You mean our politicians are self-interested, self-serving, power seeking bastards, too? Oh nooooes!!!
It seemed like the key to this kind of thinking starts with a kind of fatalism: "Well, we can't force Bush to pull out, so what is to our political advantage?" It's important to think about whether you disagree with the "can't force Bush to pull out" part before condemning the politics.
wait a second:
if their sole interest was in reducing loss of american lives, don't you think the essential means to that would be recovering the white house in '08?
i mean "for their own political benefit" doesn't have to be exclusive of "for the benefit of america" or "for the reduction of needless casualties".
and neither am i saying that the dems are selfless saints. just that there are reasons to want political power, and one of them is to end a disastrous power that is killing your fellow-citizens for no good reason.
yikes, 4 is really a mess.
'disastrous power' in the last line s/b/ 'disastrous war', obviously.
and my point in the first line is that their actions are *also* consistent with their having no interest other than reducing the loss of american lives.
Ogged, if you don't keep voting for Democrats and loving it, the terrorists win. Expressing skepticism about the Democrats in a public forum undermines the cause of freedom worldwide.
I think this is the only thing that can make sense of the behavior of the Democrats. Nothing they did made sense until this explanation came along.
4: Would the Democrats really suffer a backlash big enough to lose 2008 if they defunded the war? It's plausible, but it's worth debating.
I knew there was a little apparatchik in Adam waiting to get out.
Tim, Bob, and I are of one mind on this, though as I remember, Bob felt the need to qualify his position once he found that everyone else was paranoid too.
5: I don't disagree that such--need the WH to stop the war--is the right analysis. I do deny that such is their motivation.
8--
my assessment? no. the electorate would actually like the dems to stand for *anything*.
but i think the contrary assessment is pretty prevalent among the dem leadership. and that's the assessment that has to go into deciding whether their actions are indicative of lust for power, or indicative of a sincere attempt to get the country back on course.
It's a Katusov strategy: Borodino is an unecessary battle, we'll lose it; next year, we slaughter them for good.
Alienation helps you embrace judgments like that; I recommend it.
What bothers me most is that the Democrats are not even making an attempt to hang the Iraq disaster on the Republicans, nor are they making any attempt to redefine our approach to international relations, nor have they really even renounced the Iraq War itself. In Hillary's case it's pretty clearly because she is a hawk and doesn't want to do anything to tie her hands once she's President. Others seem still to believe that Democrats can never oppose any wars whatever, or the voters will punish them.
11--
yeah, look, of course there are going to be a lot of impure motives in any large group of people. and that's even before we include some elected officials.
i guess the original post just struck me as too redolent of the genre of "well, the dems are just as bad!". for some reason, i feel a certain sensitivity to anything that smacks of incipient naderism.
and if that's a total misreading of your post, ogged, then my apologies straight off.
My response is so predictable, I don't even need to write it. I comment merely to register it.
I'll note, though, that the link in the post didn't seem to go where I thought it might.
the only thing that can make sense of the behavior of the Democrats
Except their rank, historic, and epic incompetence?
OK, that's not quite cathartic enough. Looking at this from today's vote
Blocking the bill were 43 Republicans, Connecticut Independent Joseph Lierbman and Democrats Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Christopher Dodd of Connecticut. Whereas Nelson and Pryor say they are reluctant to embrace a timetable on troop withdrawals, Dodd said he refuses to support anything short of cutting of funding for combat.
Three Republicans -- Sens. Olympia Snowe of Maine, Gordon Smith of Oregon and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska -- voted with 44 Democrats in favor of the bill.
I'm left to wonder exactly where the beef is. Do commenters really think they know Arkansas better than Mark Pryor does?
As Yglesias and Drum note, there's very little political downside for the Dems in letting the war drag on.
18--
does that argument extend to lieberman? cause i'd say he is deeply out of touch with his own constituents.
cathartic s/b incendiary
I'll note preemptively that i've got no problem with complaining about 'that damn Nelson' or 'that damn Pryor' -- casting it as a collective failure, though, it not just incorrect and unnecessary, but also -- and now you can all just tune out -- harmful.
20 -- I agree with that. Thing is, though, they sent him there knowing exactly what he is, and exactly what position he would take on this issue. Connecticut voters made a choice -- they traded off progress in ending the war in Iraq against whatever else they thought they'd get.
22--
"knowing exactly what he is"
disagree on that one, but i don't have the polling info on hand to substantiate it. iirc, he worked pretty hard in 2006 to make him look like something he is not.
let's just say that i think many people are shockingly uninformed about politicians' real stances on issues.
21: Think of it this way, CCarp: the basic disagreement is between cynics and romantics (no negative implications intended), and having a fair number of romantics around is probably a good sign for the country. (Ogged, here, is the romantic.)
22: I wouldn't blame the voters of Connecticut for Lieberman in any intentional sense. He won with almost all the Republican votes (real war supporters, but less than half the state) and a rump of thoughtless incumbent-supporting Democrats, who I would sincerely doubt actually supported his position on the war, didn't he. Without the incumbency, someone with his positions couldn't get elected in Connecticut.
the electorate would actually like the dems to stand for *anything*.
Amen. Even without talking about morality and right and wrong and shit, politically I don't understand why they aren't making more of a collective shitstorm.
Though occasionally I hear things that make me think they're making more of a shitstorm on things that we hear about, and I blame the liberal media.
23 -- I can't believe that anyone who voted for Sen. Lieberman was in any doubt about his position on the war in Iraq. I am prepared to believe that a significant number of people voted for him because otherwise the DFHs would win.
Re:Lieberman. It is not wrong, on Kol Nidre, to remember that what has baffled many of us about liberal and Democratic response to the war is the ambivalence so much of our cadre feels about the Middle East, and fighting terrorists, Muslims and Arabs. Were this war anywhere else on earth, like Southeast Asia, f'r instance, things would be different.
17: I think that the Democrats are basically the "herding cats" party. Cute and all, but, well, you know.
thoughtless incumbent-supporting Democrats
who slept through the primary race, and consequent drama?
30: Don't forget that he muddied the jaw-juttingness of his position on Iraq in roughly the way that Republicans do from time to time. I can see that muddying being effective from an otherwise relatively liberal Dem.
I'll withhold judgment until the vote on the defense appropriation. It's obvious now that they can't take any positive action (pass timelines, pass amendments) due to Senate rules. They can either add timelines in conference and dare Republicans to vote against the whole package or Bush to veto again, or they can not pass anything and force a withdrawal. If they pass an appropriation with no timelines, then I'll say they're not really trying.
That "nuclear option" the Republicans threatened, ending the filibuster, looks very attractive now, as some noted at the time.
30: Oh, please, you Washington-dwelling political junkie. Half the voters are only vaguely aware there's a war on, much less who supports it.
29: I really don't think there's anything intrinsic to the Democratic Party that makes it less able to enforce party discipline than the GOP (see, for example, the Social Security fight). The problem here is one of priorities. There are quite a lot of Democrats who either are very, very afraid of looking Weak On National Security, and thus scurry at the first squawk from the right on Iraq, or simply don't care about the issue to put up any sort of fight. This is why you always have Dems looking to domestic politics to save them - claiming in mid-2006 that the war wouldn't be a big issue, constantly talking about how Bush is going to start withdrawal on his own so the next election can be about health care, etc. If this party wanted to, it could buckle down and fight the White House on war funding, and it could win that fight. But the fact is they just don't want to.
Related: I just started getting Ned Lamont emails again.
I really don't think there's anything intrinsic to the Democratic Party that makes it less able to enforce party discipline
But there is, according to Joe Drymala. Where have you gone, Joe Drymala-o?
B, it's time for you to feed the koi or knit yourself a snood. You don't like these political threads.
One of my concerns is that the Democrats won't actually change things much once they get in power, simply because they don't really want to. A second concern is that during the next 15 months Bush will be able to change the facts on the ground (by saber-rattling, air attacks, and rumor-spreading) enough to make present Democratic positions moot and erase the Democrats' present advantage. A third thing I worry about is that the Democrats will go into the 2008 election with a position so mushy and ill-defined that a fake-dissident Republican will be able to beat them.
