Some days you open up your email and a message just jumps off the screen and flies up your–well, your sensibilities. That happened to me today when I read a toxic little note from self-styled populist avatar David Sirota ripping me apart for a post I did about Russ Feingold’s recent indictment of the DLC for doing things it did not do (e.g., creating the Clinton Health Plan). My post, written in a tone of bored sarcasm, was described by Sirota as a “temper tantrum,” a “meltdown,” and an “attack” on his very self, reflecting my “rage” and moreover, my “fear” at the rising tide of people-powered politics, etc., etc. This is all standard Sirota rhetoric aimed at anyone who disagrees with him, but he also called me a liar, which where I come from is pretty damn serious, and way over the line.I have a strange history with David, who is as reasonable and conciliatory offline as he is frantically abusive online. I first became aware of Sirota back in 1997, when I interviewed him (then just barely out of college) for a writer-researcher job with the DLC. He got sent up for a final interview with Al From, along with two other people, and didn’t get the gig. That was obviously the right decision for all concerned.Next time I noticed David was when he blazed into political journalism with not one, but two, nasty, slur-ridden attacks on the DLC and party “centrists” generally, towards the end of 2004. The American Prospect invited me to rebut one of them, and then Matt Yglesias–no big DLC fan–did a definitive smackdown of the factual inaccuracies of the other.But in no small part because of his willingness to pick up the phone or the keyboard and say abusive things about anyone, particularly Democrats, who dared to differ with his exact views, Sirota has become a major blogger and mainstream media quote-meister. He has also, to credit his considerable energy, written a book, Hostile Takeover, that is earning him serious attention with the same sort of indictment of both Republicans and Clintonian Democrats as part of a vast corporate conspiracy to enslave the nation.In a TPMCafe discussion of Hostile Takeover, I said nice things about Sirota’s analysis of D.C. Republicans, and actually agreed with most of his suggested policy agenda, but then had to say something else about his habit of demonizing people who don’t agree with him:

David’s approach creates a political as well as a moral hazard. The attribution of corrupt motives and systematic mendacity to anyone questioning his brand of “populism” and everything that goes with is what leads him to think of Bill Clinton as a “sell-out,” or to describe Rahm Emanuel as a politician obsessed strictly with his status within the “corrupt establishment,” and to confidently assume that anyone working in Washington, DC, spends his or her spare time toadying up to “elites” at “Georgetown cocktail parties”….. It’s how you wind up believing that all the vast differences that separate Ds from Rs are completely meaningless… [a]nd it’s ultimately how you forget the real-life consequences–which Hostile Takeover examines so thoroughly–of Republican rule as compared to that of “corrupt” centrist Democrats like Bill Clinton.

All these qualities are illustrated for the umpteenth time by David’s latest post, supposedly motivated by my “attack” on him for praising Feingold’s remarks. As consumers of Sirota’s rhetoric know, anyone who disagrees with him, however mildly or briefly, is invariably “attacking” him and “lying” about him. He can sure dish it out, but for a blogospheric street-fighter, he has a hard time taking it. What’s hilarious is that the “lie” David accuses me of comes from my suggestion that maybe the DLC isn’t the political behemoth its more paranoid critics always assume it to be. Why is that so offensive to Sirota? Maybe because if the DLC is not the ultimate Giant, then David Sirota ain’t no giant-killer, either. The Sirota style is perhaps best illustrated by his choice of words to describe yours truly: “formerly a Zell Miller staffer,” underlined with a link to a news report about Miller’s despicable 2004 Republican National Convention speech. The reader is presumably to understand that my secret fidelity to the GOP cause–which of course, I am lying about–is exposed by this association. Here’s the thing: I worked for Zell from the fall of 1992 until the end of 1994, in a period when absolutely no one thought of him as anything other than a very loyal and partisan Democrat–indeed, as a bit of a “populist.” And I have written far more sad and angry words (here, here, here, and here) about Miller’s slide into apostasy and his eagerness to serve his old enemies in the GOP than anybody else you will meet. So my work for Zell Miller in the early 90s is clearly no more relevant today than David Sirota’s interest in working for me and Al From in 1997. If I did a post casually referring to Sirota as a “disappointed job-seeker at the DLC,” he’d be rightly offended. But he shouldn’t be able to have it both ways.Lots of bloggers I talk with have the same private opinion of David Sirota’s tactics as I do, but think he’s useful to The Cause, precisely because he matches the single-minded energy and “take no prisoners” style of bloggers and pundits on the Right. Indeed, that’s what Matt Yglesias concluded in his American Prospect review of Hostile Takeover–a review, BTW, that sparked a long Sirota post repeatedly accusing Matt of various forms of dishonesty, including “dishonest regurgitation of Big Business’s talking points.”If that’s so; if Sirota’s type of fulmination actually contributes to the goal of expelling the venal GOP gang that’s running our country right now, then I suppose the offense caused by his chronic character attacks on fellow Democrats is just acceptable collateral damage. But I really don’t see that calling people like me or Matt liars serves any purpose other than to start stupid fights that aggrandize Sirota’s self-image as a brave truth-teller fighting the godless and omnipotent Washington Establishment. I wish some of his friends who find his talent for invective so useful would have a private word to him now and then and suggest there are a few lines in intra-party debate that should not be crossed.

