Whose Democratic Party is This Anyway?
by Evan, Newslog, AlterNet.org
You want to see the battle for the soul of the Democratic party – IN REAL TIME – consult the blogs. The latest round was touched off by an MSNBC blurb on the Democratic Leadership Council, a corporation designed to push centrist politics (that's the nicest description I can muster).
The MSNBC blurb featured the DLC's CEO Al From explaining that, in order to win: “You've got to reject Michael Moore and the MoveOn crowd.”
This apparent rejection of a good portion of the grassroots energy and
support [greatly angered] a number in the blogosphere, including Center for American Progress fellow David Sirota, who fired back:
Some
people seem surprised by that. But let's be clear – it's no secret that
the DLC is a corporate-funded institution designed to stealthily
corporatize the Democratic Party. Like a bad virus, they exist solely
to infiltrate and destroy the party from within. As From's totally
out-of-touch comments show, their insular, snarky, and self-righteous
operation in Washington is increasingly threatened by the grassroots
outside the Beltway to the point where they are openly demanding a
purge of critical parts of the party, while defending potential
turncoats.
Meanwhile,
as coincidence would have it, one of the top liberal/progressive blogs
(perhaps the most well-read blog of all), Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo
just happens to have, as its guest blogger for the week, the DLC's Ed
Kilgore. Kilgore, writing about Bush's social security woes, ended with
this statement that caught the eye of many a blogger:
“He's
going to lose this fight, folks, whether or not one or two Democrats in
the House or the Senate give him “cover” by offering some sort of deal
that neither party will accept.”
This was
interpreted by the American Prospect's Matt Yglesias and popular
blogger Atrios as an attempt to give cover to DLC sweetheart Joe Lieberman who, rumor had it, was limbering up for a walk across the aisle to cut a deal on social security.
(Click here to read the complete entry.)
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