You can't win if you don't play. I believe that the Democrats' best chance is to set themselves up as a definite alternative to the Republicans. They can't do that without taking some risks, taking some heat, and holding to an unmistakable position. And if they do that, public opinion (which is already against the war) can be fixed and crystallized in a pro-democratic anti-Republican form. Otherwise, voters will remain discontented and worried, but without having any political focus for their discontent.
Cautious vote-counting works for awhile, but at some point you have to take the offensive. Particularly since 1994, when the Republicans started playing revolutionary politics while the Democrats played normal politics.
I'm sure that you could find a Pennsylvania Democrat who voted for Lieberman in total ignorance of his positions, but I don't see any reason to think that there wasn't also a pretty solid group of liberal hawks voting for him. I mean, why would we think it's unlikely that something like 5-10% of the electorate holds liberal economic views but has foreign policy views that veer hawkish?
Connecticut, of course, not Pennsylvania. I'm hung over, I get to make these kinds of mistakes.
I'm not arguing there were no liberal hawks, I'm arguing that what put him over the top was thoughtless incumbent supporters, and that he couldn't have won without the incumbency. On a level playing field, in Connecticut, Lamont's positions beat Lieberman's.
Saying "Connecticut's voters knew what they wanted" seems like a slander on them in this regard.
I am not sure what the point of 40 is. Conn voters decided that incumbancy was more important.
38: As I think I've said before here, Connecticut is a pretty fucked-up state - a lot of country club Republicans and rich, don't-touch-my-tax-cuts Democrats whose political positions don't resemble anything like "liberalism," other than an indifference, at best, to social conservatism. It's easy for me to believe that simple apathy could compel a significant chunk of these people to vote for Lieberman knowing full well his views on the war, simply because in the end the war doesn't matter all that much to them.
Thing is, though, they sent him there knowing exactly what he is, and exactly what position he would take on this issue. Connecticut voters made a choice -- they traded off progress in ending the war in Iraq against whatever else they thought they'd get.
The power of his seniority.
Isn't seniority only significant within parties? Is his arrangement that he gets it in return for voting with them on the first day?
It was something like that, I'm pretty sure.
Lieberman was actually a very ineffective Senator in terms of pringing home the pork.
I'd say it was long familiarity.
Connecticut voters or Betray Us voters?
Connecticut's a bit bizarre. Some of Connecticut's Democrats wanted Lamont. After all, he did win the primary. And he won the primary basically on the idea that the war was wrong and fucked up. But he didn't win it by all that much, and even that was a pretty big victory for someone who was supposed to be a protest candidate.
But the state has a lot of Independents and a decent amount of Republicans and the Republican candidate somewhere beyond a joke.
Y'know, I found to my distress that when I had lunch with four coworkers the other day, not a single one of them could name either of our two Senators (much less their Representatives). I guess I buy LB's argument that Lieberman won through incumbancy.
34: See, I think that the vast majority of the American public really only cares about domestic issues, as well. I mean, we're rich and well-fed. Why should we give a shit what happens in places where people don't even speak English?
B, it's time for you to feed the koi or knit yourself a snood. You don't like these political threads.
Actually I'm in a coffeeshop until noon. I suppose I could read the New Yorker instead. But you know how it is.
I see expensive carp floating belly-up because no one cared about them
Eh, you've heard me on this one. I think the Democrats need to very, very clearly identify themselves as wanting to stop the war and very very clearly use the power they do have in order to continue to clarify for the American people how we got into this mess, what a catastrophic mess it really is, and how unnecessary it all was. Those two things may take some of what John calls "taking risks"--they do require uncompromising language, moral clarity, political aggression.
But they're not the same as making troop withdrawal the sole short-term political objective. First, because the Democrats can't defund the war without a solid veto override. If they can't do it, then repeated attempts to try aren't going to help them ultimately. In fact, it'll distract from keeping the spotlight on the White House in every other respect.
There is also no political upside to attempt to act as if the Congress can in fact manage the day-to-day conduct of the war with a hostile President in power. They can't do so, but if they repeatedly try, all that will happen is that they claim a larger and larger share of the blame for the war--none of the power, but a lot of the responsibility.
The people who are going to die in between now and 2009 are going to die, at least in terms of the political control over the progress of the war. Sure, the Adminstration could suddenly decide to be rational and begin a phased withdrawal or just plain be smarter in their management of the conflict, and save lives that way. Not going to happen, in my view, and in the current distribution of power, the Democrats cannot make it happen.
I should say that 22 was meant in a friendly spirit. It looks kinda harsh when I look back up the thread.
I thought comments #2 and 4 addressed the original post pretty well, and they've not been refuted. Here's Juan Cole making a similar point after the Dems were unable to break the filibuster on the Webb Amendment vote the other day:
This sort of outcome underlines my point last week that the Democrats in Congress are unlikely to be able to force significant troop drawdowns before Bush goes out of office. See below for an important argument that at least they should try to mandate preparations for troop withdrawals (preparations that appear not to have been made, much to the annoyance of a lot of endangered Americans in Iraq, including those in the Green Zone). I know some readers favor a sort of Democratic Gingrichism, using power over the budget to shut down the Defense Department, but realistically speaking such a strategy would likely boomerang big time and might well cost the Democrats the next election. The Republicans would blame every American death in Iraq on them from now to the election, on grounds of their 'irresponsibility.' They would be accused of being allies of 'al-Qaeda in Iraq,' helping kill US troops by defunding them in the face of a vicious enemy. Sitting Democrats in Congress are just not going to go this route, folks, and if they did they likely wouldn't be sitting there much longer. (All of the House of Representatives has to face the voters every two years!) I don't know why proponents of this tactic don't recognize that the war will actually be much prolonged if the Democrats act in ways that may rehabilitate the electoral chances of the Republicans in '08. At the least, it is a chance that has to be taken into serious account.
First, because the Democrats can't defund the war without a solid veto override.
This is wrong, isn't it? They can not pass any appropriation funding the war that lacks a timeline for withdrawal. They don't need to override a veto to stop funding the war, they just need to not actively pass anything that does fund the war. With a simple majority (heck, they could do it with less, by filibustering) they can defund.
It'd be politically difficult, but completely possible.
Also, the media framing on this has been terrible. Headlines are always "Democrats fail to win vote" instead of "Republicans block" troop withdrawal.
It would be political suicide, I think.
Where have you gone, Joe Drymala-o?
Apparently Jody and his buddy Ryan have been hanging with richer and better-connected folks than the likes of us.
55: see Cole's argument I posted in 54 against this kind of "Democratic Gingrichism". Didn't work around much less sensitive issues in the 90s, unlikely to work today.
First, because the Democrats can't defund the war without a solid veto override.
Isn't this false? Can't they defund the war as long as they make sure that no appropriations bill which funds the war can get 50 votes? That is, isn't the status quo that without passage the war will be defunded?
I've also heard, from people who volunteered, that Lamont's general election campaign was poorly run and that he really expected that Lieberman would drop out if enough people called for it.
The dissatisfaction among actual Democrats wasn't just about the war. In a lot of ways Lieberman has blown off his state. I'm sure that the insurance companies have hsi ear, but Democratic party activists don't; and by "Democratic party activists" I don't mean dirty hippies or netroots people, but county chairs of the Democratic party--people who had been active for a very long time.
59: Right, but the distinction between "would be politically damaging" and "is impossible" is a big one, that should be kept in mind. 50 Democrats in the Senate could defund the war. Under the current rules, 41 could.
I see expensive carp floating belly-up because no one cared about them
Eh, the fuckers thrive on neglect. also it's cooling off and they shouldn't be fed more than once a week or so anyway.
60, see 59, and also no, even if one approp bills isn't passed money could still be shifted around from others that were passed. Maybe not completely legally, but on the excuse that it was necessary to protect troops in the field I'm sure you could get away with it. It would take years to iron out constitutional issues in the courts.