You’d think from what we’re hearing this week from Republicans all over the country that Joseph Lieberman is indeed the Bush Lite politician that his Democratic detractors insist he is. Virtually every major national Republican pol has weighed in with crocodile tears for Lieberman’s narrow primary loss. And in a really odd development, Senate Republican candidates have begun endorsing Lieberman’s indie run in Connecticut. I can’t imagine that these hugs and kisses are any more welcome in Liebermanland than was Bush’s famous “kiss” at State of the Union Address. It’s not like Joe needs Republican help in Connecticut; in the absence of a viable GOP candidate in the race, there’s not a whole lot of doubt that Nutmeg State Republicans would overwhelmingly prefer Lieberman over Lamont in November without any encouragement from on high. And all the love directed at the incumbent from national Republicans could seriously erode his support among Democrats and independents. But here’s what I really want to know: are all these national Republicans embracing Joe Lieberman willing to support anything he stands for other than his position on Iraq, which they claim crazy lefties have illegitimately targeted him for? Will they suddenly develop an interest in dealing with global climate change? Will they agree that labor laws need to be revised to make it easier for workers to organize unions? Are they on board with Lieberman’s ambitious proposal for a federally funded National Center for Cures to speed new medical treatments? Will they take a serious look at Joe’s 2004 tax proposal, that would have made income tax rates actually more progressive than they were before the Bush tax cuts? Will they push for a systematic attack on corporate subsidies in the federal budget and tax code? Not hardly. But don’t expect any honest disclosures that their professed Joemania is about as genuine as Meat Loaf’s vow of eternal love in the classic rock song Paradise by the Dashboard Lights. The GOP’s love for Lieberman is just for one night. And he should inform them to go home and grow up.

My colleague The Moose is off grazing somewhere in the North Woods, and is not blogging at present. But he seems to have gotten into the head of David Brooks, whose New York Times column today channels the Wittmann-esque fantasy of a third-party movement headed by John McCain and Joe Lieberman.I understand the basic idea: the significant share of the electorate that’s palpably sick of partisan wrangling and polarization, and of politics-as-usual in Washington, might gravitate to a new coalition led by two notable heretics from each party.And I also get the premise that third parties tend to emerge based on a radically different set of priorities than those advanced by the two major parties (e.g., the rapid emergence of the Republican Party in the 1850s when Democrats and Whigs were national coalitions determined to ignore the issue of slavery). Thus, theoretically, the vast differences between John McCain and Joe Lieberman on a host of domestic issues might not matter if they represented a consensus on something more important to voters.But that’s where the Brooksian hypothesis breaks down, because he proposes this as the “slavery issue” of our era:

The McCain-Lieberman Party is emerging because the war with Islamic extremism, which opened new fissures and exacerbated old ones, will dominate the next five years as much as it has dominated the last five.

