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This morning's Wall Street Journal nails it with their analysis of MoveOn.org and its attacks on congressional Democrats reporting recent progress in Iraq:
In the Hell Hath No Fury sweepstakes, groups like MoveOn.org are gearing up to take on a new set of perceived traitors in their midst--Democrats who have acknowledged some success from the troop surge in Iraq.
Chief among the targets is Washington Congressman Brian Baird, whose indiscretion was recognizing progress on the ground, despite having initially opposed the surge and having opposed the war in the first place. After a recent trip to Iraq, Mr. Baird said: "One of the things that gets very little attention is that virtually every other country I visited says it would be a mistake to pull out now."
We hope he took his flak jacket home from Baghdad. MoveOn is rolling out an ad this week in Mr. Baird's Washington district, in which a former soldier tells of being shot at in 2003 by the Iraqis he had fought to liberate and calls America's continued presence in the country "wrong, immoral and irresponsible." What does this have to do with the wisdom--or lack thereof--of the current strategy? Nada, which tells you something about MoveOn's honesty....
Mr. Baird is hardly alone in his assessment of progress in Iraq, even among Democrats. In the past month, Senate Democrats Carl Levin, Hillary Clinton, Dick Durbin, Bob Casey and Jack Reed have all acknowledged progress on the ground--though many still downplay the overall chances of success.
Representatives Keith Ellison (Minnesota) and Jerry McNerney (California) recently returned "impressed" by what they'd seen, though they were careful to temper their statements for any perceived optimism. After watching U.S. soldiers greet Iraqis in Arabic with "peace be upon you," Mr. Ellison reported that "they would respond back with smiles and waves" before quickly adding, "I don't want to overplay it." It's a measure of how far the antiwar left has moved the debate on Iraq that Mr. Ellison doesn't want to sound too enthusiastic about the chances that the U.S. might actually win.
The Journal's editorial provides more support for the notion that hard-line antiwar groups will do just about anything to deny the reality of military progress in Iraq; and they'll relentlessly smear anyone in power who deviates from the assumed netroots dominance of the "progressive" policy agenda.
What's so amazing about this is that many of the Democrats who've reported progress harbor strong left-wing credentials. (Keith Ellison's an American Muslim who's co-sponsored a House impeachment bill alleging high crimes and misdemeanors against President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney!)
Click here to view MoveOn's dishonest anti-Baird advertisment.
In my earlier posts on FireDogLake, I noted how wildly unhinged these hard-line radical attacks on war supporters have become (see here and here). Yet, the scope and vehemence of the antiwar project is astounding, and it's vital that pro-war supporters counter such left-wing hatred and propaganda.
A news report today indicates that the international community has become increasingly frustrated in its efforts to reduce Tehran's support for terrorist violence in Iraq; and that the International Atomic Energy Agency plans to announce the end of its four-year program of inspections in Iran, which has been marked by the government's growing rejection of intrusive review of the country's nuclear development facilities.
At the same time, French President Nicholas Sarkozy yesterday blasted Tehran for its nuclear ambitions, and warned that preventive strikes may be warranted in the face of continued Iranian recalcitrance.
As well, President Bush has warned against the specter of a "nuclear holocaust" should Tehran's authoritarian state develop devastating nuclear capabilities.
This concerted international drumbeat of counter-Iranian diplomacy might be considered a substantial measure of the West's stiffening resolve against Tehran's aggressive designs.
Of course, not everyone would agree with such an interpretation, particularly those on the hard left, who continue to demonize the Bush administration for its alleged fear-mongering and bellicosity.
For example, check out this entry from FireDogLake, which denounces the "Bush/Cheney" regime's rush to war:
Now Bush has described the Iranian regime as posing the threat of a “nuclear holocaust.” Not just a “mushroom cloud.” This time, it’s a nuclear holocaust — terms reserved for the most heinous of crimes and the most despicable of enemies. No sane government engages in such inflammatory rhetoric. But where is the dissent? Where is the outcry?
Throughout this inexorable march to war, the Democratic Congress has done worse than nothing. They’ve voted for resolutions condemning Iran without having the factual basis for knowing what Iran is doing or intends, relying only on neocon and Administration propaganda. They’d listened to dishonest and crazed warmongers like Joe Lieberman, for heaven’s sake. They’ve voted for resolutions that would support regime change, but they’ve refused to pass resolutions or amendments that would require the Administration to seek new authorization to start a war with Iran. Most of our Democratic Presidential candidates — Kucinich and Gravel excepted — have pretended to be “serious” people by refusing to rule out military strikes against Iran, even nuclear strikes. These are not serious positions; they are seriously irresponsible.