I'm actually more worried about what will happen post-08 elections, when the Dems really do have power.
The Congressional checks on executive power over warmaking (which were deliberately placed in the Constitution for the purpose of restraining the executive) have effectively been erased. That didn't happen just now, but the way people talk, apparently no one even remembers that they were once there. Defunding the war (while funding a withdrawal) is presented as unthinkable, even though that possibility was intended by the founders.
63, for the reasons in 65 I think that it would be impossible as practical matter to truly force withdrawal over the next 12-18 months by refusing to pass whole appropriations bills.
Remember, with a complete Congressional consensus, Congress in the 80s couldn't even truly defund the Nicaraguan Contras for years. The executive branch kept shifting money to them, most famously through Iran-Contra but there were other methods as well.
Word to 63, and also, it's not at all clear that defunding the war would be any less politically damaging if the Democrats had 60 seats in Congress. It's hard for me to imagine that a basically procedurally ignorant public is going to see a deep difference between "We voted to remove authorization for use of force and overrode a veto" and "We refused to vote for additional funds for the war."
Yes, the latter might be framed by the media as stab-in-the-back-not-support-the-troops-wtf, but the former might as well.
the vast majority of the American public really only cares about domestic issues
The vast majority of the American public really only cares about the new fall TV lineup and sales at the mall. They couldn't even tell you what "domestic issue" means.
The thing that infuriates me about Lieberman is that the media is still referring to him by the nonsensical and just plain false "independent Democrat" phrase. No, he's not. He did not win the Democratic party nomination. He ran against the Democrat's nominee. His party does not have "Democrat" in the name. I just want to slap newspeople every time I hear it.
It would be political suicide, I think......
Didn't work around much less sensitive issues in the 90s, unlikely to work today.
Gingrich did it as a pure power grab pushing his pet ideological issues. He wasn't fronting a major issue where he had widespread support.
I actually probably agree with Tim and Marcus. Nothing the Democrats will do will ever get traction because of the media we have, so it probably will be suicidal for them to take a strong stand on anything.
Taking a strong stand will probably be suicidal in 2008 and in 2010 too. Those of you worried about Naderism don't have to worry about it coming from me. I am at my most despairing when I think that Charley Carp and Senator Pryor and Tim and Marcus and the rest are right. Because they make it seem that they're just wisely biding their time, but I don't think the time will ever be quite right. We'll end up with lots of dry powder and nothing else.
And to 67 and 65, I'd be a hell of a lot happier with the Democrats if they defunded the war and Bush illegally shifted funds, Iran-Contra-style, to continue it. At that point, I'd be down with the argument that the Democrats did what they could, and to do more, they need the White House.
You're acting like because there's the possibility or probability that Bush would do that, it's like it's already happened.
The vast majority of the American public really only cares about the new fall TV lineup and sales at the mall. They couldn't even tell you what "domestic issue" means.
Agreed.
63, for the reasons in 65 I think that it would be impossible as practical matter to truly force withdrawal over the next 12-18 months by refusing to pass whole appropriations bills.
Remember, with a complete Congressional consensus, Congress in the 80s couldn't even truly defund the Nicaraguan Contras for years. The executive branch kept shifting money to them, most famously through Iran-Contra but there were other methods as well.
I don't have a solid sense of what I'm talking about, but the scale of operations is incredibly different. We were giving the Contras trickles of money -- a lot by their standards, but peanuts by US defense budget standards. It was little enough that it could largely be raised off the books.
The war in Iraq, on the other hand, costs a fucking shitload. I don't know that there are no other sources of money that the administration could shift around to keep it going, but I'd be surprised if they could keep that up for long at all.
71 is exactly what worries me. I'm saving my despair for if it's two years from now in September 09 and we're still stuck in this thing with no strong motion in a good direction.
Taking a strong stand will probably be suicidal in 2008 and in 2010 too.
Yeah. I'd like to hear one of the apologists for the Democrats give a line in the sand. When does it become indefensible for the Democrats to allow themselves to be dragged along further in this war?
they make it seem that they're just wisely biding their time, but I don't think the time will ever be quite right
I am unhappily arriving at this same conclusion. I'm almost down to the Supreme Court as my last reason to even bother voting.
When does it become indefensible for the Democrats to allow themselves to be dragged along further in this war?
When the Dems control the executive. Not what the Founders intended in the Constitution, but it's what we have today.
You understand, guys, that some of us have been having this argument for much more than a decade, don't you? "Waiting for the time to be ripe" is something we're familiar with.
I am at my most despairing when I think that Charley Carp and Senator Pryor and Tim and Marcus and the rest are right.
We (at least you and I) have different but related ends. I want to shorten a general downside risk, and you want to increase the likelihood of a specific (or set of specific) upside. I think it's in part because I've come to buy mcmanus's description of the country a little more than you have.
Nothing the Democrats will do will ever get traction because of the media we have, so it probably will be suicidal for them to take a strong stand on anything.
This is such BS. Look at the media coverage Webb gets, FFS. If Democrats would stop weaseling and triangulating, take strong stands, and speak plainly, they could change both their media image and their public image.
Oh, speaking of voting, did any of my fellow New Yorkers do that three days ago? As best as I could determine, the only election taking place in my area was for intra-party positions like district leader and county committee, so I didn't.
I think it's in part because I've come to buy mcmanus's description of the country a little more than you have.
Tim, you're scaring me.
Marcus, we don't know that Hillary will make things any better. She's an unapologetic Iraq hawk. Why wait for her to be President? That will be the wrong time too.
81: Generally, I would laugh and point at someone talking like I'm about to, but do the words "better to die on your feet than live on your knees" mean anything? I mean, I'd be with you if I was sure that political courage would send us right into an active civil war. But it's nothing like a certainty that McManusy chaos lurks over the horizon, it's a non-entirely-crazy-but-really-pretty-low-odds fear. How scared do we really need to be?
68 -- No, there's surely a big political a huge difference between passing legislation that provides for an orderly transition out of Iraq -- for which 60 (if not 67) votes are needed -- and just not funding anything.
66 -- They've been ineffective for a long time. the first Adams administration, maybe. Not to say that they shouldn't be brought back . . . I think the idea of congressional waiver, the case I'm thinking of that applied this is Dames & More v. Regan, is both wrong and past due for revision. (It's a hard case, and I can see why the Court wouldn't want to put the US in breach of its agreement with Iran.)
I think that Webb should be the Senate's spokesman and point man on all military matters. He's pretty hawkish overall, but the media seem to like him.
Though frankly, if he were front and center more, I wouldn't be surprised if they started picking away at him.
The vast majority of the American public really only cares about the new fall TV lineup and sales at the mall. They couldn't even tell you what "domestic issue" means.
This is wonderfully phrased, and unfortunately true.
So, marcus, can I take that comment and embroider it onto a cute thingie and frame it on the wall? If, in 2008, the Democrats control the White House and our commitment in Iraq stretches out longer and longer, you won't be blaming the media and apologizing for them, you'll be screaming and yelling and demanding impeachment and whatnot?
I mean, I'll take you at your word. But I'm afraid that a lot of your current fellow-travellers aren't so principled.
84, 86: Sorry, not what I meant. I meant more his less sanguinary descriptions of the US population as split into various identifiable groups who are pretty capable of doing very bad things and coming up with poor but sufficient justifications for it. Some of those groups scare me more than others. The ones in control of the Republican Party and the Administration are one of those that really worry me.
I think that Webb should be the Senate's spokesman and point man on all military matters. He's pretty hawkish overall, but the media seem to like him.
Though frankly, if he were front and center more, I wouldn't be surprised if they started picking away at him.
Psst: I heard that Webb is really a big faker and a coward who likes little boys. Pass it on.
I think Webb is an excellent example of how the Democrats should act.
Here's what bugs me.
Marcus quotes the genuinely estimable Juan Cole (whose service to the country's well-being is genuine and far beyond mine, and I'm only disagreeing with this particular part, not the vast bulk of his excellent witing): "The Republicans would blame every American death in Iraq on them from now to the election, on grounds of their 'irresponsibility.' They would be accused of being allies of 'al-Qaeda in Iraq,' helping kill US troops by defunding them in the face of a vicious enemy."
But they're already doing that, all that and more, and have been for years. Why is this phrased subjunctively, when it's a demonstrated past and present reality? That's not a risk the Democrats would run if they choose a course of action, that's a guaranteed response to the fact of their existing at all, no matter what they say or do. Any argument for something that might be called temperate or prudent behavior justified by concern about Republican response has a burden of proof at this point: show us Republicans refusing to exploit or even flat out manufacture grounds for hostility and outrage in response to Democratic concessions, and show it lasting more than a few hours or days at best. We have no reason to expect the Republicans to ever be civil or anything else desirable, and therefore no reason to refrain from doing something on the grounds that they will respond meanly, even brutally, to it. No reason at all.
I think that Webb should be the Senate's spokesman and point man on all military matters.
Probably, but after the other day, he looks as pussified as all the rest.
Webb has only been a Democrat for like 4 years. Give him some time to disappoint, guys.
90: yeah, I will. Well, screaming and yelling in Unfogged comment threads, anyway. I'll be just as helpless as anyone.
Emerson, the right time for what? Sen. Klobuchar to speak out against the war? That's happened, I'm pretty sure. To get rid of Sen. Coleman? Hope people aren't too demoralized to get that done, but it's going to take more than a year to do it (unless there's something actually indictable . . .).
86: Oddly, I feel that the combination of Americans' political apathy, the ginormous size of the country, and the parts of the American political system that work well, means that outright civil war is really unlikely. (cf. the comments after the 2000 election that, in most countries, such a question would be settled with blood in the streets rather than with suits in the courtroom) But I think the left needs to make it clear that we would rather die on our feet if it comes to that.
95: He was a Dem before he became a Republican. Like most of the country.
We have no reason to expect the Republicans to ever be civil
Exactly. And I've been waiting for some Democrat—*any* Democrat—to finally just say, "Hey, fuck you guys." But they never do. The only person who ever sounds sane anymore is Keith Olbermann.
93 gets it right. Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.
88, 92, 95: Webb rubs me the wrong way, actually, but I'm glad he's on our side right now.
if the Democrats had 60 seats in Congress
Mmmm... nitty.
You know what else sucks? This post title. It describes like a quarter of the history of this blog.
We have no reason to expect the Republicans to ever be civil or anything else desirable, and therefore no reason to refrain from doing something on the grounds that they will respond meanly, even brutally, to it. No reason at all.
The issue isn't whether Republicans will be nice. The issue is how to limit the extent to which Dems help them make the case to the voters that the Republicans are right about the Dems. If I know that someone is going to accuse me of pedophilia, I might curtail my activities at the Boys Club.
I don't think pushing troop withdrawals is the most important thing we can do to improve the mess the administration has made. Exerting some real oversight on the war is conducted, cutting out corruption and brutality, are far more important and effective.
We need more things like Henry Waxman's recent report on the state department official who blocked investigations into corruption in the occupying forces. We need to hold Blackwater accountable for their behavior, and to support the Iraqi government when they try to do so.
Actions like these will do the most to both improve life for Iraqis and our troops and to advance the Democratic party politically.
I actually haven't read the thread, so apologies if I am redundant.
105 No, god damn it, that's exactly the wrong attitude. If you know that someone is going to falsely accuse you of pedophilia, you need to accurately accuse them of necrophilia. "If you guys don't stop lying about us, we're going to have to start telling the truth about you."
The issue is how to limit the extent to which Dems help them make the case
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO. JESUS CHRIST, NO.
The issue is how to attack, not how to cringe just right so that the bat hits your arm rather than your head.
Or, what Ham said, but in all caps.
Exerting some real oversight on the war is conducted, cutting out corruption and brutality, are far more important and effective.
How are we going to do that, and what difference would it make? The most uncorrupt and least brutal possible war in Iraq would still be a pointless and ineffective waste of lives, and probably wouldn't do all that much less harm than the one we've got.
Yes to Ham and Apo. We can't cringe hard enough.
There aren't even close to 41 Senate votes to defund the war.
Think of it this way: Blackwater is the leading producer of committed terrorists in Iraq right now. Every time they open fire on random civilians, more people come to hate the US and any Iraqi that works with the US. Holding Blackwater accountable is a quick and easy way to make things better.
I'm not saying we should keep troops in Iraq, or that there can be a military solution to the situation. I am saying that if there is something you can do to make the war less stupid, you should do it.
Yeah, as I see it the problems are, in addition to the evil sucky Republicans:
--an electorate that is not as fundamentally as immoral & stupid as most of Washington believes, really not tuned in to matters political & very easily influenced by conventional wisdom & has a tendency to support the incumbent, the frontrunner, etc.
--a terrible press corps whose political coverage is gossipy horse race nonsense or useless "he said she said" stenography, and who has been domesticated by the right wing by years of kvetching about bias
--a critical mass of that Democratic-powers-that be (Congressmen, consultants, donors, etc.) that value their own power over any policy goal & are convinced that the only way to maintain that power is to assume the worst about voters & conform their votes to those assumptions instead of trying to influence press coverage or public opinion.
I've tended to focus on the third of these problems because you'd think it would be the easiest to change: these people are ostensibly on the same side as me. But I'm lately concluding that, for whatever reason, it's just not true. Look at the discussions of this stuff on this blog--an echo chamber of educated, tuned-in liberals, and still half of them can be counted on to ardently defend every sell-out vote by every Congressional Democrat as politically necessary, and attempts to argue them out of it lead to bitter arguments that change absolutely no one's mind. And I have a lot more common then them than with Democrats in Congress--for one thing, they're not personally at risk of losing their influence if the Democrats act more forcefully, for another, they actually care about many of the things I do, whereas I would imagine Ben Nelson and Mark Pryor really just don't give a crap.
Any change in the Democratic party is going to come from election results: a very slow, sustained campaign to donate to actual progressives & not to people who don't actually do anything for us; to mount primary challenges in districts where a genuine Democrat could easily win the general, etc--the Democrats *could* move public opinion in a more progressive direction, but they just will not try. So it's more productive to put more energy into trying to move public opinion directly, and hope that eventually, eventually, it starts to pull the Democrats with it.
It's not about cringing at all. It's not about being afraid of what Republicans will say, or about trying to get them to be nice. These are straw men of the first order.
I guess I need to register a dissent about public apathy. I have a feeling that this is a carry-over cliche that doesn't really apply. I base this dissent on a clutch of data, some personal.
On the broad scale, polls keep showing that the public does have a view on Iraq, and it's "We should never have gone in, and we should get out as soon as we can." It would appear that a lot of people realize they were sold a bill of goods, and whether some of them are in denial about their part int he herd or not, they're looking to do the right thing now. I think it's very important to note that and give credit to it. We don't have a problem of persuading the country that getting out is the right thing to do - we have a problem of persuading party leadership to take heed of the country's consensus and put it to good use.
Nor is it wise to take airtime and ratings at face value as an indicator of what the public at large wants. It's what the corporate media is serving up to them. But subscriptions and circulation are done for print organs, and I recall from the last time I researched this that news viewership is pretty much stagnant. Some people are watching it because, well, it's what on, but when asked about their priorities, the public keeps rating things quite differently from the way media management does. By way of comparison, ask yourself how much the sermons at a church can be taken as sure proof of the congregation's interests, particularly when including those who only come for the major holidays, weddings, and funerals: what authorities tell people can be taken only as an indication of what authorities found desirable to tell people.