Fine, but as Matt Yglesias notes, it’s not like John McCain or Joe Lieberman exemplifies some sort of unrepresented and massive point of view on how to deal with the war with Islamic extremism. A sizeable majority of the American electorate simultaneously believes we must fight and win a war with Jihadism, and that the Iraq engagement is at best a distraction from and at worst a real handicap in said war. Lieberman and McCain notably believe the two issues are completely inseparable, a position that most Democrats and a growing number of Republicans have already abandoned, based not on ideology but on the terrible facts on the ground in Iraq and elsewhere. So if national security is the fulcrum of the political revolution that could create a McCain-Lieberman third party, it’s not clear either man is particularly well-equipped to lead the charge. Maybe some sort of odd coalition involving Wes Clark and Chuck Hagel could do that, but not John and Joe. And indeed, Joe Lieberman’s struggle to hang on to his Senate seat will heavily involve efforts to remind voters, just as he did during his near-miss primary fight, of his positions on all those issues that separate him from John McCain. Brooks, of course, hedges his bets and suggests that maybe elements of the alleged party of McCain and Lieberman could conquer one of the two major parties. And guess who might have a chance to do that? John McCain, of course, who is not going to join Lieberman in a third party effort, and who is in fact the early front-runner for the GOP nomination in 2008.Here Brooks follows his predictable pattern: distance yourself from both parties, gliding far above the messy partisan fray, but somehow wind up in a position of endorsing the GOP approach, whatever it is. The blunt reality is that we aren’t going to see a successful third-party movement in 2008 and if there is a third-party effort, it won’t be led by McCain or Lieberman. If, as Brooks professes to believe, the overriding imperative in American politics is to rid the system of polarization and the paralyzing influence of interest groups, the best and simplest way to make that happen is to get the current managers of Washington, who very deliberately created this polarized climate and have given interest groups far more privileged access than we’ve seen in Washington in a century, out of power. Then us Democrats can have our debates and our fights, and sort out those few issues on which our agendas for the country truly diverge.

David Sirota said he “boldly did what so few Democratic politicians are willing to do: he told the truth about the corporate-funded Democratic Leadership Council” Charles P. Pierce at TAPPED called it “the best argument yet made against the DLC by someone not named David Sirota.”I was naturally curious to read what motivated all this gushing, and discovered a rather peculiar rant by Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) to a group of Wisconsin reporters that blamed the DLC for all the sins of the Democratic Party in the last decade or so.I was particularly interested to learn from Feingold that the DLC “came up with the health care plan with the Clintons that was so complicated nobody could understand it.” Gee, I seem to remember that the DLC actually opposed the Clinton Health Plan. “They are the ones that coalesced with the big corporations to pass unfair trade agreements that hurt America.” Funny: I thought maybe this guy named Bill Clinton–following the tradition of every Democratic president going back to Martin Van Buren–had a bit more to do with, say, NAFTA than anybody at the DLC. And here’s my favorite “bold” attack: “Feingold said DLC consultants ‘instill fear in Democrats’ by saying opposition to the war would be taken as not supporting the troops…. “It’s the DLC that has cut off our ability to say things like, ‘Let’s get out of Iraq because it’s a bad idea.”Until now, I had no idea what vast powers we exercise around here. Al From or Bruce Reed or somebody gets quoted in the papers, and Democrats fall silent in terror. And the stuff about “DLC consultants” is beautifully vague. Unless I’m forgetting something, the chief political consultant for the last two Democratic presidential candidates was named Bob Shrum, whose relationship with the DLC is about as warm as Ned Lamont’s with Joe Lieberman.Look, folks, what the DLC does is to write policy papers, hold conferences, publish a magazine, and network among state and local elected officials. Three of us do blogs. Our staff is small by Washington think tank standards; our budget is a fraction of CAP’s. Democrats are free to take the DLC’s advice or leave it. It’s hilarious to be told that attacking us represents some sort of profile in courage; it seems to have done wonders for the career of David Sirota, whose willingness to spit venom at the DLC has helped make him a quote machine in both the blogosphere and the mainstream media.So why the gratuitous outburst from Russ Feingold? It’s not like many actual voters have ever heard of the DLC; hell, it took my own family about five years to internalize the fact that I worked for the DLC rather than the DNC. You have to figure Feingold was sending a signal to the segment of Democratic activists, old and new, for whom those three letters “DLC” have come to represent a sort of Unified Field Theory of recent Democratic electoral losses.You probably know the rap: soulless, poll-driven centrists in Washington sold out their principles for corporate cash, blah blah blah, lost Congress and the states, blah blah blah, spend all their time on Fox News defending Bush and attacking Democrats, blah blah blah, denied Gore his victory and “took down” Howard Dean, bark bark woof woof. It takes a lot of words, and maybe a few actual facts, to say all that, so just intoning “DLC” and hearing the instant cheers is a nice shorthand, and less politically risky than, say, frontally attacking Bill Clinton. The fact that this sort of code and the lurid narrative it signals makes the messenger sound a bit like a Larouchie off his meds is, I suppose, a small price to pay for the message it sends to listeners eager to hear it.The odd thing is that Russ Feingold is actually pretty popular here at Centrist Conspiracy HQ. He’s usually refreshingly direct, and willing to be unorthodox in all sorts of different directions. But there’s nothing in Democratic politics today more tediously orthodox than DLC-bashing. I do offer one suggestion to other bold, brave politicians out there: if you’re going to do this, try and get the basic facts straight.