But of course, this Administration does not need authorization. It it now operating completely outside the law, outside the Constitution, outside any checks by Congress or influence from those who might counsel against war. By Presidential fiat, it has declared the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to be a terrorist group, effectively making them an enemy of the US without any Congressional declaration of war. We have a lawless, reckless and belligerent Administration, and it is about to start another unlawful war, even as it tries to convince the American people that it is a good thing that the regime has 160,000 US troops bogged down in another quagmire, vulnerable to an enlarged regional war. Who will tell this crazed regime to stop? To whom would it even listen?
The Administration has repeatedly told us Iran is responsible for many of the deaths of US soldiers in Iraq. They trot out their propagandists in Iraq to shows us the weapons and their markings, suggesting that their use in Iraq is a delberate policy of the Iranian government. Their neocon supporters are already spreading the theme that Iran has effectively declared war on the US by arming and training those who are killing our soldiers in Iraq.
The only thing the Bush/Cheney regime needs is the money to wage its aggressive war against Iran, but how they’ll get it is patently obvious. That money is embedded in the authorizations for supporting US troops and their activities in Iraq. Congress no longer asks what the money is for: it’s assumed to be for “supporting the troops.” Now the regime is asking for another supplemental authorization — another $50 billion — and while Democrats are promising a fight, some are already announcing they will “support the troops” by giving the Administration all the money it requests.
Wake up Democrats: you are being asked to fund an aggressive war against Iran. This war will be on your heads. Stop.
I see an ever-deepening sense of irrational desperation among the hard-line forces of the left. It's almost as if the radical cadres have indicted as imperialists and war criminals all the nations of the Western international order.
And notice the conspiratorial tone of the post: The "unlawful" Bush/Cheney "regime" now operates completely "outside the law." War rumblings are foisted by the "neocons" and the administration's "propagandists." Undue influence is detected among "dishonest and crazed warmongers" such as centrist Democratic Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut.
But of course those over at FireDog have the gumption to attack the Democrats for budgeting funds for this "aggressive war against Iran," while at the same time begging the party to "wake up" to the administration's imperialistic project.
It's really too much! I've noted before that some mainstream policy analysts have suggested that the military option cannot be ruled out, and indeed some have said preventive strikes might be the last, best alternative for decapitating the Iranian nuclear development program.
But hey, a little hard-headed policy analysis is not going to get in the way of a good leftist smear campaign against the Bush/Cheney warmongers in Washington.
As regular readers of this page know, I've had a few run-ins with a number of bloggers on the hard-left.
One exchange of note was with the ultra-liberal Ms. Libby over at The Impolitic. I had criticized Ms. Libby for her attacks on Peggy Noonan. Noonan had made the case in one of her Wall Street Journal essays that we might consider legislation establishing English as the national language - in light of our super high rates of immigration and language diversity - and I defended her position against Ms. Libby's dismissive multicultural rants against Noonan's refusal to "condescend" to the immigrants.
In response, Ms. Libby attacked me for my "irrational fears":
I think you're afraid of just about everything and your answer to every fear seems to be commit wanton acts of violence against those who make you tremble.
I don't think I'm calling on the emotion of fear when defending American culture, but here's my response to Ms. Libby:
It's not fear but a respect for tradition and reason that animates me...[yet]....
Fear is a basic human impulse, a necessary instinct. I'd be scared if planes were plowing into the New York office towers where I worked. I'd be scared if I was getting off the Madrid underground as it was exploding into a fiery ruin of death and destruction. But hey, it's easier to brush off legimate argumentation as "fear mongering" than actually engage it persuasively.
I was reminded of this exchange this week after reading Dr. Sanity's post on the psychology of fear. Dr. Sanity notes that fear is a reasonable response to dangerous environmental change, and as an emotion it is moderated by human reason.
Dr. Sanity compares the mature analysis of the current terrorist threat by Vice Admiral John Reed to the left-wing "fear-mongering" argument of the radical left. Where Vice Admiral Reed - who chairs the National Counterterrorism Center - suggests that it's perfectly reasonable for the U.S. to worry about and prepare for a terrorist attack, hard-line leftists condemn those who would mount vigorous policies of defense.
Dr. Sanity quotes Glenn Greenwald's prototypical example of a fear-mongering diatribe against the Bush administration:
Bush opponents must finally overcome the one weapon which has protected George Bush again and again: fear. Fear of terrorism is what the Administration has successfully inflamed and exploited for four years in order to justify its most extreme and even illegal actions undertaken in the name of fighting terrorism.
Dr. Sanity responds with a devasting critique of this line of logic from radical Bush-haters:
This blogger is essentially arguing that-- instead of using a healthy and appropriate psychological defense called anticipation against terrorism and the Islamofascists (who most certainly want to kill us and destroy our society)--we should instead switch to a psychotic one, denial; and maintain that the only thing we have to fear is...President Bush. The latter is a defense mechanism called displacement that I have already discussed in an earlier post.
In fact, there is a strong element of paranoia here too. And a noticeable touch of both projection (ask yourself who is really desperate about getting and keeping power) and hysteria--though he thinks he can use it to describe normal people justifiably afraid of irrational fanatics not amenable to reason. The implication is that the only purpose such "fears" (deemed "inappropriate" by Greenwald's) are being manipulated must be to "justify illegal actions."