Finally, when I'm out and around, I listen in on conversations. An iPod set at a low volume is a great prop for this. (I turn it up when things get dull or annoying, of course. :) ) I hear folks talking about the war. It affects a lot of folks these days via family and friends, and there are cascading consequences from there. And while the analysis I hear may not be deep, and may ome tinged with substantial racism, and have other fun features, I genuinely don't hear much enthusiasm for just bombing the tar out of everyone in the Middle East and other such blood-soaked fantasies. There was a time when I did, but it's several years in the past.
Of note may be one recurring concern I hear, along the lines of this: "I used to figure that I could handle my bills, thanks very much, but that if I couldn't, at least I coudl fall back on some help. But they're spending so much on the damn war and squeezing so hard on anything that might help that...I dunno. You remember when Bob did the bankruptcy thing back in '02? Worked for him, but I couldn't get that deal now, and it's looking like I may need something if this doesn't turn up. Down at the shop we do a lot of buying from places up in BC and the exchange rate's killing us as bad as a warehouse fire, on top of everything else. It doesn't look good. But damn it'd look better if at least we got the fuck out of Iraq, y'know?"
I never take the things I hear as proof, but for several years now they've been matching up with what I see in the polls pretty well. So I don't feel at liberty to blame this on the public right now, as opposed to blaming it on decision-makers who are refusing to acknowledge what the public is actually telling them.
Also, the media framing on this has been terrible. Headlines are always "Democrats fail to win vote" instead of "Republicans block" troop withdrawal.
Yes, this crap has been driving me insane. INSANE.
I would imagine Ben Nelson and Mark Pryor really just don't give a crap.
I don't like them, and I don't like the positions they've taken. I don't think, though, that this is at all fair. You have no idea whether they agonize about how to get out of the thing.
My question above about Arkansas voters wasn't rhetorical. I'd like nothing better than to learn that Pryor is indeed out of step with his constituents; this would make him subject to pressure.
SomeCallMeTim, @105: But dammit, the country at large thinks they're lying sacks of shit. All a Democrat has to do is get the word out, "They're lying sacks of shit, and you know it, and I agree with you," and keep at it, using every available means to get around corporate media barricades. The major papers and TV networks won't report it fairly (or rather, as Katherine rightly points out, some excellent individuals will get it altogether right (and mostly get buried), and a lot of competent individuals will do a reasonable job (and mostly get buried), but the overall structure will reinforce dishonest and unfair frameworks), but then the public isn't believing them either. The public most recently didn't budge on the surge, for instance. The public's there; the Democrats just have to get up and wave at them and take a few steps that direction.
The Democrats don't have to build a constituency for any of this. They have to do something to show they're willing to work with the constituency that already exists.
I can't remember if I've said it here, but is there any evidence that the MoveOn ad did any actual harm? We know that the usual suspects did a lot of screaming, but that's very possibly a good thing. One objectionable thing is that Democrats immediately took the screamers at face value.
Olbermann knocked the ball back into the Republican's court quite effectively. Why couldn't the Democrats all do that? Why didn't everyone point out that Bush was hiding behind Petraeus and dishonoring the military by using him and the troops as political props and as screens to hide behind? Counterattack is always best.
It pisses me off that most of our political leaders and opinion leaders can be outclassed by a retread sportswriter (no disrespect to Olbermann intended.)
120:
...based on a survey of 500 registered Arkansas voters:
18% of Arkansans favor immediate withdrawal
35% of Arkansans favor withdrawal according to an announced timetable
35% of Arkansans said U.S. withdrawal should take as long as needed to turn control over to the Iraqis
Agree completely with 118, and would add only that if it is true that many people choose not to care about "politics" -- what happens in DC -- it is a sign of their fundamental intelligence. You are just not being fair to the great majority of people in this country -- who at bottom do care, but who are also totally shut out of the political process beyond "voting" once every couple years -- to look at the evidence and deem them fools.
People here care in part because we do not feel so far from Power -- you care what Yglesias writes because you know him!
Yes, the Democrats aren't terrified of the Republicans. To some extent: they're terrified of the imaginary voters in their heads. Joe & Eileen from Massapequa,* or Dubuque, or Little Rock, or Ohama, who hate foreigners & aren't so crazy about poor, black, or gay, Americans & love a uniform, & don't really give a crap about the Constitution, & find authoritarianism reassuring in troubled times, & are endlessly susceptible to believing Republican caricatures of Democrats, & whose opinions about all these matters are set in stone forever and can never be persuaded otherwise.
The press plays to the same crowd of Imaginary-Americans; it's what sets Chris Matthews gushing about Aqua Velva.
(Charley will say: do you know their districts better than they do? Well, in Schumer's case, yes, but in general, the conversation in Washington is so very, very, very out of whack with national polling that I don't trust their district-by-district evaluations either.)
Also, of course, it's not just fear; a lot of the press & a lot of Democrats really just don't care about the same things we do.
katherine's list of 3 basic problems in 116 seems spot-on to me.
I think what's happened is that the Democrats are still the same cautious Beltway-ensconsed technocrats they always were. They won in 2006 by being cautious and not taking any chances, and they figure they're going to win in 2008 the same way. The fact that the Democrats voted to condemn Move On (while of no importance) shows you how they haven't really learned anything from the last 6 years.
120: why should I assume that people in power are secretly better than their actions indicate?
OK, I'm going to have to move along. I'll say again, though, that wrt Congress, politics is essentially local, and the points Bruce makes, while fine, are only relevant in particular locales. A rally in Boston, or a bold stand by Sen. Boxer, isn't going to do a damn thing to get the Nelsons and the Pryors.
(Any more than Mike Mansfield could rally the constituents of southern Dems over the heads of their Sens).
Much less the half dozen Republicans required for legislation.
Don't forget, Steny Hoyer is mad at you.
One objectionable thing is that Democrats immediately took the screamers at face value.
Right. The perfect encapsulation of this was Sen Durbin (who I think is a good guy), when he made the remark that based on the Abu Ghraib report, you'd think you were reading about Soviet gulags. Having said it, you don't fucking back down from it ever. Bad enough that he goes on the Senate floor and apologizes for it, but he does it AND CRIES.
That was infinitely more damaging to the Democratic Party's image than if MoveOn had burned the words "General Betray Us" on the face of the moon with a laser. And it sums up the Democrats perfectly ever since 2000.
My question above about Arkansas voters wasn't rhetorical. I'd like nothing better than to learn that Pryor is indeed out of step with his constituents; this would make him subject to pressure.
I do not think that we serve ourselves well by simply sticking our finger in the wind.
The Democrats need to lead on these issues.
They need to drive the debate. Greenwald and Olbermann are persuaders, not simply following the mass of the people.
Charley, I'm not familiar with Arkansas, but I do know California - born and raised there and with friends and family still there - and I am confident saying that Boxer and Feinstein are totally out of sync with California Democrats. So I don't find it at all implausible that Arkansas Democrats, taken as a whole, are in fact significantly more anti-war and otherwise different from what Pryor is doing.
I went looking for some info, but even outlets like NWA News, "Northwest Arkansas' News Source", seem to cite mostly national data. So I can't say for sure that Pryor is out of step with his constituents. I can, however, say that a great many Democrats are and that it wouldn't surprise me if he were too.
This Bruce guy knows what he's talking about. My anecdata: Back during the Roberts confirmation hearings (2005) I'm getting a moped-shaped dent in the hood of my car fixed. The guys running the body shop are older, "labor Democrat" types. I wish I could remember any of their exact phrasing, but the upshot was that they were pissed off at the Senate dems for not trying seriously to block Roberts. It wasn't about Roberts' qualifications or positions or their worries about Roe vs. Wade. It was about muscle, about showing a willingness to fight even if you might lose.
Imagine a low-ranked NFL team taking the field thinking "hey, we're probably going to lose this game, so let's not work too hard out there."
People here care in part because we do not feel so far from Power -- you care what Yglesias writes because you know him!
Over-simplified and largely reversed causation: Of however many people here know Yglesias, many came to do so via his writing first.
Hamilton-lovercraft raises a good point. It was partly what I was trying to get at in 133. People respond to simple, forceful, advocacy. Webb is good at this style. We need more of it.
