The Nutroots® War On The Center Continues…
…and it should come as no surprise at all that the next salvo comes from the hacks at firedoglake:
I was on a blogger conference call with Harry Reid the other day. He asked what structural, organizational improvements the Senate Dems could make to improve coordination with the netroots activist community. I told him it was not a matter of structure: we share enough email lists together, and our thoughts are pretty much there for all the world to see online, 24/7. I told him instead it was a matter of trust. He didn’t much like that answer.
But just to give him a bit of background about why I say trust is an issue, let’s talk a little bit about his DSCC Senate Dem consigliere, Chuck Schumer. Here are twelve reasons not to trust Schumer, in no particular order…
I’ll save you the boredom of listing the 12 reasons…suffice to say they are petty, ideological, infighting-type items that show once again the essential unpleasantness of most of the leading lights of the liberal blogosphere. One example should suffice:
Rather than build a gracious public narrative acknowledging all the work done by the grassroots and the netroots, including, for example, the massive GOTV calling (7 million calls!) done through MoveOn, Chuck went on a PR offensive (with Rahm) to take all credit for the election’s gains, weaving in a “conservatives won, not the liberal base” narrative. He threw us under the bus.
Thank God it’s all about the winning, and not the ideology. More on the ‘uneasy alliance’ between the Nutroots® and the Democratic Party here (and even more from the MinuteMan here, including a rare acknowledgment of the source of the phrase ‘Nutroots®’ – namely, yours truly!)…
It is definately strange to see more recriminations and backstabbing among the party that won last week than the one that was just shellacked. But before I get too smug, I just read the summary of the Baker report, and if the Bush Administration intends to impliment its recommendations, they will cause a revolt that will make the Kos/Clinton/Dean/Schumer/Gore/Carvile circular firing squad look like a kumbaya hand-holding.
Speaking of infighting, Speaker-to-be Pelosi is now backing none other than Mr. Cut-and-Run himself, Congressman Jack Murtha, in his bid to beomce the House Majority Leader.
Good bye moderation!
Michael Barone raised a good point…
the gop is now in the position to filibuster. I can’t think of anything worth using it on, but just the thought of throwing every ‘noble’ sentiment expressed by dems regarding the ‘wisdom’ of the the filibuster in their face is just too rich.
My money is on hoyer.
‘Finish the job in Iraq’ is still a majority of the country. Only 32% favor immediate withdrawal.
The dems will have to run the gaunlet of gauging public sentiment and presenting plans accordingly. If they throw up something that doesn’t jive with public opinion, they have the risk of appearring to be mismanaging the war. Like grabbing the weheel of a bus going seventy miles an hour and on fire…you want to pull it over, but you don’t want to hit a tree. Murtha ‘driving the bus’ is an absolute ingedient of the recipe for this scenario.
mtl, the Democrats might disagree with Republican application of a filibuster, but it’s going to take a concrete example to convince me that, like the Republicans, they’d consider changing the rules just to get their way.
Reporters can ask Murtha what he planned to spend the ABSCAM money on, and also when he’s planning to visit the troops again…in Okinawa.
mtl: I can think of one bill: The “path to citizenship”/ amnesty bill. I can get behind the approach in principle, but only after serious steps towards enforcement and border security are made. Of course, is there probably aren’t 40 Republicans in the Senate willing to join a filibuster, so unless the Republicans pull a few of the more conservative members of the Democratic caucus with them (the Nelson twins, possibly Webb), a filibuster won’t fly.
Sean P, in reference to your 1st post, do you think Bush is pulling a ‘Harriet’ on his base?