In the wake of the Lieberman/Lamont campaigns, past and future, there’s a renewed preoccupation across the progressive blogosphere about the nature of “bipartisanship.” The general story line is that corrupt and weak Democratic centrists, lusting for the approval of the Two David B.’s (Brooks and Broder), are determined to cave in to Bush and the GOP in the name of “bipartisanship.” This jogged my memory about a New Dem Dispatch back in January of 2001 about the likely trajectory of “bipartisanship” in the Bush era. Just for grins, and for the instruction of those who think the DLC is blind about Rovian partisanship, here it is again. Yes, it’s long, but the subject is important and complicated.DLC New Dem Daily January 9, 2001Ten Kinds of BipartisanshipGeorge W. Bush’s transition has been surrounded by a mist of unfocused talk about bipartisanship, which is said to be, along with an uncompromising commitment to his conservative campaign agenda, the most important principle guiding the first days of his administration. We thought it might be useful to bring a little clarity to the subject by outlining ten distinct types of bipartisan coalitions that have been put together over the years, and then considering which types we might see in the near future.1. The Base-In CoalitionThis strategy, pursued most successfully by President Ronald Reagan in his initial budget in 1981, involves uniting one party in Congress and then picking off sufficient members of the other to put together a majority.2. The Center-Out CoalitionAs the name suggests, this strategy begins with a bloc of like-minded moderates from both parties and gradually adds members from each side until a majority is achieved. The NAFTA, GATT and China PNTR trade bills during the Clinton Administration were enacted by center-out coalitions.3. The Outside-In CoalitionThis variety, typically used by incoming Presidents during their “honeymoon” period, involves the aggressive, direct stimulation of public opinion to push members of the opposing party, especially those from states or districts where the President is popular, to come across the line.4. The Inside-Out CoalitionBy contrast, the Inside-Out Coalition is put together through selective deal-making among members, and then sold to the public as a coherent product. Also known as “logrolling,” the Inside-Out strategy reached its zenith in the last highway reauthorization bill crafted by the King of Asphalt, the now-retiring Rep. Bud Shuster (R-PA).5. The Big Barbecue(Rare and messy.) This is a variation on the Inside-Out Coalition, but on a grand scale, involving horse trading among the leadership of both parties and aimed at a near-universal consensus. The infamous 1990 budget agreement, which led President George I to violate his no-new-taxes pledges, is an example of a Big Barbecue.6. The Emergency CoalitionThis coalition traditionally emerges in support of the President during military actions, or, occasionally, during economic emergencies. The budget summitry that briefly emerged after the 1987 stock market plunge is an example of the latter.7. The Ideological CoalitionThis strategy was the standard operating procedure in Congress during the period between the New Deal and the Great Society when there were large numbers of liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats, and ideology replaced party loyalty on many issues. Such coalitions still emerge on some issues, such as international trade, where coalitions of pro- and anti-trade Democrats and Republicans are common.8. The Regional CoalitionOn some issues, especially agriculture and energy policy, regional factors regularly trump party. There are some signs of regional fault lines on trade and technology policy as well.9. GridlockIt’s not common to think of it this way, but partisan stalemate represents a bipartisan decision to maintain the status quo until the electorate provides a decisive election and the clear governing majority — an event that the two parties have now been waiting for since 1980.10. Partisan “Bipartisanship”This strategy, which is not, of course, genuine bipartisanship, involves a sustained campaign to convince the public that the opposing party is the only obstacle to bipartisan progress, and that one’s own party has an agenda that represents the real interests of all Americans. President Clinton’s success in projecting his agenda as representing “progress, not partisanship,” was the key to his recurring victories over Congressional Republicans in budget showdowns. Which of these ten types of bipartisanship are likely to be pursued by the new Bush Administration?The answer isn’t yet clear, but it’s important to remember the defining dilemma the President-elect has posed for the Republican Party. From the moment he announced his candidacy, George W. Bush has tried to achieve the maximum feasible change in the image of the Republican Party through the minimum necessary change in its ideology and agenda. He campaigned to “change the tone in Washington,” to create a “different kind of Republican Party,” and to pursue a new ideology of “compassionate conservatism,” but was the unquestioned candidate of the conservative “base,” and embraced a platform that was mostly composed of the age-old demands of the conservative movement.Given that dilemma, you’d have to guess that he’d like to redeem his pledge to pursue bipartisanship as quickly and as cheaply as possible so that he can then pursue his orthodox conservative agenda. That means he will promote the types of bipartisanship that involve the fewest real concessions to the opposition: Base-In Coalitions to pick off a few Democrats; Outside-In Coalitions to bring public pressure on the opposition; perhaps Inside-Out Coalitions on the Texas model to cut Democrats in on legislative deals; and above all, the Partisan “Bipartisanship” of constantly claiming that he embodies the genuine interests of Democrats, Independents, and Republicans.If that’s the case, Democrats who are interested in real bipartisanship should refuse to accept the cheap variety, and raise the price for bipartisan cooperation. Then George W. Bush will finally be forced to choose between his rhetoric and his agenda, and we’ll find out how different the real Republican Party actually is. Considering that this was published before the true Rovian nature of Bush’s agenda became clear, and at a time when the mainstream media were assuming Bush would “go centrist” because of the nature of the 2000 election, I think this analysis was rather prescient, if I say so myself. But no matter what you think, it should be understood that Democratic “centrists” don’t miss the point of Rovian polarization and what that means for genuine “bipartisanship.” There are legitimate differences of opinion about how Democrats should respond to polarization, but no real argument that the word “bipartanship” has many meanings, some of them legitimate, some not so: at least ten.