The basic tenor of his fear is easy to deduce: while we are fighting this illusory enemy, Bushitler has been amassing power and will soon set himself up as a dictator and destroy our freedom. I will let you decide who we have to fear more--the President of the United States or the religious fanatics of Islam who want to obtain nuclear weapons and have issued a religious fatwa justifying using them? Who do we have to fear more: those who are trying to prevent another 9/11 or those who would like nothing better than to do something even worse in our country?
Anticipation is the realistic anticipation of or planning for future discomfort. This defense mechanism includes goal-directed and even overly careful planning or worrying--depending on the situation. Anticipating realistic events such as death or illness or separation and loss; and then consciously utilizing personal insight and self awareness to mitigate the worse effects, if possible is the height of maturity and healthy psychological functioning.
Read Dr. Sanity's whole post. I enjoy reading her blog immenseley. I like her powerful ability to pick apart left-wing irrationalism with cool reason and science. I particularly like this entry because it affirmed that I was essentially correct in my layman's analysis of the importance of fear in our responses to threat. Of course, deep psychological analysis such as this is anathema to those on the hard-left, like Ms. Libby at The Impolitic. Bush-haters are masterful at weaving all kinds of attacks on the administration's terror policy, denunciations that are generally supreme cases of the most utter denial of the fundamental challenges facing American national security today.
I'm always amazed at the hard left's fascist slurs against the Bush administration. Fascism has come to America, they say, and the Bush administration is the next Hitler!
Yeah, right! And Guantanamo will be our Auschwitz. We'll use ferries off the coast of Florida to transport our victims of genocide, rather than the cattle cars that rumbled the Jews to the camps during the Holocaust.
One could go on with the absurd examples, which is what Noemie Emory does in her devasting critique of current left-wing paranoia in the Weekly Standard:
The fascists are coming! Or rather, they're already here, installed in the White House, planning like mad to subvert the Constitution and extend their reign in perpetuity, having first suppressed and eviscerated all opposition and put all of their critics in jail. Thus goes the rant of America's increasingly unhinged left.
Read the whole thing - the article's a true classic. I love the conclusion in particular:
Let's give the last words to Mark Crispin Miller, as he told the blog Buzzflash in February 2006: "That sort of warped perception comes from extreme paranoid projectivity: the tendency to rail at others for traits or longings that one hates and fears inside oneself. We're dealing with a movement that is anti-rational. It's faith-based...it's a movement that believes what it believes, and it believes what it believes is right. It believes what it wants to believe. If it hears contrary evidence, it comes up with evidence of its own. This is not a movement that the rational can ever shame into surrendering by merely demonstrating its illogic to its followers. Paranoia is based on fear, and therefore on a kind of 'logic' that's impervious to evidence and quite incapable of learning from experience. Paranoia is an atavism, deep within us all."
Anti-rational, eh? Maybe Miller's on to something!
I haven't finished reading the Der Speigel article on the dramatic progress of U.S. forces in securing large sectors of Iraq. It's worth noting some points about it now, however.
The piece opens with a discussion of the consolidation of peace in the city of Ramadi just weeks after a series of deadly U.S. firefights with insurgents. Just prior to the engagement locals said the area was a virtually uninhabitable security nightmare. Here's a key synopsis of the argument, especially as it relates to the enduring meme on the left that the war is "lost" :
Ramadi is an irritating contradiction of almost everything the world thinks it knows about Iraq -- it is proof that the US military is more successful than the world wants to believe. Ramadi demonstrates that large parts of Iraq -- not just Anbar Province, but also many other rural areas along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers -- are essentially pacified today. This is news the world doesn't hear: Ramadi, long a hotbed of unrest, a city that once formed the southwestern tip of the notorious "Sunni Triangle," is now telling a different story, a story of Americans who came here as liberators, became hated occupiers and are now the protectors of Iraqi reconstruction.
Der Speigel's article joins a growing number of reports indicating that the surge is working. This USA Today article notes that the incidence of large-scale, al-Qaeda style truck bombings have declined by about half since early this year. Michael Yon, as well, continues to provide his online dispatches, which paint not only military progress, but political movement as well.
With the increasing frequency of positive reporting on the Iraq project, I'm sometimes blown away at leftist efforts to discredit the good news. A troubling case in point is this post by TRex over at FireDogLake.
TRex attacks Michael O'Hanlon in regards to his recent New York Times article making the center-left case for progress on the surge. Apparently, in an interview with Glenn Greenwald of Slate, O'Hanlon was peppered to the point of exhaustion regarding his on-the-ground research methods in Iraq. Most of O'Hanlon's sources for the update apparently were American, so TRex attacks him as a liar in his post:
I’ve been waiting for what seems like ages for Glenn Greenwald to publish the column detailing the results of his interview with feted “war critic” turned Iraq War cheerleader Michael O’Hanlon, and boy howdy, it doesn’t disappoint. You can read Greenwald’s column here with a full transcript of the conversation available here.
