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Monday, March 14, 2005

Proud partisanship

Over at the DLC, logic has long since left the building. This was quite apparent with the recent Bull Moose post, Grow up Bloggers:

The recent rage on the left is to heap scorn on Joe Lieberman. The Moose is honored to stand with Joe against the dogmatic idealogues of the blogosphere. And he wears their scorn as a badge of honor.

What the aisle-crossers over at the DLC refuse to accept is that the angst against Lieberman isn't ideological, it is pragmatic. Bloggers love Reid and hate Lieberman because the Stormin' Mormon fights for Democrats and Lieberman fights against Democrats.

Specifically, the blogosphere is ready to unleash a savage fury against Lieberman if he gives Bush cover on Social Security.

So who does the DLC stand with? Today's Washington Post/ABC News poll suggests the DLC stands with the 35% of Americans who approve of Bush's privatization. Last week's AP poll says the DLC stands with the 37% of Americans who approve of Bush's privatization.

For those who haven't been reading the cross-tabs, this means the DLC is standing further away from the Democratic Party than a good deal of the Republican congress. This means the DLC would rather stand with the most right-wing of Americans than help our Party win on an issue that is the bedrock of Democratic values.

The scorn of the blogosphere is shared by almost 60% of Americans...and that number is growing. The DLC had a good thing going, they filled their pockets by getting Democrats to cross the aisle and help out the GOP, but the gig is up.

Lieberman needs to stop being such a baby. And the Bull Moose needs to stop "grazing" at the privateers trough. The gig is up.

Posted at 10:07 PM in Activism | Technorati

Comments

I've been following this dust-up. It really started over this post by Marshall Wittman of Bull Moose.

Wittman heaped praise on Lieberman for voting against the horrid Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention & Consumer Protection Act of 2005. What he apparently didn't realize, and what many people quickly pointed out, was that Lieberman was one of 14 Democrats who voted for cloture on the bill, which requires 60 votes and sends it to the floor of the Senate for a conclusive vote; a day later he voted against passage. Lieberman's vote against passage was, in my own words, "a canard of the most cynical sort," because Lieberman had helped seal the deal in the cloture vote, and only voted "nae" on the final bill in a crass attempt to find political cover.

Posted by: Marc Lawrence at March 15, 2005 02:23 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

I know it was surely lost in the larger pile of his Mooseshit, but this quietly might be the biggest outrage of the piece:

"Keep in mind that it was liberal over-reach and not the scorned Clintonian centrism that enabled the GOP to seize Congress in 1994."

Posted by: Steve in Sacto at March 15, 2005 03:45 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment