Kate Zernick has an article about the longstanding friendship between California Reps Nancy Pelosi and George Miller. It has some interesting facts, but that is not what concerns me. I am getting extremely tired of the New York Times, Washington Post, and every other cocktail frankfurter eating pundit warning the nation about the left-wing of the Democratic Party. I never, ever, ever remember reading columns lamenting how far to the right Tom DeLay governed. Why do we have to put up with this shit from our purportedly liberal press?
In a friendship stretching over 30 years and many plane trips to Washington from their neighboring California districts, Representatives Nancy Pelosi and George Miller have become so close that, as colleagues say, they finish each others’ sentences.
So it was not surprising that, when Mrs. Pelosi faced the first test of her role as speaker-elect of the House of Representatives, Mr. Miller was in the background, pushing her to back Representative John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania to replace her as Democratic leader over the more centrist candidate, Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, who had been her No. 2 for four years.
In the week since Mr. Hoyer won the position, Democratic leaders have played down any disharmony created by the leadership struggle. But Mr. Miller’s role raised fears that after carefully nudging her party to the center, which many say helped the Democrats retake the majority, Mrs. Pelosi would let her liberal allies have too much influence.
In the concerns of some Democrats — and the I-told-you-so’s of some Republicans — Mr. Miller represents Mrs. Pelosi’s true liberal soul, and his pushing for Mr. Murtha a sign that the far left would dominate and destabilize the Democrats, after they have emerged from 12 years in the minority.
In what fucking world is Jack Murtha considered a liberal? Seriously. In what fucking world is anti-choice, gung-ho Marine, master of military appropriations, Jack Murtha considered a liberal? It is truly insane for him to be categorized that way.
Moreover, in what universe did the Democrats win election by nudging towards the center? The Dems ran on universal health care, fair-trade agreements, closing the Medicare D donut hole, standing up to the pharmaceutical and energy industries, and ending the war in Iraq. Of all the planks of the winning Democratic campaign platform, about the only centrist things they ran on were cutting interest rates on student loans and raising the minimum wage. Those aren’t really centrist planks, they are more like consensus planks that have the potential to gain Republican support.
So now people like George Miller, John Conyers, Barney Frank, et al., are going to ‘destabilize’ the Democratic Party? We just had 12 years in the wilderness running on centrist crap like school uniforms, experimenting with school vouchers, mending affirmative action, punitive welfare reform, ending bankruptcy protections, NAFTA, GATT, CAFTA, the effing lockbox, etc. What did it get us but 12 years in the wilderness?
You’d think we spent all that time in the minority because Clinton tried to get health care for everyone and stop bigotry against gays in the military. It’s like triangulation never happened. We lost in 1994 because of what we were before 1994, not because of what we were after it. And we lost after 1994 because of what we were after it, not because of what we were before it.
Bill Clinton wanted to save his own ass, that is why he ran to the center. The party followed him into the abyss, abandoning populist politics and with it, any appeal to the lower middle class.
Clinton’s centrism left the south free of Democrats. We have made up for it in some of the northern suburbs, but that has been greatly aided by the fundamentalist lurch of the GOP.
Jim Webb and Jon Tester ran populist campaigns and won. Harold Ford ran a centrist campaign and lost. That’s the lesson folks. Who do you think Jon Tester has more in common with? Joe Lieberman and Harold Ford or George Miller and Russ Feingold?
Idiots.
