Letters to the Editor
-
@sysprog: Re: Clockwork orange
Poor Khalid Sheikh Mohammed! Poor Abu Zubaydah! These are the people who burned alive 3000 of our fellow citizens on 9/11! And you wonder how you manage to keep alienating the American public, even despite apparently favorable polls!
-
Glenn's Interview Method was Great
Glenn is a constitutional lawyer who was interviewing a presidential candidate with a campaign platform of constitutional reformation. What did you expect?
This is one topic where I appreciate an interviewer with a predisposed bias. In this case with Glenn, a bias toward protecting the constitution and a desire to expose those acting to subvert it.
Though you cannot FORCE a person to answer a question, the questions in MSM interviews are so blasé and open-ended, it is hard to make a judgment about the person being interviewed.
I believe Glenn's questions and follow-up were great. Say what you will about the Senator's responses, but it is hard to judge his answers without coherent and meaningful questions.
Go watch re-runs of Meet the Press if that's your thing.
-
The Democratic Party is a very diverse group of complicated people.
The Democrats have not had the spine to make and follow through on those threats.
One could make such a blanket statement about the GOP, and hear nary a peep from me (although spineless would not be the best adjective), but that's because they do walk/work/talk/breathe in lock step. I really don't think that's what we want in the Democratic Party. We're trying to resist fascistic tendencies, not promote them.
One reason we realistically need a larger majority in order to have it be veto-proof, is that the Democratic tent is much larger, and not everyone will agree on every single issue. Still, there are some basic issues that should be no-brainers for every small-d Democrat. At the moment, that does not appear to be the case. However, that does not (or at least should not) diminish the work that both Reid and Pelosi, but especially Pelosi, have done in herding cats. Nor is it okay to berate all Democrats, including those who voted FOR the Constitution, just because not all of them did. Things were much worse under Daschle and Gephardt. Remember them?
-
David Smith, I share your disappointment...
however... I'm not sure I completely believe everything you've written, e.g.:
And while my disgust and outrage are all too real, at least I can take some cold comfort in the vindication of having vilified the party week after week after week. [snip]
[snip] I don’t think my back is the only one to have been broken under the weight of this particular straw. Indeed, I suspect this vote could constitute a real watershed, one that might shatter the uniform, unwavering support of the activist base of the Democratic Party.Perhaps you really meant "the myth of" the uniform, unwavering support of the activist base... ?
Personally, I have never seen evidence of the uniform, unwavering support of which you write. I've had too many arguments, both online and off... the bottom line being that, no, the two parties are not identical. Witness, for example, our new and improved SCOTUS, courtesy of GWB, self-proclaimed compassionate conservative, who supposedly abjured judicial activism.
-
Effective does not mean "fascist"
I really don't think that's what we want in the Democratic Party. We're trying to resist fascistic tendencies, not promote them.
Representative politics works by arm-twisting and quid-pro-quo. I hear a lot of squeamishness from liberals on this issue and it amazes me. If you were in a lawsuit, would you want a lawyer who never played hard-ball? The civil rights bill would never have passed if Mansfield and Johnson had played nice. They exploited loopholes in the rules to limit debate, put intense economic pressure on holdouts, and kept the coalition together with a mixture of exhortations and threats of retaliation. For some reason, we now think that people who chose to be in public life and to get power should be treated like 10 year old children in a civics class exercise.
-
@Retired Military Patriot
"If you spent a month with a house member, who is raising money 365 days a year, trying to understand all types of legislative proposals, most of which are ill designed or cravingly crafted, have to be afraid of anything you say in public for fear it will appear almost instantly on the Internet, need to listen to a myriad of constituency problems and advice, take care of family matters, etc., how well would you do?"
Quite well. I work with politicians every day.
Your attention to the system is laudable, but you can't ignore the actions of individuals who must be held accountable.
-
But I did not compare fascist
with effective. I compared it with "working in lockstep." Hardly the same thing.
I really don't understand why anyone who wants to see things change substantively would want the Democratic party to operate in exactly the same way as the GOP.
The GOP thinks that their End justifies our Means, while the Democratic perspective is that the Means become the End. That Democratic perspective requires more work, just as raising children in a nurturing environment requires more from the parents than in an authoritarian environment.
-
@The Fool
Glad to hear you are part of the action every day and can do something besides comment here. I totally agree that we should hold politicians accountable. It is lack of taking responsibility that causes a lot of the problems, especially when the people you are around refuse to admit mistakes and are not humble enough to learn from them. The system does not reward humility or, often enough, honesty. I think Glenn and others’ efforts to hold legislators like Dodd or the MSM accountable for what they do and don’t do, can in time have an affect on the system. The progress would be far greater if we could significantly change the system instead of minor, glacially slow improvements. No change would be more significant than public funded national elections.
-
We?, Rootless?
For some reason, we now think that people who chose to be in public life and to get power should be treated like 10 year old children in a civics class exercise.
-- rootless2
I don't know what to make of your "we now think" and your "10 year old children" theme, but really, it yours, not ours. Own it. Don't try and pass it off as ours. Okay?