No, god damn it, that's exactly the wrong attitude. If you know that someone is going to falsely accuse you of pedophilia, you need to accurately accuse them of necrophilia.
I'm fine with that, too. You can attack and cover your flank. I suspect that's what wise tactics look like: attack, and minimize the surface area for counter-attack.
'm fine with that, too. You can attack and cover your flank. I suspect that's what wise tactics look like: attack, and minimize the surface area for counter-attack.
You dont even have to sink low.
How about forcefully attacking Blackwater and others like them? Someone cannot create hard-hitting advertisements about how we want the USA to be represented?
I don't think that the swordfighting analogy is particularly helpful. The laws of physics have little in common with the laws of dirty politics.
Hamilton-Lovecraft: The truth is that I'm profoundly depressed about the whole thing and more than a little fearful of just how bad things will get in coming years. I'm applying the skills I've learned in living with depression so far, one of which is to identify things that are not the problem and make sure I'm not worrying about them, too.
128: I assume that their consistent voting records & their public statements either reflect their actual opinions, or a choice that they will never take even a small political risk in order to do the right thing. The alternative story: they secretly agonize, but have concluded correctly based on careful study of their districts, they have no choice--is not even plausible to me. Hagel is a more forceful critic than the administration than Nelson, and the N. & S. Dakota Senators have voting records that are far better (though still far different from where I am).
32: yes, that was awful. Durbin is a very, very good Senator & he handled that so, so poorly.
Bruce, you've used the phrase "corporate media" a couple times. Can you explain (or link to an explanation) of what constitutes the corporate media? I ask only because I'm transferring annoyance I have at a roommate of mine who regularly uses the phrase but I think just uses it to mean "feature of the world which is frequently, but not always, related to the ways news is transmitted to people and which I don't like." I'm not at all trying to suggest you're using it that way, I'm just curious if there is a more solid meaning of the term.
It wasn't about Roberts' qualifications or positions or their worries about Roe vs. Wade. It was about muscle, about showing a willingness to fight even if you might lose.
Bingo.
I think that the ignorant, inattentive populace is blamed for too much. I think that the major problem is within the media establishment, the Democratic pros, and the Democratic officeholders. They have their own reasons for doing what they do -- it isn't all about the voters.
Only in the last year have I come to understand how intensely anti-populist the Democratic pros are. A lot of them seem to despise the electorate, and think of their job as fooling the voters and keeping them from messing things up. Basically they've accepted the Limbaugh-O'Reilly version of the common man, rather than challenging it.
washerdreyer, how do you folow all of your elections? We've got a bunch of diferent special elections, and it's a lot of work figuring otu which ones I'm supposed to vote in.
In DC, you've got one council member for every ward. In Boston, some districts cover different precincts within a ward. I'd love to be able to sign up for an e-mail telling me when elections are coming up, with specific votes based on my voter registration.
I mean, a lot of people aren't online, and this wouldn't be an adequate way to disseminate information about elections on its own, but it woudl sure make my life easier.
"Basically they've accepted the Limbaugh-O'Reilly version of the common man, rather than challenging it."
This is a better-expressed version of what I was trying to say.
136: perhaps, but that is still a function of social capital, and I feel certain that if there is a dividing line between those who "care" about politics on the one hand, and those, on the other, criticized for not not caring enough, it is that one group has it and the other does not.
I don't speak for Bruce but to me the corporate media is the major TV and cable networks, the major radio chains, AP, the major newsmagazines, the major newspaper chains, and the national newspapers (of which there are fewer than ten).
All are big-money corporate operations and most are controlled by big conglomerates like Disney, GE, or Microsoft.
Many would exclude the big national newspapers from the list, because they're semi-independent. I personally don't think that that's justified.
The corporate media have given us abysmally bad political and international coverage. The Times and the Post are the best of the worst, but they seem mostly to be following the corporate consensus.
Washerdreyer: Sure!
First, important note: I'm not in love with the term. I will cheerfully, enthusiastically embrace another if it can cover these features reasonably well.
I mean to refer to the subculture of print and broadcast (and cable) media publishers who are extensively inter-connected with the major institutions of Washington DC political life, many (though not all) of whom share interlocking directorates and/or belong to a few large conglomerates, and who have shown a sustained willingness to support the Republican machine's efforts at news shaping. Diagnostic features would include (as a general thing) being part of a big corporation, where conservative-favoring management practices almost always flourish, and (as a specific thing) personal ties between reporters (and editors and studio managers and such) and their subjects which lead to consistent skew for their buddies and against threats to their buddies' positions. Corporate coziness, so to speak - big businesses whose people on the spot snuggle into the existing power structure and help protect its interests and those of its members.
A corporate media less dangerous to the republic certainly could exist. I can easily enough imagine a media business with generally conservative internal imperatives but without the buddy system, and while it would still be dishonest and unrepresentative, it wouldn't be as bad as what we have right now.
This label does not, I note, account for independent toadies. That's one of the reasons I wouldn't mind a better label. But then it keeps turning out that the apparently independent toadies are getting underwritten one way or another, too, so I don't worry much about it.
Any of that help?
The NFL team that won't even play is also a good (though banned!) analogy....People will remain devoted fans of losing teams for years, but if the Democrats are going to lose I want it to be in the late-inning dramatics manner of the 1999 & 2000 Mets, not the early 1990s version that's throwing firecrackers at their fans & making stupid move after stupid move--it eventually becomes just too depressing to watch.
(We're not going to discuss the 2007 Mets this week. Oy).
BG- In this case I figured it out because the New York City Board of Elections mailed me a bright orange letter saying that there were elections coming up, and then I went to the New York Times city room blog to find out out more about them, like who is running for what positions, and they in turn linked me to that Gotham Gazette thing I just linked to. Sorry, that's not going to be helpful to you at all.
Bruce: That is helpful, but I'm not sure what level this part, "who have shown a sustained willingness to support the Republican machine's efforts at news shaping," is meant to be applied at, and whether it hurts the usefulness of the term. Does it apply at the organizational or individual level? To use people who've already come up in this thread as examples are Keith Olbermann and Matt Yglesias part of the corporate media?
I know that my own Congressman (Collin Peterson, a Blue Dog) opposes the war but is afraid to do anything. This district went about 56-44 Bush.
Thanks for the info, WD. It's useful to know, even though my question was more rhetorical than otheriwse. Becks once did a post about how hard it was to know when and where to vote. I'm pretty committed to voting, and it's work for me. Knowing those details should be easy.
151: BG, our free local weekly independent paper (called The Independent, actually) always has a big rundown of upcoming local elections, and this has held true pretty much any city I've visited near election time. I don't know what the Boston equivalent is, but it might be a good place to start anyhow.
I went to high school with Mark Pryor. He was a politician even then -- he was new to the area in 10th grade and by 11th grade he was popular enough to be elected class president.
My Congressman is in the "doesn't give a damn" camp--nothing about the North Side of Chicago forces Rahm to oppose anti-Iran-war measures or pressure swing state Congressman to vote for draconian immigration bills.
Yglesias probably isn't, though the Atlantic is unnecessarily "conservative". To me it's significant that Matt is stuck in the highbrow media while Wonkette and Jonah Goldberg are big time.
I can't explain Olbermann's existence. Maybe they thought he'd be a weaselly idiot and he surprised them.
154: yep. The Boston Phoenix's local political coverage is pretty good.
The Chicago Reader, OTOH, seems like all feature stories, so I'm pathetically out of touch.
How about forcefully attacking Blackwater and others like them? Someone cannot create hard-hitting advertisements about how we want the USA to be represented?
Like I was saying.
The war features so many outrages: secret prisons, rogue mercenaries. I want to target these directly and make targeting them a priority. Part of this just comes from the fact that I am so very outraged by them.