Now that virtually all of the votes are in, it’s clear that Joe Lieberman narrowly (52%-48%) lost to Ned Lamont in the Democratic primary in CT, and that Cynthia McKinney decisively lost her congressional seat (59%-41%) to Hank Johnson down in Georgia-4. Lieberman indicated he’d go on to compete for his seat in November, as an independent. While McKinney’s camp complained earlier tonight of supposed election machine irregularities, Johnson’s margin of victory makes any sort of challenge by the incumbent impractical.

I have no idea if anyone will be checking this blog tonight, but as of 9:30 p.m. EDT, the results from Connecticut and Georgia are showing that you don’t know nuthin’ if you don’t know where the votes are coming from.Ned Lamont has a narrow lead over Joe Lieberman in CT with a little over half the precincts reporting, but who knows exactly what that means? The CW in the Nutmeg State is that the urban precincts come in much later than the ‘burbs, which might mean Lieberman’s surge is yet to come. But I’m only guessing here.I have a much better idea about where the votes come from in GA, and I have to tell you, the early reports showing that Hank Johnson is demolishing Cynthia McKinney in Georgia-4 are very premature. Yes, he’s winning 3-1 with 18% of the precincts reporting, but every one of those precincts are low-vote, majority-white, Republican leaning precincts in Gwinnett and Rockdale Counties. Until boxes finally start coming in from Dekalb C0unty, where probably 95% of the votes in this runoff will be cast, there’s no way to know what’s really happening in this race.For those who care, the early returns from Georgia indicate that Jim Martin will almost certainly beat Greg Hecht for the Democratic nomination to run against Casey Cagle (the guy who beat Ralph Reed in a Republican primary) for Lieutenant Governor. Hecht’s whole campaign was based on trying to generate an anti-Atlanta vote against Atlantan Martin; but early returns show Martin winning in Savannah, Macon, Columbus, and a number of other south and central Georgia counties. And he’s winning easily in the north Atlanta suburbs as well.More later, if events justify it.

