So I was out surfing the news at Google's portal, and found this Morton Kondracke column, talking up Joe Lieberman. He talks about how Lieberman is a throwback to a time when there used to be such things as liberal national security hawks. He also deplores how the self-described progressive "netroots" (and conservative-described "nutroots") have vilified Lieberman for being insufficiently hateful towards George Bush and Israel.
So I thought hmm... Why is Morton Kondracke trying to boost the stock of a Democratic senator up for reelection? Does he maybe sense that the Republicans are going to lose ground this time, and is anxious that the foamy-mouthed Left not be the gainer?
Then, I clicked down my bookmarks to Jessica's Well, where Walsingham has a link to an Iowahawk satire of a Berkeley student's pro-Hezbollah poem, which was linked by Opinion Journal, which...oh, just click through and read it!
If the Berkeleyoids are attracting and producing people like that, Kondracke is wise to worry about the future of the Democratic Party.
This has become all-too-typical of the utter incoherence of right-wing attacks on the Democratic.
ReplyDeleteYou want to attack the Dems, so you attack--a Democratic senator? A congressman? No? A state rep, then? No?
No, you're attacking a graduate student at Berkeley.
Here's a fun puzzle for you--prove she's a registered Democrat, first. After all, she nowhere identifies herself as such. That still doesn't make this a stinging attack on Democrats everywhere, unless you want to be held responsible for every registered Republican, but it'd at least demonstrate that you're talking about a Democrat at all.
If you want to attack Democrats, you could at the very least attack elected ones. Otherwise, I'd have to say that with your former congressional leader under indictment, you should spend a bit more time worrying about the beam in your own eye.
There hasn't been a viable third party in American national politics for forever. So, the splinter groups instead try to drag the major parties' center of gravity to one side or another. We see that happening with social conservatives in the Republican Party, and with progressives in the Democratic Party. The majors covet these people's support, and worry about their wrath, whether they formally join a party or not.
ReplyDeleteSo the Democratic party is in trouble because people like her don't belong to it, but might someday?
ReplyDeleteCan you honestly not see how very thin a reed is supporting your entire argument?
Using exactly the same logic, the Republican party is responsible for the murders of 168 people in 1995 in Oklahoma City, and of several gynecologists over the last decade.
I'm not making that argument, because it's absurd. Will you withdraw yours? Or will you continue to insist that the Democratic party is in deep, deep trouble because there exist irresponsible left-wingers who aren't party members?
Well, I've gulped with trepidation at seeing the President give aid & comfort to the ID movement. And you've seen Michael Moore, International ANSWER, and the DailyKos brigade paid court by the Dem leadership--with the same dismay, I trust. No point in insisting that I not see what I in fact do see happening. The Dems' well-advertised identity crisis puts their fringes into play much more than in previous election cycles. If their numbers shrink and their center drifts left, then people like this student won't be easily laughed off, once they start being courted by Dem candidates.
ReplyDeleteI think the inevitable OKC analogy is as inapposite as it is tired, btw.
There's no point in pretending that you haven't been attacking the Democratic Party--a party represented by 44 US Senators, 202 US Representatives, and many, many state governors and legislators--by an absurd proxy attack on a motley collection of filmmakers, minor bloggers, third-rate academics, and now a graduate student of uncertain party affiliation.
ReplyDeleteIf you actually paid attention to the lineup you mentioned above, you'd be aware that for the most part they're furious with the Democratic party for not paying court to them. That's the entire raison d'etre of the Green party. But you aren't attacking the Greens--if you were, you'd have a point.
Look back at your original attack. You loudly worried about the future of the Democratic Party, based on the existence of a single left-wing graduate student who isn't even necessarily a Democrat!
That was the point of my Oklahoma City analogy. Of course it's absurd, but it's every bit as strong as your own attack. After all, McVeigh's opinions are exactly the sort of thing I might imagine that Republicans might believe, if they were to drift (much) further right.
If you want to attack Democrats, it's not as if there's a shortage of targets, after all. How about Harkin's embarrassing and destructive continuing support of quackery, just to start with? Why not attack Democrats? Why the pouncing on obscure proxies who don't represent a soul beyond themselves?
If international ANSWER actually took over the Democratic party, I, and many other Democrats, would leave to form a third party. They haven't come close to doing so, but to people like you, it doesn't matter--they're what you imagine Democrats to be, so their existence is enough.