116: Any change in the Democratic party is going to come from election results
I think Democratic activists can have a great deal to say about the framework of debate in the U.S. I watched the Today Show this morning and saw the Moveon guy debating Laura Ingraham and saying that Petraeus didn't tell the truth to Congress. I watch the Today Show a lot, and I've never seen anything quite like it, reality-recognition-wise. You had an actual liberal representing the center/left position in this country. Pretty sweet.
I think with Olbermann, they didn't know quite what they were getting, & then once it became apparent his ratings were good enough to allow him to keep doing what he does.
160: yeah, there's certainly value in that. What I meant was, I think we actually have a better shot of influencing media coverage & public opinion than gettting Democratic officers to think: "yeah, they're right, let's stop being such wusses." But of course these things are interrelated--when they have a 15% approval rating in polls of Democratic voters, it's helpful to have activists saying: "yes, see, that's because you're such wusses."
I watch the Today Show a lot
Dude, how can you stand it?
Okay all, I can figure out based on the website, what precinct I'm in, and whether there's an election I can vote in. I just think that the government ought to be better about advertising elections. I should be able to sign up for an e-mail alert, there should be postcards in the mail, and there should be signs all over the place.
You had an actual liberal representing the center/left position in this country.
I do not believe that the Democrats want this kind of thing to happen. And I don't think it's because they think it will be counterproductive.
If you look at Stephanopolous, Estrich, and Carville in their post-Democratic careers ou can see where they always were coming from. Carville's mouth is one away from Cheney's penis, for Christ's sake.
I'm fine with that, too. You can attack and cover your flank.
If you stay away from the Boys Club because you expect to be slandered, you aren't covering your flank, you're giving up ground and lending credence to the accusation. You are also giving control of the agenda to your opponent, who then has an incentive to come up with an even more extreme accusation.
I am beginning to think that the apathetic American populace are taking their cues from their elected officials, rather than the other way around. The Democrats won't step up and fight. They're keeping the powder dry, or they pass a little resolution, get their sound bite, and everyone moves along.
So the populace asks itself: Is that how you would behave if you honestly believed the war in Iraq was wrong? That trampling our civil liberties was wrong? That torturing people was wrong? You'd stand up and give a little speech explaining how you were very different from that other guy over there because his tie is red and yours is blue? And from there, it's easy to say, they must know things we don't if they keep supporting this. And from there... it's easy to mistake determined purpose for competence.
If you stay away from the Boys Club because you expect to be slandered, you aren't covering your flank
Analogy overload!
B's snood must be finished by now.
Washerdreyer: Not many things people do in groups are monolithic. Heck, even within the bowels of the conservative movement you find substantial disagreement on some things taht are pretty important to how people see the world, like Rove's atheism versus the theocratic Christianity of someone like Dobson. It's just that these individual variations often get swamped by larger trends. With that as context, I'd say that Olbermann is some kind of odd accident of the sort Katherine describes. Other good reporters of the sort she can name more readily than me show that there's some lingering trace of interest in rewarding merit even when it's inconvenient in many news organizations, and then there's the quirks of taste in this manager or that.
But I think it's fair to look at overall trends. What's been on page one and the top story of the hour? What gets follow-up and editorial attention? For instance, the NY Times ran some fine stories debunking the very WMD claims it was pushing in headlines, but that doesn't make the facts of the headlines go away. It is a matter of cumulative weight, averages, and stuff like that, because people are messy and seldom fit entirely smoothly into any given box and so groups don't either, but then averages have a reality too.
I also agree with John in saying that it's not just that the Democratic consulting-and-campaigning establishment doesn't know how to get a liberal message out. It's that they don't want to. By the standards of most of the 20th century, they're moderate conservatives - Rockefeller Republicans, who want sound management, social order, just laws applied fairly, some support for those in real need, and nobody being uppity.
The problem is in thinking that you have to take the low road to cover your flank, when really if you just cringe enough at the boys club the lawsuit will hit your arm rather than your head.
I think Democratic activists can have a great deal to say about the framework of debate in the U.S. I watched the Today Show this morning and saw the Moveon guy debating Laura Ingraham and saying that Petraeus didn't tell the truth to Congress.
Because the corporate media allowed the Moveon guy to appear on the show. This rarely happens.
I don't know if the theoretically liberal media people or the theoretically liberal Democratic party would be more responsive to pressure from actual liberals. They're both beholden to corporations for their survival.
Because the corporate media allowed the Moveon guy to appear on the show. This rarely happens.
File this as evidence in support of The Ad Was A Good Idea.
161: Comity.
163: I do not believe that the Democrats want this kind of thing to happen.
True. Spoken of as a group "the Democrats" do not want this - as they clearly voted.
And I don't think it's because they think it will be counterproductive.
I'll disagree here. There are all kinds of different Democrats with different motives. Fuck 'em all. The thing the rank-and-file is learning is that whether the Dems' motive is cowardice, active opposition to the right thing, or a misunderstanding of tactics, all of them will come around if the activists can change the facts on the ground.
Dude, how can you stand it?
162: People reveal all sorts of embarrassing personal information here, but I've crossed a line here, haven't I.
This rarely happens.
Just as I said. But it did happen this time, and it happened for a reason - this wasn't random.
Like I was saying.
The war features so many outrages: secret prisons, rogue mercenaries. I want to target these directly and make targeting them a priority. Part of this just comes from the fact that I am so very outraged by them.
Rob helpy-chalk:
Copy-cat.
158: Slander! What about Ben Joravsky? What about the guide to the city council? Or the neighborhood issues?
Gotta agree. If a MoveOn rep made it on The Today Show and got to make the case that Petraeus lied before Congress, then the Betray Us ad has been the single most successful anti-war idea since 2003, and all the hand-wringing here has been completely misdirected.
If a MoveOn rep made it on The Today Show and got to make the case that Petraeus lied before Congress, then the Betray Us ad has been the single most successful anti-war idea since 2003, and all the hand-wringing here has been completely misdirected.
Subject to all sorts of caveats (I'd want to see the exchange, know Today's demographics, know what happens elsewhere, I don't believe that this was the intent of Move On--rather it's a save, etc.), I agree.
Indeed! Surely MoveOn wasn't using this ad to stimulate a discussion or to attract attention to their cause. They must have just been sharing this clever pun they came up with, and the rest was improvised.
Didn't Leno make a joke about Bush hiding behind Petraeus?
CRINGE HARDER.
179: Spare me. Were they regularly invited on Today and treated respectfully before? Then we should probably stop bitching about media behavior in the past. Were they not? Then maybe we shouldn't pretend they had reason to expect the opportunity.
181: Wow. That's juts wow. Tim, the whole reason that you've been bitching about this ad is because it would attract attention. Now you seem to be buying into this my idea that appearing on the Today show was a good thing for Moveon's goals.
If it's any comfort, your new stand on this was consistent with Ingraham's, who didn't expend much effort attacking Moveon on merit, but said the activist group was making a PR blunder. I would be curious to see how you felt about the performance of the Moveon guy and Ingraham. I wish I could find the video.
176: hm--clearly I need to read more carefully.
I hardly think that they need to have been angling specifically for an appearance on Today. (Do we need to prove that they intended for it to be the Sept. 21 show?) It's abundantly clear, though, that they were attempting to get through to more people than just the readership of the hard-copy New York Times.
OT.
Jeebus, in the 19 posts since the bot was announced, the average comment count has been 229. If that's been discussed somewhere, I missed it. Guess why!
Science™: in the 31 posts last week, the average was 158.
Olbermann was in fine form yesterday, I thought. Nice to see he's established a little beachhead over at MSNBC, and I'm glad that Moveon/Bush gave him an excuse to revisit this. He is a bit shrill, though:
And in pimping General David Petraeus, sir, in violation of everything this country has been assiduously and vigilantly against for 220 years, you have tried to blur the gleaming radioactive demarcation between the military and the political ...
187: Funny, I was just watching that and by the end realized I was kind of tuning out. Olbermann just sounds like the lefty version of Fox news, really. It would be meaningful if someone who wasn't saying those things spoke out like that, but since he does it all the time, it's just fading into background bitching, I think.