Well, August 8 is finally here, and no matter what happens in the Connecticut Democratic Senate primary, it will be nice to read about something else in the progressive blogosphere for a while. Apparently turnout is remarkably high, and it’s anybody’s guess who that favors, though Joe Lieberman’s campaign has repeatedly said its strategy depends on getting as many Democrats to the polls as possible. The polls will close in two and a half hours, so we’ll know sooon enough. But I will also be paying attention to the 4th congressional district Democratic runoff in Georgia, where the very latest poll had incumbent Cynthia McKinney still trailing challenger Hank Johnson 53-40. Turnout there seems to be light.

As a baby boomer, I have a lingering affection for The Rolling Stone, and not only because I read its music reviews obsessively back in the day. The Stone also gave Hunter S. Thompson a platform for his brilliant quasi-political ravings.Musical trends being what they are, I stopped reading Rolling Stone a good while ago, but after getting quoted briefly in a piece about MoveOn last year (an event that impressed my teenaged stepson more than all the NPR appearances imaginable), the DLC press office gave me a copy. What struck me most was the 10-1 ratio of upscale apparel ads to all the other content put together, but what the hell, somebody’s got to pay the bills.Still, I was moderately intrigued a few weeks back when my colleague Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute, told me he had taken a call originally intended for me, from a Matt Taibbi, who was writing a piece for the Rolling Stone.”Jesus, Will,” I replied. “Don’t you remember Matt Taibbi? He’s the guy who did the New York Press piece a while back exposing you as the author of the ‘loathsome’ NewDonkey blog. You know, that fine bit of reportage accompanied by the crude grade-school drawing of Marshall Wittmann being sodomized by a moose.””Wish I had remembered his name,” said Will. “I’ve done hundreds of interviews with hostile reporters over the years, but nothing like this. The guy apparently just wanted to shriek at me; he already knew the answers to all his questions.”Taibbi’s piece, which appeared last week, was about what you’d expect from a guy who knows all the answers before he asks the questions. The crux of his “analysis” was a lurid interpretation of the use of the terms “liberal fundamentalism”and “purge” in a New Dem Dispatch (which I drafted as editor of the NDD, but which, as always, reflected an institutional take, not necessarily my own) about the national campaign against Joe Lieberman. Check this out:

Let’s be clear about what we’re dealing with here. These people are professional communicators. They don’t repeatedly use words like “purge”and “fundamentalist” — terms obviously associated with communism and Islamic terrorism — by accident. They know exactly what they’re doing. It’s an authoritarian tactic and it should piss you off. It pissed me off.

Aside from the fact that Taibbi appears to be perpetually P.O.’d without any particular encouragement, his “reasoning” on this point is a classic example of a smear posing as the exposure of a smear. As the NDD in question explicitly noted, the DLC started warning about the perils of “liberal fundamentalism” back in the 1980s, when nobody outside the CIA had ever heard of Osama bin Laden; then as now, “fundamentalism” refers to any set of intolerant, self-righteous beliefs. And I don’t know where Matt Taibbi gets the idea that the word “purge” is any more associated with communism than with any other political movement. I probably know as much as any blogger in Christendom (with the exception of my colleague The Moose) about the history of communism, and I sure as hell don’t “obviously associate” the term with Reds of any hue.But nevermind. Taibbi’s shrewd explanation of my nefarious intentions was the necessary windup to the mighty anathema that concludes his piece:

The DLC are the lowest kind of scum; we’re talking about people who are paid by the likes of Eli Lilly and Union Carbide to go on television and call suburban moms and college kids who happen to be against the war commies and jihadists.

