I noticed the BT front-page being displayed on the Beltways Boys program this weekend. But I had no idea why Fred Barnes and Mort Kondracke chose to display it until I got my hands on the transcript for the show. Apparently they couldn’t even utter the name of this blog or put up a nice URL for their friendly audience. The louts.
Here’s what they said.
BARNES: Down: the so-called nut-roots: angry, liberal bloggers empowered by the last election are not only attacking Republicans, they’re after moderate Democrats, like Representative Ellen Tauscher. The anti-moderate backlash has even party stalwarts like Steny Hoyer and Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi on the defensive.
KONDRACKE: Yes. The – all of the – these left-wing blogs, a lot of them anyway, are attacking Ellen Tauscher, who’s the head of the – the – the New Democrats in – in the House of Representatives, who has been moving left, along with all of the other New Democrats. You know, they – their.
BARNES: Not fast enough.
KONDRACKE: Well, they are – they – yes, not fast enough, exactly.
But I think this is perfectly typical of the way the far left operates in this country, to attack people in their own party. Why? Who do they think is responsible for all the evils that take place in the world? Their own country, the United States of America. They attack their own first.
BARNES: You know, Mort, this once again, I – I think underscores the truth of Michael Barone’s take on – on political bloggers. He says that it’s a win-win for Republicans and conservatives. Because the liberal bloggers, all they do is attack Democrats, their own people, driving them to the left, as you say. And – and hurting their election possibilities.
The conservative bloggers, they spend all their time attacking the liberal mainstream media. So it’s win-win for Republicans and conservatives. And – and the liberal bloggers, they don’t seem to mind this at all, what they’re doing. They have a different view of America politically than I think is realistic.
KONDRACKE: Absolutely. And I think – I think to the extent that they succeed in driving the Democratic presidential candidates to the left, you know, they’re going to – they’re going to repeat the – the errors of Michael Dukakis and George McGovern and Walter Mondale and all those Democratic candidates who failed, even in this kind of environment, which ought to favor the election of a Democratic presidential candidate in – in 2008.
BARNES: Republicans are cheering them on.
Must be a reference to this piece. As for the central charge, I don’t think the country is anywhere near as right-wing as Fred Barnes seems to think. The country is apathetic and will be led anywhere it is told. Just look at Bush’s record. He was barely elected either time and he governed like he had a 90% mandate. He stole more money than Ghengis Khan managed to, in his long career.
We’ll keep moving the party left until it has the courage of its convictions. The more it listens to the Beltways Boys the more impotent it appears.
I guess I am totally out of the loop. I have no idea who the Beltway Boys are. LOL Never heard of them and they sound like nut jobs to me if they will take once article and one of many issues covered on the blogs to decide that we are attacking the party.
I much prefer the way Democrats are unafraid to say where they disagree with elected officials(both parties) than the blind faith people have bestowed on the Repugnant Party as they work harder and harder to destroy American and everything it use to represent(idealistically anyway).
Hurting their election possibilities? By insisting that there be more than a nominal difference between a Republican and a Democrat? By noting that it is bizarre that a Democrat would think having her district made more Democratic was a punishment?
Oh wait. They have to defend their little Trojan horse Tauscher, because it’s clear from her comment that she’d rather be representing Republicans.
Maybe if Fred and Mort got outside the Beltway once in a while, they’d notice that their team isn’t as popular as they’d like to think.
Did you actually follow the links to the WaPo article Booman referred to? Clearly, this Tauscher brouhaha is beyond absurd (fortunately, the unions and trial lawyers have seen the light!), and a perfect illustration of why Fred Barnes is 100 percent correct here.
More broadly, I’ve actually noticed Barnes being a very astute observer of the political scene over the years. He and I share almost no policy positions in common, of course. But I’ve noticed that there can be little connection between how good someone is on policy and how sharp they are in making political assessments. In fact, the left-blogosphere tends to be ongoing proof of this: lots of people with wonderful intentions and terrible political instincts–perhaps poorly informed by never getting out of their ultra-blue environs (or at least social circles)? Whatever the reason, this is a potentially dangerous dynamic. If we end up losing elections because of this shit (an increasingly realistic possibility as the power of the blogosphere grows) I am going to be so fucking pissed…
-Alan
Please explain why she would be upset with her district being re-drawn to include more Democrats. Seriously. Most Dems would think of that as a reward.
Which was a major point in BooMan’s original post that drew the attention of Kondracke and Barnes. Did you miss that?
PS, my congressman and one of my senators are republicans. Hardly ultra-blue environs.
I’d be happy to discuss that snippet of the article with you, provided you first assure me that you did in fact read the entire long article and not just one out-of-context quote and Booman’s characterisation thereof. (I don’t want to waste time providing information that is already there.)
-Alan
I have to work this morning, so I won’t bother wasting either of our time.
Ciao. 🙂
Ironically, and kind of hilariously, casual blog readers who went off half-cocked against Tauscher after similarly little information are profiled (one might say lampooned, but they are really just quoted, which is all that is needed to make them look foolish) in the article in question.
I wonder, Booman: did you read the whole thing yourself? Or did you borrow the quote and link wholesale from another blog? It would be darkly funny (and sadly unsurprising) if this whole brouhaha were miles wide and a millimetre deep.
-Alan
Amen. Except Genghis never pretended he was interested in democracy. He was exceedingly tolerant of diversity. He hired and promoted Muslims especially. He was fair and equitable and he always kept his word. If you surrendered and “major combat operations” were over, all the civilians got to live too.
I know very well the life these pundits live. They think what they hear at cocktail parties passes for “mainstream thoughts” and they read McBobo for knowledge on the rest of America.
Pax