Says the woman who proclaims the political threads boring.
I don't believe that this was the intent of Move On--rather it's a save, etc.)
Were they regularly invited on Today and treated respectfully before? Then we should probably stop bitching about media behavior in the past. Were they not? Then maybe we shouldn't pretend they had reason to expect the opportunity.
Tim, you're the biggest fucking moron on the face of the earth, except for every other Democratic insider. MoveOn won. They changed the game. They were trying to change the game. That was their goal. That was what they were trying to do.
Did they have "a reason to expect the opportunity?"
NO!!
Did they have a motive for wanting to make it happen anyway?
YES!!
Did they make a reasonable effort?
YES!!
Did they succeed?
YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
God, I hate Democrats.
Yes!!
I remember in 2003 I saw a guy with a big puppet on TV. The attention he got was exactly what he was aiming for. It was a triumph.
B, you're a moron too. Olbermann isn't there to entertain your fine, high-maintenance self. He's there to reach people who otherwise wouldn't be reached. The Okie types you don't want us to ridicule, when you're in that mode. Olbermann is saying what half of America is saying, and he's saying it very sharply and unmistakably, and he's the only one on TV saying it.
Shouldn't we be glad? Or should he be saying soething like "It is possible that there might be some respects in which what Bush and Petraeus are saying is somewhat less than perfectly true?"
God, I hate Democrats!!
Charley: The difference here is, of course, that someone from MoveOn got to raise actual issues with real words and sentences and stuff, and to represent what is actually the national consensus but almost never uttered in national media. Apart from that, yes, it's just like the guy with the puppet.
It's not like we can expect any follow-up on MoveOn's success here, of course. The Spectacle will close up again, unless someone actually in power decides to make an issue of it, and there's nobody there willing to do it. But it is an opportunity made and used, which puts it one up on a lot of liberal thrashing around and self-flagellating and capitulating.
Charley, is Pariser the equivalent of a big puppet? If you think so, say so, and we can talk about that? Did you even see him? Or did you just jumpt to conclusions?
I can't believe after all that's been said in this thread, 191 still shows up. If CharleyCarp isn't buying into the O'Reilly/Limbaugh narrative of the common man as mentioned earlier, I don't know how he can see one as equivalent to the other.
I doubt the guy with the puppet got the attention he was actually hoping for.
188: Olbermann isn't really my cup of tea, either, for the reason you describe. "Shrill" was sarcasm on my part, but his affect actually is a bit over-the-top for my taste.
And certainly this particular commentary isn't important to me the way the original Moveon ad was - his mere existence is no longer new or interesting the way I think Moveon's ad was new and interesting.
I just like it that someone is out there calling Bush on his abuse of the military. Time was, folks would have thought that was unacceptable - even impossible - in a normal media outlet. Olbermann has pushed the boundary out a bit; Moveon pushes the boundary just a little bit more.
Not only is it becoming clear that MoveOn won big with this, they also got Giuliani to tip his hand as a full-on fascist. Win #2.
B, you're a moron too. Olbermann isn't there to entertain your fine, high-maintenance self. He's there to reach people who otherwise wouldn't be reached. The Okie types you don't want us to ridicule, when you're in that mode. Olbermann is saying what half of America is saying, and he's saying it very sharply and unmistakably, and he's the only one on TV saying it.
This is a good point. To send a message to the people as a whole, you have to redundantly reiterate it ad nauseum for years on end. Or if your entire philosophy is amoral like the Republicans, you can get 5000 people to all say the exact same thing for a week, but our side is limited to more of a perseverant strategy.
Olbermann is shrill! And Krugman! Michael Moore is just as bad as Limbaugh and Coulter! Jim Webb is not really a liberal!
Jesus fucking Christ, folks, Olberman knows how to play the actual game that's being played, and he's the only one on network TV doing that, and people are putting on their NPR voices and doing cultural critique bullshit on him.
They changed the game. They were trying to change the game.
If the activists succeed, they will have changed the terms of the debate and Tim will not even have noticed. Whatever the current frame is - whatever passes for "moderate" or "temperate" at any given time - Tim will accept as the natural order of things. And he'll say sincerely that he supported it all along.
Olbermann's shrillness is completely justified. I don't like his Britney Spears / O.J. bullshit, but that's the cost of doing business.
201 gets it exactly right. Gingrich and Limbaugh didn't build the Republican machine of the last dozen years by being civil. Olbermann and MoveOn are paving the way for others to say the same things.
BG, 153 Knowing those details should be easy.
http://wheredoivotema.com/ is good for anything statewide; it's unfortunately not tied in to all 351 municipal voting systems.
I think Olbermann contributes greatly to the cause.
And again, here in MA, I've always gotten brochures in the mail from the state before statewide elections, with sample ballots and ballot question statements and so forth. I've been a little confused lately because there have been several interim elections near where I live, but not quite covering my district, so I've felt like I was missing something, but in fact there wasn't really anything for me to miss.
Olbermann makes the baby Jesus cry. Can't we all just get along?
Hey, Gswift, sheck out Miranda Lambert. She's the diva pinup girl of concealed carry.
Heh. I hadn't heard of her before. Good stuff. Should I tell my wife about her? Maybe that's a bit too much encouragement.
Remember when Dr. Dre admitted he didn't consider himself "no fucking gansta'", that it was just an image he adopted for the money? Lots of conservatives think Limbaugh's the same way--just a showman, not a true believer. I don't know him well enough to know, but that's what they say. In some ways isn't the fundamental question here, maybe the fundamental question of our era, whether Olbermann is of the same mold? DOes he believe his own shtick? Isn't that what matters for these purposes?
If your wife has a shotgun, best keep quiet about Miranda.
B says that Olbermann is "fading into background bitching," and that strikes me as a reasonable personal reaction. However, I don't think that's a full assessment of his impact on the public at large.
That said, it really is true that Olbermann doesn't seem as far out of the media mainstream as he once did. This is a measure of his success.
Isn't that what matters for these purposes?
What matters for these purposes is whether he's effective.
In defense of Tim, he argued that the Move On ad was bad tactics. The evidence is emerging that he was wrong and that it may have been good tactics, and he says as much in 178.
214: Well okay, I only read a few cherry-picked comments. Maybe we have different purposes.
DOes he believe his own shtick? Isn't that what matters for these purposes?
Actually, no, I think it's pretty irrelevant to this particular topic. I'm interested in Limbaugh and Olbermann for their influence
If your wife has a shotgun
Not yet. She has a thing for revolvers.
216: Brock, I'd be curious to know how you see the relevance of purposes in this case.
211: Sincere or not, Limbaugh did the kind of corrupt conservativism we have in this country and enormous service. Now that that coalition is falling apart, a lot of the petty conservative ideologues are trying to separate themselves from the movement they supported and blame someone else, but that's just bullshit.
I have no reason to believe that Olbermann isn't 100% behind what he's saying. I don't think of him as a deep thinker, but it wouldn't be possible to tell if her were, given his medium. He's really the only network/cable guy saying that stuff.
Well, revolvers are easier to dodge, but probably Miranda should be your guilty secret.
I think Limbaugh may believe his own horseshit, but I suspect that Coulter is just playing a character.
It's hard to say how much Limbaugh believes what he says, because if you ever read a transcript of his shows, rather than listening to them, about 1/3 of what he's saying is pure gibberish that makes no coherent sense on a sentence level, much less a conceptual one.
I can't find a video of Pariser's Today Show appearance, but here's another example of how he comes across on TV with his dirty-hippie hatred of the military.
I screwed up the link in 224. Correct link is here.
This thread's no longer live, but I wanted to express my thanks to all who took part. It made me feel better and clarified my thoughts. Particular thanks to Bruce Baugh, Katherine, and John E.
And political football for the news about Eli Pariser on the teevee.
Limbaugh has always seemed like a true believer. Now O'Reilly -- there's a guy I could be convinced is just putting on a show.