One by one, my man G2 demolishes the pillars supporting the conventional wisdom about O’Hanlon and Pollack’s wildly mendacious Op-Ed, “A War We Just Might Win” until finally, poor O’Hanlon must have desperately wanted to curl up and hide, whimpering, underneath the table. This is why over at Sadly, No! they call Greenwald, “Glennzilla”.
The lies are so thick on the ground around this issue that it’s hard to know where to begin, but let’s start with one of the more glaring falsehoods, that O’Hanlon and Pollack (both from the pro-Iraq-War “liberal” think tank, the Brookings Institute) were “fierce critics” of the president’s catastrophic invasion of Iraq.
Read the rest. TRex is mad because O'Hanlon since 2003 - in his periodic New York Times updates - has been a sober skeptic on the possibility of U.S. success in the war, and now he's changed his stripes. Maybe O'Hanlon's in fact a fire-breathing Cheneyite under cover at the liberal-leaning Brookings institution. It's all so subterranean!
The problem is that TRex has only succeeded in demonstrating how well he can work to impugn someone's reputation. He compares O'Hanlon's reporting with Judith Miller's New York Times articles making the case for Iraqi WMD in the run-up to the war. That ought to get the radical hordes fired up!
Unfortunately, the evidence is coming in too strongly for TRex to even have a shred of credibility. His post looks like a desperate rear-guard attempt to spin success into failure. Liberals are quaking that the U.S. might win in Iraq.
One might expect if the left "supported the troops" they'd be applauding at the news of American and Iraqi progress. Given FireDogLake's project (and I'm sure many others in the left blogosphere), that'd be a bad bet.
Hat tip to Jules Crittenden.
Some time ago I posted a popular entry, "What is a Chicken Hawk?"
In that post I cited Jeff Jacoby's response to the liberal slur against non-uniformed supporters of the Iraq war. You know the attack: "If you're so gung-ho on this disastrous imperial war, why don't you enlist and put your body in harm's way yourself?"
I wrote the post originally to respond to a rabidly hate-filled attack on my pro-administration stance. I still get these upleasant rants, of course, generally of the same venomous variety. Lefty commenters here just can't stand that I'm a civilian educator who supports the war. I'm attacked as a fascist blowhard, a "BushHitler" lemming, or whatever the most recent denunciation happens to be. You know what I'm talking about!
Recently I've been attacked by the anonymous guy over at Ecophotos blog. He first attacked me some time back - out of the blue - after I'd left a friendly comment on Echidne of the Snake's blog during one of my "good morning" commenting rounds to other bloggers.
Apparently, Ecophoto Man doesn't like what I write, and he's taken exception to my post on Markos Moulitsas, "The Daily Kos Syndrome." He called rightwingers "assholes" in his first comment (under the pseudonym "The New Civil War in Amerca"). But rather than debate the post by examining my critique of Kos's Washington Post essay, Ecophoto Man has returned for additional attacks. Here's a snippet of Ecophoto Man's rant: I AM A LIBERAL, A DEMOCRAT, AND A LOYAL AMERICAN CITIZEN WHOSE KID IS SERVING IN IRAQ (A CAPTAIN IN THE U.S. ARMY AND CURRENTLY ON HER THIRD DEPLOYMENT). YOUR WILD AND INCORRECT ASSERTION OFFENDS ME. GET A LIFE!
WRONG, MR. DOUGLAS. YOUR PARTISAN IDEOLOGY HAS NO ROOM TO HONOR THE SACRIFICES OF... THOSE FAMILIES WHO JUST HAPPEN TO BE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE AISLE. YOU AND YOUR READERS ARE LITTLE MORE THAN SELF-CONGRATULATING SYCOPHANTS.
I've think I've joked before about the PROCLIVITY FOR CAPITAL LETTERS in one of my earlier posts.
Notice the appeal to military service - Ecophoto Man's got a kid in uniform! The chicken hawk slur is alive and well!
So let's update a bit here: Lisa De Pasquale's got a great esssy up today at Townhall.com, "Are We Hypocrites for Not Enlisting?" The essay's a reponse to the recent criticism of Mitt Romney, who recently defended his sons in their choice not to enlist in the military. Here's the key segment of De Pasquale's entry: Liberals’ incessant calls to draft every 18-year-old College Republican is tantamount to the disrespect they have for the military. They demand that every person who supports the war join the military or send their children. If they don’t, they’re hypocrites. This isn’t going to be a winning strategy for the Left. Is every person that wears an AIDS ribbon, but doesn’t go to Africa (as Laura and Jenna Bush did) to help children with HIV/AIDS a hypocrite? Are vice presidents and celebrities that travel in private jets and SUVs while lecturing the little people on the proper amount of toilet paper also hypocrites?
