Letters to the Editor
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Pure DLC BS, as usual
Oh, please, Ed, I am a lifelong Democrat, and I repudiate and revile the DLC. I hunger not for the slimebag that Bill Clinton was and is, and I would never vote for Hillary or any other DLC scumbag. Almost all of the so-called Democrats you mention support or supported the war in Iraq. That alone is enough to oppose them, but they also oppose single payer national health care financing even though private insurance is THE problem in health care, they oppose equal rights for all Americans regardless of status, they are very weak on separation of church and state, they are all funded primarily by the most evil corporate filth imaginable, they advocate corporotocracy, they do not believe in anything remotely resembling tax fairness and on and on and on.
Face it son, from the perspective of real Democrats, you guys are garbage, and, if too many more of you infest the party, we'll have to find our own third way.
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Let's keep it simple:
a) The DLC essentially ran the Democratic party from 1988 through the Kerry campaign.
b) The Democrats lost their majorities in both houses of Congress under DLC leadership. Bill Clinton managed to win the White House, but further weakened the movement by caving to the right on a number of issues, where he pursued the politics of self-interest over representing the party that had put him in power.
c) The net result of all these actions was to increase the strength of the Republicans and to weaken the Democratic party as a whole.
To know what the DLC is going to do, you just have to know who is backing them financially. The interests of the backers of the DLC seem more aligned with traditional Republican policies than traditional Democratic policies. Indeed, one suspects from time to time that the DLC exists solely to hinder the Democratic party from actually making any progress along traditional progressive lines.
The default advice of any DLC operative always seems to be something along the lines of "sound more like a Republican". Well, a lot of us neither wish to do that, nor think that that kind of thinking makes good political sense. Imitating the opposition may work in football but it never works in politics. As Harry Truman said, given a choice between a fake Republican and a real one, the public will choose the real Republican every time.
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The anti-democratic wing of the Democratic party
I don't get this "oddly polemical" nonsense. The DLC is a corporate-funded and controlled front group which frequently repeats Karl Rove's daily talking points, to attack progressive Democrats. Their attacks on Howard Dean are only their most recent attempt to carry water for their corporate overlords. Why is it odd that someone might fight back?
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DLC fence sitting
I decided to take the author up on his invitation to browse the DLC web-site which he calls "wonky". "Wonky" is right. You'll find a lot of words there. What you won't find is actual positions on the issues. A position on abortion? Nope. Gay rights? Again, no.
I read through their article on globalization. I give them points for actually recognizing that it has negatives for American workers, but unsurprisingly it lacks any specific proposals for what to actually do about it.
The one position it does take is to oppose Bush's plans for a "surge" in Iraq and to favor a redeployment. Unfortunately, their position on this is very very late.
Sorry. The DLC web-site simply confirmed my opinion of them as nothing but a bunch of fence-sitters.
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Gephardt?
I'm not sure why Gephardt is any sort of proof. Missouri is at least halfway part of the south.
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Gephardt is supposedly 'proof' ...
...because he's far more protectionist than the DLC would ever like.
Although he was a loud and solid supporter of the Iraqi invasion (that of course was long after his DLC presidency).
The couple of letter writers already have this right though, Kilgore and the DLC are bought and paid for shills of a few rich corporations. Once in awhile perhaps they can help with some policy positioning, but for the most part they should be ignored.
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Sorry DLC
Sorry DLC, moderate Dems have been saying they're neutral on a moving train, but they share the shame for this mess in Iraq. You don't compromise with crazy.
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It's Not About the South, Ed
And that's from a native and current resident of a Southern blue-state-turned-red-now-turning-blue-again.
It's about the DLC trying to be republicans.
That old piece of wisdom from Harry Truman just keeps getting more and more relevant:
"If you give people a choice between a real republican and a fake republican, they'll pick the real republican every time."
Real Democrats vote for - surprise! - real Democrats. That's why the DLC keeps losing.
Oh, and don't you dare try to tar Schaller with that old "if you criticize the South you're just a Yankee elitist who hates Nascar" horseshit. That dog won't hunt.
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Why, Salon, WHY?
Woah, Salon, what's with the pandering? Did the big bad scary DLC monsters come knocking and saying "you better retract"? When should we expect the article on how great the Dairy Farmers of America is, in response to your piece on so-called "raw milk"? Maybe Britney's and Lindsay's publicists can band together to write a piece about their charity work.
Your first article was spot-on. The letters that precede this one are spot-on, particularly Rick's. The DLC has run the Democratic Party into the ground, and they don't even seem to realize it. Their methods have, time and again, failed. The last election was a resounding success, due entierly to Dean's 50-State initiative.
I'm sorry that Salon obviously felt so pressured to rescind your previous article. I look to Salon because you're willing to say things that others won't... not so that you'll shill for the corporate-backed Big Guys.
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We just don't get it, right?
Mr. Kilgore pulls out the tactical dull knife of arguementation on Mr. Schaller; Shaller simply doesn't understand. According to Kilgore, centrism is good because it's middle of the road, therefore inclusive and it will be a winning strategy.
Ah, no, it isn't, it didn't and it won't.
Bush did not come to power by running for the middle, he and Reagan before him, declared their strength by taking a stand and daring all others to challenge their rhetoric and their position. Bill Clinton remains popular because he was subject to an attack on his personal behavior in the executive office, not his corruption of the Executive Office. The distraction of impeachment was part of the reason Bill Clinton's administration failed to advance universal health care, to challenge ridiculous homophobic laws and regulations that hinder our national security, to rein in corporate excess and reform taxation, to secure reproductive rights or to create a foresighted energy policy.
Rather than stand up to the Republicans who were yelling about family values while behaving badly themselves, Clinton got caught up in petty denials and a game of linguisitic Twister. It was never of any interest to the country whether or not Clinton was faithful to his wife, but now it will become a question for Hillary. Can a woman who didn't stand up to her husband's infidelity run a country?
If the Dems want an "in" to the South, why not bring up the fact that the South has most of the soldiers in Iraq, that by sending our Reserves, our National Guard to fight overseas, we have no one to defend the home place from these terrorist attacks we are told to believe will come at any time. But no, the DLC and the DNC point fingers at what is wrong with the current administration without suggesting what they would do to fix the mess we, maybe they, will be left to clean up. Not one Democrat has suggested that defining the world solely in terms of terrorism makes economic and political survival impossible.
All this plays into the hands of the currently powerful right wing extremists who understand that centrism leaves no room for consensus, it merely shifts the field of discussion to whichever side holds the most extreme position. By refusing to acknowledge the cruelty underlying the attacks on him and on the Democratic Party, by proclaiming religious faith as a mark of his worth, by talking about the middle as if it were a real position, Harold Ford is choosing power for himself, not power for his party. He and the Democrats are also choosing to let Republicans define the discussion. I still don't know what the Dems stand for, why they offer non-binding resolutions, will not speak to the awfulness and unfairness of this war and why they took their trump card, impeachment, off the table.