The fact that nobody at the DLC has ever actually “gone on television” to say anything like that is inconvenient to Taibbi’s “analysis,” and thus not worth researching, much less modifying or discarding. As for the tedious “corporate paymasters” crap, Taibbi does not bother to find out, much less explain, why an organization “paid by the likes of Eli Lilly” opposed its top legislative priority of the last decade, the Medicare Rx drug bill. Or why us “paid agents of the commercial interests” have loudly, consistently, and repeatedly opposed Bush’s economic policies, most especially each and every one of his tax cuts. Or why the “organization founded to help big business have a say in the Democratic platform” practically invented the term “corporate welfare,” and has endlessly and redundantly called for ridding the federal budget and tax code of corporate subsidies.But why bother with such complications when you already know what the DLC is up to?Maybe the editors at The Rolling Stone, or some of its readers, think of people like Matt Taibbi as successors to the explicitly non-objective political commentary of Hunter Thompson. And to be sure, HST was capable of prophetic abuse like no one else. But he generally relied on his own interpretation of actual facts, not just his prejudices, and was more than capable of non-predictable positions, like his early support for Jimmy Carter’s nomination for president in1976 (a position that would, if extrapolated to today’s inter-progressive politics, undoubtedly be excoriated as support for Holy Jimmy, a reactionary corporate-backed warmongering southerner).Matt Taibbi’s style of gonzo journalism, if that’s what he’s trying to practice, is more reminiscent of The Doctor’s sad declining years, when he could still write the abusive catch-phrases, but forgot how to give them life, or a sense of decency and truth. Taibbi’s sophomoric jibes are only ha-larious to people who already agree with him, and aren’t particularly interested in any sort of nuance or persuasion. And the cheerleading for his piece in various segments of the progressive blogosphere is far more discouraging than all the fact-based DLC- or Lieberman-bashing past, present or future.

Having just praised a Kevin Drum post, I have to register a dissent from another one. Reacting to a blogospheric colloquoy, extending to Matt Yglesias and Noam Scheiber, about generational differences in perceptions among Dems that I seem to have sparked with a recent post or two about Lieberman, Kevin scolds us old folks for worrying about the influence of the Left in the Democratic Party at a time when we should all be focused on the opposition:

Why should anyone even moderately left of center spend more than a few minutes a week worrying about a barely detectable liberal drift in the Democratic Party? Will the tut-tutters not be happy until CEOs make 1000x the average wage instead of the mere 400x they make now and the 200x they made during the Reagan years? How much farther to the right do they want Dems to go?….Worrying about lefties in the Democratic Party when the GOP is led by a guy named George Bush is like worrying about the Michigan Militia when a guy named Osama is driving airplanes into your buildings. The fogies need to get real.

Let’s put aside the slur about “fogies” wanting Democrats to move “farther to the right.” I sure as hell don’t, and I don’t think the quite young Noam Scheiber does, either. And I plead innocent as well to the charge, made by Kevin elsewhere in his rather angry post, that Democrats whose formative experiences were in the 1980s and early 1990s are obsessed with the need to play off lefty excesses to establish their mainstream credibility. Maybe Mickey Kaus feels that way; clearly my colleague The Moose–who is not, for the record, even a Democrat–thinks that’s what Democrats should do. But I don’t. And let’s remember why we are having this conversation. It’s not because hysterical centrists are scouring the political landscape looking for lefties to demonize or expel; it’s because there is a large and vocal body of opinion in the Democratic Party, some of it ideologically driven, some of it just partisan, that is deeply wedded to a particular interpretation of how the two parties got to their current condition. This interpretation heavily relies on the belief that in the 1990s and the early years of this century, a centrist, Clintonian Establishment sold out progressive principles, refused to fight against a disciplined Right, happily gave up Congress and a majority of the states, and essentially conceded defeat, in the pursuit of power and comfort, and the praise of David Brooks and David Broder. This is, indeed, a narrative widely shared in the netroots, and it has helped energize netizens to enlist in a conscientious effort to cleanse the Democratic Party of the centrist malefactors who let this happen.To the extent that this narrative is based on “facts” that some of us old fogies find to be empirically wrong, I don’t think we should be blamed for pointing that out. Because in the end, this is really and truly a debate among Democrats about how–not whether–to drive Republicans from power in Washington and elsewhere. I’m happy to “get real” about that, but reality does involve an honest discussion of how we got where we are today.