In Treason, Ann Coulter wrote, “Instead of relentlessly attacking the military as immature or testosterone crazed – meaning ‘braver than me’ – liberals might have the good grace to realize they live in a country where big burly men are willing to protect them from bullies.” Thanks to those extraordinary men and women that persevered through the recruitment process and continue to serve, we all enjoy freedoms that we ourselves are not willing or able to fight for.
As I noted to Ecophoto Man, the chicken hawk argument doesn't fly with me (it's dumb and intellectually dishonest). I'll note, though, as I have before: My family members have served in uniform in World War I, World War II, and the Korean War. But it's really not necessary to mount this type of defense: It doesn't matter if conservatives or their family members have served. The chicken hawk attack is just a deflection: Liberals don't want to debate the real issues, so they'll assume your lack of military credentials, and then attack you as a hypocrite. It's pathetic, but that's the way it is on the irrational left these days. But hey, check out Jules Crittenden's response to the chicken hawk slur as well! With all the tough liberal talk of standing up for principle, maybe we'll see more peaceniks chuggin' on over to Iraq to line up as human shields!Update: Ecophoto Man has posted his entire rant in the comments section of a Daily Kos post.Now I know what's gotten that old "Swampcracker" all riled up! (Swampcracker's one more of Ecophoto Man's many pseudonyms.) If you attack the prophet the faithful will retaliate in a rage of pious passion. Where's Islamic Rage Boy when you need him!
I'm endlessly fascinated by the funky argumentative logics of the radical left. As some of my readers have noticed, I've initiated a number of debates with lefty bloggers in recent weeks (see here and here).
Some have asked: Why do I do it? Sure, a lot of it is fascination and a hint of orneriness. But more seriously, my response is that engaging the enemy at home is the best way to learn about the nature and capabilities of the adversary. And I do think we have an enemy at home in the hardline left, which I see as a modern fifth column movement seeking the destruction of the country.
It's difficult to engage lefties in debate, however. Even the most evidentiary, logical, or principled argument will fail to persuade a postmodern ideologue. As Dr. Sanity points out in a recent post, postmodernists somehow manage to win all arguments: Substitute almost any talking point of today's political left for "Manmade Global Warming Debate". and you their tried and true recipe for "winning" debates: ignore reality, truth, and reason.
It turns out that postmodern philosophy and rhetoric are simply perfect for this purpose (see here, here, here, here, here and here, for example) and can be mobilized rapidly whenever there is the slightest possibility that a glimpse of the real world might break through the barrier of perpetual psychological denial.
Those who live in the wonderful world of denial go through their daily lives secure in the knowledge that their self-image is protected against any information, feelings, or awareness that might make them have to change their world view. Nothing--and I mean NOTHING--not facts, not observable behavior; not the use of reason or logic; or their own senses will make an individual in denial re-evaluate that world view. All events will simply be reinterpreted to fit into the belief system of that world--no matter how ridiculous, how distorted, or how psychotic that reinterpretation appears to others. Consistency, common sense, reality, and objective truth are unimportant and are easily discarded--as long as the world view remains intact.
This is one of the wondrous aspects of postmodern rhetoric, where reality and truth are only relative, is that anybody's "reality" is as good as anybody else's. For the dedicated postmodernist, polls and opinion are the final arbiters of truth; and the results of a poll or two, constructed along ideological lines to fit a particular template, is all you need to confirm your reality.
Reality is a matter of opinion (simply ignore any polls that don't agree with your reality, of course). This type of useful rhetoric can even determine today, what history will say many tomorrows from now. With enough repetition and passion, "history" can be set in stone in the temporal present!
Extremely convenient for anyone who wants to avoid confronting their own contradictions in the present.
The rhetorical passion and word play is mere camouflage for the inherent philosophical and psychological contradictions that the postmodern left exploits in order to achieve and maximize political power. They are perfectly aware that their positions don't make any sense and can be refuted by anyone with basic knowledge of logic and logical fallacies; but their goal is to maintain the psychological denial necessary to believe in the left's ideology. Interpreting this defense and exposing it is essential to countering that ideology.
Read the whole thing. Dr. Sanity also adds this point a little later in the entry: The entire purpose of the contradictory discourse technique is actually to shut down any argument or debate.
The opposite of my fascination with the left's flawed argumentative logics is the pure, almost raging frustration I get with these types. I think this flows from my profession as a teacher.
In the classroom, when engaging students in discussion, there is the air of the institutional mission to educate, to open minds, to challenge beliefs and opinions with countervailing data or arguments. Most students have a sense of respect and deference for knowledgeable discourse grounded in evidence or history. I don't find that to be the case in exchanges with the radicals. In fact, in one of my debates with one of the craziest of my left opponents, my arguments caused so much frustration on the other side as to elicit a violent reaction, and some retaliation.
