Democrats
mikethemadbiologist | August 20, 2006Frank Rich in the NY Times has a good analysis of the Lamont primary victory in CT, although I think he downplays what it means for the Democratic Party. Rich writes:
The hyperbole that has greeted the Lamont victory in some quarters is far more revealing than the victory itself. In 2006, the tired Rove strategy of equating any Democratic politician's opposition to the Iraq war with cut-and-run defeatism in the war on terror looks desperate. The Republicans are protesting too much, methinks. A former Greenwich selectman like Mr. Lamont isn't easily slimed as a reincarnation of Abbie Hoffman…
mikethemadbiologist | August 17, 2006I've been meaning to write a comprehensive post about why there is such anger among some Democrats towards Lieberman. Fortunately, Anonymous Liberal Staffer at MyDD.com has a great post describing exactly what I was thinking. I'll turn it over to her/him:
Since 9/11, Republicans from the White House to backbenchers like Jean Schmidt have mercilessly implied that Democrats are traitors who are undermining their country every time they question the President -- and it was in joining them that Joe Lieberman lost it all...
"We undermine the President's credibility at our nation's peril,"…
mikethemadbiologist | August 14, 2006Here's some interesting articles I pulled off the internets for you:
Publius argues "The fact that Iraq was so incompetently executed is actually the least of its problems. The bigger problem is that the idea of it represented a staggering failure of vision and judgment in terms of anti-terrorism policy. It's simply not possible to devise an anti-terrorism policy more at odds with the nature of the threat facing us."
An interesting NY Times magazine article by Michael Young on how Hizbollah relates to the Lebanese political scene (as opposed to the War on Terra).
Neil the Ethical Werewolf…
mikethemadbiologist | August 10, 2006In my stream of consciousness post about Joe Lieberman, I noted that Lieberman's loss reveals just how inept the Democratic consultant and advisor class is. Over at My Left Wing, thereisnospoon picks up on this theme:
This was never our race to win. It was Joe Lieberman's to lose. More specifically, it was the DLC's to lose.
And, as usual, the DLC lost. Again. With that ever familiar 48% number staring them in the face.
Let's face some cold, hard facts, people. We didn't do this, because what we supposedly DID was impossible to do--in any politcal climate.
In one corner, you had a…
mikethemadbiologist | August 8, 2006So says the Hartford Courant. Lieberman is precisely why the Democratic Establishment perpetually has its collective head up its collective backside: an incumbent senator loses to a no-name challenger whose only previous political experience was in local government. The challenger was massively outspent and did not have over a decade's worth of political favors to call upon. And Lieberman still lost. Instead of taking the hint, he plows on in the name of a cause I can't fathom. Overwhelmingly, his party and the country reject his stands on Iraq, social security, and popular culture,…
mikethemadbiologist | August 6, 2006Here are some posts I collected off those internets you might find interesting:
The NSA literally doesn't have enough electricity to run all of its equipment. At least, it will be harder for them to violate our freedoms. Maybe there is an upside to global warming...
An interesting take on upper middle class subsurbs. I'm not sure I agree, but it is interesting.
A nice takedown of the Bush Administration's economic 'accomplishments.'
Juan Cole gets all Dark Lord of Mordor on your ass. Seriously, he proposes a very interesting hypothesis. Given all of the ridiculousness Little Lord…
mikethemadbiologist | August 3, 2006It appears that some Lieberman supporters are so frustrated by the internet support for Ned Lamont, they are not only attempting to provoke violence at Lamont events, but are actually behaving violently. From Matt Stoller (italics mine):
A large man, around 50 years old or so, then started screaming at Ned, "Are you an Al Sharpton Democrat, or a Bill Clinton Democrat?" Ned was trying to answer, and the gentleman kept yelling. The Lamont press secretary tried to intervene, and meanwhile, the people behind the counter who owned the restaurant were horrified and embarrassed. Then Ned Lamont…
mikethemadbiologist | August 1, 2006I was going to write a post about the Lamont insurgency in Connecticut, but thankfully, the NY Times editorial staff pretty much covered everything I wanted to say. Instead, I'll discuss something else that's going on here: the beginning of the end of single-issue politics in the Democratic Party. Mark Schmitt describes this well (italics mine):
They aren't looking for the party to be more liberal on traditional dimensions. They're looking for it to be more of a party. They want to put issues on the table that don't have an interest group behind them - like Lieberman's support for the…
mikethemadbiologist | July 29, 2006...to give Paris Hilton a tax cut on money she never earned. Over at DailyKos, David Grossman comments on the Republicans' attempt to permanently repeal the estate tax:
So the Republicans in the U.S. House stayed up until almost 2am tonight to give Paris Hilton some extra money (there's something funny about millions of dollars being showered on Paris Hilton in the dead of night, but I'll leave that joke for someone else to finish).
How much extra money? Try a cool $91,089,200.
Read the whole post to find out more (and try not to vomit).
Any Democrat who fails to use this for political…
mikethemadbiologist | July 11, 2006For all of you who have ever played with little toy soldiers (and I don't mean that as a perjorative), Steve Gilliard's piece on (Party)-Jumpin' Joe Lieberman is really funny. I figure there might be one or two around these parts...
mikethemadbiologist | July 8, 2006While I'm not the world's biggest fan of George Lakoff, he has published two posts that are worth reading. The first, co-authored by Lakoff, Marc Ettlinger, and Sam Ferguson, argues that the "Bush is incompetent" theme is a losing strategy (coturnix has additional commentary on this post):
The mantra of incompetence has been an unfortunate one. The incompetence frame assumes that there was a sound plan, and that the trouble has been in the execution. It turns public debate into a referendum on Bush's management capabilities, and deflects a critique of the impact of his guiding philosophy. It…
mikethemadbiologist | July 3, 2006Kos should definitely be given credit for creating the political site DailyKos. But unfortunately, skill sets don't always transfer. His political analysis suffers greatly from, well, not to put to fine a point on it, his ignorance of political events before 1992. I say this because Kos often seems to have internalized Gingrich-era talking points:
Libertarian Dems are not hostile to government like traditional libertarians.
But unlike the liberal Democrats of old times (now all but extinct), the Libertarian Dem doesn't believe government is the solution for everything. But it sure as heck…
mikethemadbiologist | June 19, 2006I've always had a problem with the internet 'progressives.' I have never liked the term progressive, particularly since I'm not ashamed to call myself a liberal (here's one reason why). I haven't blogged much about the YearlyKos convention and ensuing controversy (being a lefty blogger, albeit a small one, I suppose I am the actual subject matter of much of that commentary). But a couple of posts have really made it clear to me why I'm not excited at all by the internet progressives.
It's the same reason I'm not excited by the mainstream Democratic Party as a whole: they don't seem to…
mikethemadbiologist | June 11, 2006Well, that's what Dan Balz of the Washington Post seems to think. I was reading this article about the YearlyKos convention by Balz, and he kept referring to the positions the participants held as "doctrinaire" and "liberal." Now, and I say this as someone who is proud to call himself a liberal, my one concern with the whole Kos phenomenon and the appointment of Kos-the site and the author-as the standard bearer of the Democratic Party is that it's not liberal enough. So why does Balz think the Kossites are "doctrinaire liberals" and engage in "liberal attacks?"
John Aravosis sums up the…