snyder and Kos
He doesn't indicate that he wrote this thorough and dead-on post about how the defilement of the Bill of Rights due to the War on (Some) Drugs has blown up under the Iraq War like it was on crack in response to Kos' latest idiocy regarding the possibility of "it happening here," taken down well and truly by Lambert at Corrente, but Ian Welsh might as well have been. I'd blame Kos for once again demonstrating his usual and complete ignorance of human history and all the conditions that those highly trained historians, the Framers themselves, warned about the loss of our republic and how we've enacted them, but then again, most everyone seems to have forgotten that he was a Republican before he wasn't and his major claim to political fame is having gotten Howard Dean elected President. He reminds me of Daniel Snyder, another guy who hit big time turning a communication form into fame and then thought that made him a genius in the area he truly loved (Snyder--Redskins football, Kos--politics). They're both wrong.
Monday, July 09, 2007
Because It's What Has to Be Done
As I groan yet again at the self-impressed silliness of these political wisemen who believe that impeachment shouldn't be attempted because it can't win, could hurt, might whatever, Charles Pierce yet again gets it exactly right. We failed to impeach in the past--Nixon for Watergate, Reagan for Iran-Contra, Bush I for pardoning Iran-Contra--and each time racheted up the evil that could be permitted. Even if Bushnev is stopped through the magical incantations proposed by these wisemen, LOOK AT WHERE YOU'RE LEAVING THE RACHET FOR THE NEXT TIME. You impeach because this is what it's for. And you use the process to have the full-fledgeddebate this nation needs to determine its future course rather than this racheting, frog in the boiling pan we've been in for the last three decades. If you don't, there's no hope that this government will ever go back to what it's supposed to be. That's the simple truth, and these young political wizards betray their inexperience, naivete, and obvious misapprehension of exactly what this country is about. Pierce is older, wiser, and right, as is Avedon Carol, who links to him. If we don't do it now, the next time will finish us.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
The Too Stupid to Even Be Silly Venality of Blog Critics
I’ll let others take apart this tut-tutter’s specific arguments about the riffraff and mediocrity threatening this guy’s culture from blog pollution. I’ll just note that the blogworld resembles, for good or evil, all the other media worlds we possess, with about the same ratio of quality to crap that you see in movies or music or books or tv shows, whatever. Where has this guy, like all blog critics, been as talk radio and Oprah and her spawn and “Jackass” and “Survivor” and “ho” music pull the entire culture down a sink hole? This is the sort of bilge that sounds good at the cocktail parties of the well-credentialed. Are blogs heaven on earth? Of course not. But there are a lot of planks to be pulled from other media’s eyes before blogs deserve this way-too-familiar, self-important crap. Please save your money for quality books. Or read this article that gets it all right instead.