In any case, that's enough of this for today. I'll be posting more on liberal irrationalism as the whim dictates.
Susan Gardner and Markos Moulitsas published an exceptionally self-important commentary in yesterday's Washington Post. The piece is a great example of the Daily Kos Syndrome, which is the growing phenomenon in the Kos crowd for narcissism and megalomania.
Here, Gardner and Moulitsas argue that the hard left netroots now occupy the "center" of American politics. The Democratic Party - and its reactionary Democratic Leadership Council wing - has compromised with the evil forces of the American right, mounting attacks against the "centrist" blogosphere from the redoubts of Fox News!
Read some of the essay for yourself:
Three years ago things looked bleak for the Democratic Party. George Bush had just won a second term while his party consolidated its grip on Congress. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay crowed about a "permanent Republican majority," and Beltway Democrats acquiesced as Republicans built their unchallenged (and lawless) unitary executive.
Democrats appeared to be on the run, disorganized and demoralized. But outside of Washington there was hope. Grass-roots Democratic activists had seen the future of our politics in Howard Dean -- plain-spoken and unapologetic. His presidential candidacy had come up short, but its fresh, optimistic approach -- predicated on offering clear contrasts between the two parties -- was poised to redefine the party.
Dean was elected chairman of the Democratic Party despite predictions of electoral doom by the usual suspects in Washington, including the Democratic Leadership Council. In the House, Democrats chose Nancy Pelosi to lead them over current DLC Chairman Harold Ford, who warned of disaster if Pelosi won. Calling her a "throwback" who practiced a "destructive and obstructive" style of politics, Ford proclaimed, "I don't think Nancy Pelosi's kind of politics is what's needed right now." Today, Nancy Pelosi is the first female speaker of the House.
Ford, like his fellow Washington insiders, grossly misunderstood the American electorate. He and Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley continue to do so [" Our Chance to Capture the Center," op-ed, Aug. 7]. Convinced that this is fundamentally a conservative nation, Ford demanded that Democrats unceasingly inch toward the right or risk electoral irrelevance. As then-DLC official Ed Kilgore put it in 2005, "If we put a gun to everybody's head in the country and make them pick sides, we're not likely to win." But we who live outside the D.C. bubble -- in all 50 states, in counties blue and red -- were hearing voices at odds with the Washington consensus. People wanted real choices at the ballot box. And given the disastrous rule of the Bush administration, they wanted a Democratic Party that stood tall and pushed back like a true opposition.
The new leadership responded. A concerted grass- and Net-roots effort, bridging online activists and the labor movement, forced Democratic officials to reject any "compromise" with right-wing interests seeking to gut Social Security. Democratic poll numbers rose in the wake of this victory as Bush's fell. Standing strong for a core Democratic program was not only good for our country, it was smart politics.
Months later we championed Ned Lamont's victorious primary challenge to Sen. Joe Lieberman in Connecticut. Beltway insiders predicted that our success would cost Democrats the U.S. Senate, and consultants allied with the DLC fretted that activists were "pushing the party to the left."
In fact, we pushed the party so far left that we positioned it squarely in the American mainstream and last year won a historic, sweeping congressional victory, something the "centrist" groups had been unable to accomplish for decades -- not even in the DLC's glory days of the 1990s.Read the rest of the piece.
I'd have to differ in my interpretation of these events.
Howard Dean? The biggest loser of the 2004 election season. His appointment to the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee was a demotion as far as presidential aspirations are concerned. Perhaps his move to head the party was a concession to the left's netroots fundraising abilities, but Iowa voters showed that even a lot of money doesn't trump common sense analysis of the candidate and their credentials.
Harold Ford and Nancy Pelosi? Ford lost his Tennessee Senate race in 2006, but his move to the DLC appears to be a smart one, given the electoral record of DLC-backed candidates (Kimberly Strassel noted Friday that DLC-oriented candidates composed the vast majority of Democratic House seat pick-ups last November). Nancy Pelosi's certainly made history as the first woman House Speaker, but her legislative leadership record thus far doesn't appear to be one worth emulating. As Strassel notes:
Nancy Pelosi shrewdly presented her party as more centrist in last year's election, yet upon winning tossed the gavel to her liberal wing. Egged on by activists, Congressional Democrats have spent eight months fighting for surrender in Iraq, tanking trade pacts with Latin America and South Korea, and maneuvering to institute backdoor socialized health care.
Democratic poll numbers? Nancy Pelosi's negatives have been steadily rising since taking office in January. In comparison, the "unpopular" President Bush has seen his poll numbers improving, and he's currently just about tied with the Congress in the public's esteem, which is noteworthy, as the radical left constantly berates Bush as the "worst president in history."
Ned Lamont? His inability to win against Joseph Lieberman in Connecticut's general election is a powerful rebuttal to Kos's claims of netroots centrism.
