The Perils of Friendly Fire
Lance on Aug 22 2007 at 10:49 pm | Filed under: Domestic Politics, Foreign affairs, Lance's Page, Notes on the war
Joe Tobacco takes a look at the Netroots taking aim at their swing district reps:
Matt Stoller and Chris Bowers of OpenLeft are gathering data on Blue Dog Democrats and New Democrats in order to cull ammunition against them for “breaking with progressives”
As predicted, the idea that Brian Baird might make the netroots see the Iraq war as worth even contemplating is a non-starter, he is just a traitor, not a man trying to analyze a complex situation and doing his best to make the right choice. All the thinking is directed toward how to win the argument, not assess the situation. People can tell me all they want about these people “supporting the troops” and being patriotic, but when reasonable criticism of the war and belief that we should withdraw is absent and instead we have nothing but political calculation and actual pining and digging for information to justify defeat, then sorry, they are not. It is too important an issue for such ways of thinking to be justified. Funny, we often complain about our politicians, I certainly do and about some of these same ones. However, sometimes they are better than their voters deserve, and the netroots deserve almost nothing.
Michael van der Galien makes some similar points over at The Moderate Voice:
Where the strategy was first to argue that the military surge would not work, the Democrats seem to be ready to acknowledge - behind closed doors that is - that they were wrong. Instead of admitting that publicly, though, they choose to focus on something else: the main message is and remains the same - Iraq is lost. There is no hope.
…I criticized the surge because, to me, it seemed as if it was too little and especially too late. However, now I see that there might be something good happening in Iraq I - and other critics - have to be so honest to acknowledge the progress made. This does not mean that we should suddenly embrace the surge, but it does mean that we should try to keep an open mind about it. As I said, basically, when the surge started: I hope Bush proves me wrong.
He just might.
The bolded section (my emphasis) is exactly my point. That is the right attitude, an open mind. That is true in Baird’s case, in many others it is just cover because they see the wind and situation shifting.
I remain a critic, because I think that it is incredibly difficult to overcome the sectarian strife so soon. The different sects and tribes have hated each other for centuries, and this hatred has only increased under Saddam’s rule and, again later, once the US got rid of the brutal dictator from Tikrit. However, the way the Democrats deal with this does not exactly satisfy me either. Instead of looking at how the damage can be controlled, and how as many people as possible can be helped, the Democrats give me the impression that they want the surge to fail because, if it fails, it will help them politically.
Yep. As I said, that is where patriotism and all those other neat things it is claimed their position doesn’t undermine has to be questioned. Patriotism at its heart is putting the nation ahead of self. Humanitarianism is about putting others welfare ahead of self. It isn’t the position that makes them unpatriotic, or denies them the designation as humanitarian, but the underlying rationale their behavior expresses.
This goes not just for the Democratic leadership, but also for quite some people who vote for the Democrats. How else can their constant “all is lost, who cares about progress, all is lost, we will lose really we will” attitude be explained? The passion is not rational.
Frankly, the leadership is far better than the netroots activists. They definitely want us to fail. Matt Stoller gives no thought to anything else about Iraq, nor does Kos or Greenwald. All progress or mention of it is false, a lie, treasonous if it comes from Democrats or the “supposedly liberal” media which deigns to notice it. The passionate denial of any ambiguity betrays their motives, it cannot be rational if they are really trying to make the best choice possible for the nation as a whole or factoring in the fate of Iraqis. It is quite rational if the definition of the best choice has more to do with punishing Bush and empowering progressives than it is about what makes the most sense going forward.
So the firing squad is being formed to attack those who have been less than reliable “progressive” votes. They are no longer Blue dogs or New Democrats, they are “Bush Dogs,” because it is all about Bush. The problem for them is that it so far hasn’t worked, or as Henry Cuellar says in the Wall Street Journal:
“Every time I see [Sen.] Joe Lieberman in the hall, we like to say ‘we’re still here, aren’t we?’”
They are, as are most of the netroots targets:
Mr. Cuellar goes so far as to argue that instead of cowing Democratic moderates, the left-wing attacks have united them. More middle-of-the-roaders now believe that if the bloggers were to win a high-profile primary, it would only energize them to go after others. “This has brought us together to say, ‘this is us, and we’ve got to stick together,’” he says.
But perhaps the Netroots biggest failure, suggests Mr. Cuellar, is that it hasn’t bludgeoned his party’s leadership into abandoning the middle. It was moderate Democrats who won their party the majority last year (the New Democrats now boast 60 members; 13 new additions)
[…]
For proof, Mr. Cuellar suggests a look at “all the passes” the leadership has given red-state Dems on tough votes like Iraq, missile defense and immigration. This is an obvious recognition by the top ranks of the party that getting moderates re-elected is the only way to stay in power. They know that “if we go the way these Internet groups want us to go, we’ll be the shortest-lived majority in congressional history,” he says.
As I said, the netroots makes our politicians look good.
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