I like Jonathon Alter. I think he is one of the most honest reporters in mainstream journalism and punditry. His latest column, however, has a couple of cow pies. Starting with this:
…the revival of the romance of the antiwar left is a potential disaster for the Democrats. That’s what gave the world Richard Nixon in 1968, when ideologically pure liberals who had backed Eugene McCarthy in the primaries refused to rally around Hubert Humphrey because Humphrey was “complicit” in the Vietnam War machine.
I don’t know how many times we are going to be forced to listen to this argument. What gave the world Richard Nixon in 1968? It was a disastrous war in Asia, an assassin’s bullet that killed RFK, and a Democratic Machine led by the likes of Mayor Daley that had no respect for the “anti-war left”. Blaming the anti-war left for the result of the 1968 election is ludicrous. Let’s look at the popular vote: Nixon 31,783,783, 43.4%, Humphrey 31,271,839 42.7%, Wallace 9,901,118 13.5%. Wallace was more responsible for Nixon’s success than the anti-war left. Wallace took ten percent of the vote in unionized neighborhoods. More importantly, when Humphrey finally called for a bombing halt, he began closing the gap and rising in the polls. It was his limited embrace of the anti-war left that made the election so close.
It was 1972 where the anti-war left arguably cost the Democrats a chance to beat Nixon, not 1968. They accomplished this by flexing their muscles and nominating George McGovern, a World War Two hero, and a liberal in the FDR mode. McGovern was right in the issues. I defy anyone to argue that he was wrong to call for an end to the Vietnam war, or that Nixon was right to exploit racial hatred as the main theme of his campaign. That’s leaving aside the Watergate burglary and other excesses of Nixon’s campaign. The left has nothing to apologize for in nominating McGovern, and it didn’t prevent them from winning the Presidency in 1976. It’s only in the deluded minds of mainstream punditry that being proven right on the issues, but losing an election as a result of taking the correct positions, is a source of shame. But again, that is not what happened in 1968.
Alter lays another egg, here:
if the blogs aren’t a force on the ground, they are becoming a powerful factor in directing the passions (and pocketbooks) of far-flung Democratic activists. They’re helping fuel a collective version of what shrinks call “projection,” where the anger of Democrats at Bush is projected on a handy target, in this case Lieberman. But in doing so, they have neglected what FDR called “the putting of first things first.” Job one for Democrats is identifying which Republican House incumbents are vulnerable in their own states and directing all available energy against them. Savaging fellow Democrats (except those who cannot win) should come after taking control, not before.
Alter reasons that taking Lieberman out is a waste of energy and resources. He doesn’t understand that Lieberman is a Republican on the issues the most to the bloggers: the war, assaults from the religious right, and our civil liberties. He is an enabler. He’s also a publicity hound. If some of our Senators, like Ben Nelson and Mark Pryor, are frequently on the wrong side of the issues, they are not racing to the nearest camera to stomp on the party message and spew Republican talking points. Lieberman’s presence and performance in the national media is positively harmful in a way that Ben Nelson is not. Moreover, there is little risk that taking Lieberman out will hand his seat to the GOP. This is essentially a free challenge. Were we to go after Ben Nelson, we’d probably wind up another Sam Brownback style Republican in his seat. That would be a waste of energy and resources.
The media admires Senators that work across the aisle.
…the Senate needs collegial moderates who work across party lines. It’s the only way to stop the really bad stuff.
That depends. In our current environment, the really bad stuff includes having Samuel Alito in a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court. It was Joe Lieberman that helped broker the Gang of 14 that put Alito on the court. Working across party lines also means enabling the President to spy without warrants, detain American citizens indefinately, and so on. When your goverment is ruled by a party that is as badly misguided and immoral as the GOP, working across the aisle doesn’t prevent the really bad stuff. It might make a piece of education legislation a little less catastrophic than it otherwise might be, but that is about as far as bipartisanship can go in this environment. We don’t need moderation right now. We need a principled defense of discarded American policies and ideals. Lieberman isn’t providing that. And he doesn’t have the excuse that he serves in a deeply red state.
I like Alter. But even Alter doesn’t get it.