The Democrats were unable to win control of Congress for decades? That's a strange one? What decades? The Democrats held the majority in Congress until 1994! It is an achievement to take majority control in 1996, but it pays to get the history straight.
And what's all this about the DLC's glory days of the 1990s? Well, let's not forget Bill Clinton, the only two-term Democratic President since F.D.R. What'd he do? Move the party to the center, right? Isn't that what this tricky commentary piece is all about. Can't stand free trade and welfare reform right? No, that stuff's only for the evil right wing!
Moulitisas and his crowd are deluded - they're suffering from the DKS, the Daily Kos Syndrome. There are other manifestations of the disease worth noting, not the least of which is the Kos crowd's ugly tendency toward anti-Semitism. I'll look at some of those other DKS symptoms in later entries.
Dr. Sanity gets a load of whacked-out e-mail! She posted her latest installment of the "hate-filled electronic missives chronicles" yesterday, breaking down this most recent lefty attack into psychological categories (projection, paranoia, fantasy, etc.).
Read the e-mail in the post, then the response. I particularly liked this section on "Delusion/Entitlement/Malignant Narcissism":
Let's not forget that this person undoubtedly thinks of itself as a real American patriot, speaking truth to power ("your little drunken POS brain dead appointed moron squatting in my White house"). Note the reference to "my" White house, as if the White House belongs only to his/her ilk--implying that if he/she and his/her friends are not living in it, it was somehow illegitimately taken from them because it belongs to them!
Finally, as a card-carrying member of the compassionate, loving, and non-violent political left--who always support peace, love, brotherhood and justice--you may come away with the non-PC impression that the author is actually not a very nice person at all!
What gives this aspect of badron023's personality away? Call me psychic, but his/her obvious dedication to the basic "principles" of today's left, comes through in phrases such as "get your sorry azz" and "little drunken POS brain dead appointed moron" and "fkn chit stain traitors".
The deliberate abuse of spelling and grammar is a dead giveaway that badron023 is a product of the primarily self-esteem-enhancing K-12 curriculum of today's public education, which encourages the notion that just because you have some opionion or feeling that something is true (even if you can't articulate it in any rational or coherent manner); that your opinion or feeling will always trump objective reality because the only reality that matters is how good you feel about yourself.
Like all the denialists of the left, these little adolescent drama kings and queens intend to twist, manipulate and distort reality and truth to fit their agenda.
And I, for one, do not intend to let them get away with it - at least on this blog.
In the great scheme of things, what I say about them doesn't matter much. Logic dictates that both of us cannot be correct in our diametrically opposed assessments of what is real and what is not; about what is true and what is false.
We may, in fact, both be wrong.
I am content to let the final arbiter be reality, itself.
Ah, reality. Now that's a good thing! And to admit that we could be wrong? Unheard of in my exchanges with the radical left!
Dr. Sanity had an interested attack e-mail in her in-box yesterday. It's pretty much a typical dumb leftist screed:
You know nothing of psychology that u use deceitfully to seve your greed for power, or politics with your red neck vulgarity and superficial understanding of others.You will remain all your life a third rate fascist pig riddled with shame at being such a masculine woman with guilty penis envy, and taking it out on the poor and helpless in this world.Nothing surprises more than a jewish person who has learned nothing from the holocaust,which means most american jews and all of so called israel, with nothing but hatred in their hearts towards those who cannot defend themselves.You are as cowardly as the nazis.You are additionally repulsive physically, get some surgery bitch !
I commented on the post, mentioning that I get these attacks from time to time as well, sometimes accompanied by threats. Here's one from my "Anti-American Dogma" post:
You are Anti-American
as the country unites to to remove these anti-constitutional traitors
even conservatives are joining 54% of this nation in the move to impeach
your the Anti-American
your the radical
YOU TAKE PARTY OVER COUNTRY
YOPU SHOULD BE F*CKING HUMG 21%er
TRIED WITH TREASON
HUNG
80% OF THE NATION WANTS YOU GONE
YOUR THE ENEMY OF AMERICA
RADICAL ANTI-AMERICAN PARTY OVER COUNTRY TRAITOR
YOU SHOULD BE HANGING
I'm seeing some similarities, but I must say: Hey, who needs contractions when you've got CAPITAL LETTERS!!!
As Doc Sanity puts it, these guys are losers "whose lack of grammatical skills" are only exceeded by their "lack of intelligence and class."
Irrationalism is certainly a crowning mark of the hard-left forces arrayed against the U.S. Sometimes, though, you have to get down in the trenches and engage these whacked-out loonies to experience it first hand (see here and here).
After surfing blogs the other day, I read a post or two over at Digby's page. I strolled through the comments for awhile. Most of the remarks were little excursions over to Bush-bashing Neverland, which is obviously characteristic of the liberal blogosphere.
I took exception to this comment, though, from N=1, who blogs at Universal Health: I believe that the policy of redeploying the Army personnel over and over for 15 months at a stretch is actually a policy of trying to get them killed so that Bush doesn’t incur their lifelong health expenses. I really think he’s using them as literal IED fodder.
The whole comment thread can be found at this post.
After reading N=1's comments, I clicked on her link, and left an objection on her page:
Man! It’s hard to believe that you’d believe such a thing. President Bush has met with thousands of military families, consoling them in their losses. It’s been the hardest part of his presidency. We made mistakes going into Iraq, but we’re there now, and we can win. Thankfully Reid & Co. are so incompetent in their obstructionism, the administration will have some time to see the surge work.
Later, N=1 responded on her page as follows:
Donald: Provide the evidence to support your claims....
Wishing something was so does not make it thus. Repeated lengthy deployments - and record length 15 month deployments - using troops who have been exposed to repeated concussive blasts, and to whom inadequate mental health care was and is offered, let alone adequate armament and equipment - is not a logical plan, by all accounts - military leadership, civilian leadership, the troops themselves, and the informed public. It boils down to three main possible rationales: desperation, willful ignorance and negligence or intentional manslaughter to contain casualty expenses.
Then she came over on my blog to leave a comment:
You hijacked a comment thread on my blog to post several claims without supporting evidence. Please revisit and provide evidence which you find compelling. And next time, please be courteous and place comments on the appropriate associated blog post(s).
Why all the name calling on your blog? Radical - what is the definition of radical? Nuts - why use derogatory terms and ad hominem attacks on people? Argue the ideas, the underlying evidence, and the logic of arguments.
The purpose of debate is to bring opposing arguments to bear, not to destroy other people. Debate is no warfare. It is logic, argument, strategy and congruence of principle and virtue.
I responded on her page, saying that I had not "hijacked" her post. Indeed, I noted that no one had commented at all to that point, so there was nothing to hijack. I also pointed out that "radical" was a maintream term in the literature on ideology, and thus I wasn't name-calling. Finally, I noted I'd back up with evidence any point I made, and left this quote on President Bush from Newsweek, which was one of the sources for my remarks:
"I don't think Congress ought to be running the war," he told reporters before the House voted, largely on party lines, to require that the United States withdraw most combat troops by April 1, 2008. "I think they ought to be funding the troops." Privately, however, he was more reflective. Talking to Sen. Gordon Smith of Oregon about another matter, the president got on to the subject of burying dead kids, a highly personal topic for Smith, whose 21-year-old adopted son committed suicide in 2003. Smith says he told the president that his opposition to the war was based in part on "knowing what it's like as a parent to bury a child." Smith pointedly added: "And we're doing a lot of that in this country now." Bush responded, "I understand, because I've talked to several thousand families." Smith tells NEWSWEEK: "He didn't say this, but I know that's the hardest part of his job, and I know how personally this all grieves him."
This wasn't enough for N=1. She rejected my response in an e-mail later, and then deleted the exchange from her blog:
I am taking this conversation off blog as it does not pertain to the parent post.
Thank you for providing the quote from Newsweek. That Bush stated he visited several thousand troops is without independent verification, though. My counter to that is that he exaggerated, and that the number is far fewer. Perhaps the White House would like to put dates of visits and number of those visited in writing, and then we all could assess the veracity of that assertion.
You didn't cite the source of your definition of radical, hard left, reactionary, etc. I would like to know the sources for these terms, as they are used so freely - not solely on your blog, but in many fora.
And yes, inserting a comment randomly after a non-related post is thread hi-jacking, in my book. It doesn't demonstrate respect for the author, and my posts are all easily found via the categories, tag cloud or via the search functions all placed conveniently on the left column of my blog....
I welcome legitimate debate, but not ad hominem attacks or unsupported speculation or propaganda presented as fact. As a first time visitor to a blog, I read the blog rules, if any, read several posts to try to gain an understanding into the blog's intent and the author's style and interests, and then I respond accordingly. Drive by comments aren't something that lend themselves to further consideration and discussion.
You are welcome to visit and comment, but please stay on topic and provide sources where appropriate.
Well, there you have it. Not once did N=1 attempt to support her outlandish original claims regarding the administration. No, her ploy was to assume the attack mode from the start, using the most freaky, non-existent rules of blog ettiquette to evade and obfuscate a simple challenge to her allegations. The finale, of course, was to delete the exhange, elimating from outside review her shifty legerdemain.
When you're dealing with the far-lefties such as this, no amount of or evidentiary argumentation will break them free from their paronoid-style dissonance. I could have given N=1 a peer-reviewed article on the administration's public relations with military families, only to have it rebuked as "propaganda."
I left it alone after that, but it left me thinking: 1) You just can't make this stuff up! 2) N=1 needs some help. She's apparently a nurse writing a socialist medicine blog, so perhaps we can reasonably assume she'll know a good psychiatric clinic.
All in a day's work exposing the left - it's getting to be a big job.
