William Daley and David Broder demonstrate a frustrating lack of specificity when the advocate that the Obama administration tack to the center to avoid crippling electoral losses in the midterm elections. Daley says this:
All that is required for the Democratic Party to recover its political footing is to acknowledge that the agenda of the party’s most liberal supporters has not won the support of a majority of Americans — and, based on that recognition, to steer a more moderate course on the key issues of the day, from health care to the economy to the environment to Afghanistan.
But what should Obama do about health care, the economy, the environment, and Afghanistan that is more moderate than what he has already proposed. Neither Daley nor Broder have a single word to say on that topic.
They should both be embarrassed. What an amazing lack of courage they demonstrate by refusing to articulate anything, any alternatives. You can’t rebut an argument that has no content or substance.
I feel like going through Broder’s archives to see when he started advocating for this.
The Village is pissing me off more than they usually do as of late. It’s not just their lack of specificity, it’s that they’re as detached from the American public as most Senators and Representatives are.
I guess that is why they’re the Village, and Broder is King.
I feel like going through Broder’s archives to see when he started advocating for this.
Do you have the time to go through 40 years worth?
Lol, you have no idea. I’m so bored this winter break that I have oodles of time on my hands.
To be more prescient, I guess I’d have to, but I was leaning more towards when Republican Presidents were in charge.
I want to know what this asshat considers centrist, and what’s so great about it.
Centrists have a certain douchebaggery about them, as if they think the theory about “moderation” has some relevance to politics. It’s like they conflate independence and centrism.
As my friend Jamie says, “No matter what South Park told you, the truth is not always in the middle. When one side advocates genocide and the other peace, “moderacy” is not a virtue.”
As Digby has documented .. Broder’s always(yes .. 40 years +) been the same way … he only ever loved him some Ben Nelson type Democrats .. if any Democrats at all
What do you expect from William Daley? Isn’t he Richard Daley’s brother(or at least relative)? I can’t believe this really shocks you. The Daley’s are Republican-lite. They are DLC. They’ve hated the DFH’s ever since 1968.
Another thing about Daley’s op-ed. What policies of the left is he talking about. The only thing we want is for Obama to do what he campaigned on. So is Daley saying that Obama is very unpopular? Why to throw your buddy under the bus Daley. And I got a good laugh at the comment section to the Daley op-ed. Talk about delusional Republicans/Conservatives!!
DC views on commentary:
Centrists are the best of the bunch. Centrists only pretend centrism matters when Democrats are in power.
Democrats advocating Democratic principles are being overly partisan.
Republicans advocating Republican principles are adequately showing their values.
Ladies and gentlemen, your DC Conventional Wisdom.
Funny about such guys and gals, they might even think that the American Revolution, Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights are eminently centrist because they are themselves the direct, intended result of them! Protect and maintain the status quo, they say; I am the status quo, they repeat to themselves; I will protect myself. they conclude. We are not the villagers, we are the courtiers they admonish us. as Atrios correctly calls them. Our world is not yours, just fork out cash to read our words.
P.S. Broder has sent me a correction. It wasn’t a ‘revolution’. It was a ‘war of independence’. He’s always right on the mark.
Being in the center of the road is the most dangerous place to be. Of course, after 8 years of the Bush Regime why anyone would want to stand to the right of the road is a head scratcher. The best alternative is to get more liberal progressives in office next year, but from what I’m seeing….the Jane Hamsher types will be punishing the Democrats next year by supporting, promoting, and voting for any republican they can find! Sickening.
In Massachusetts, the Libertarians are running Joe Kennedy (no relation to Ted Kennedy or his family) to replace Ted’s seat: http://www.independentpoliticalreport.com/2009/09/independent-libertarian-joe-kennedy-running-for-se
nate-in-massachusetts/
How many stupid idiots will vote for this guy? I don’t want to know, but if Jane Hamsher and others back him, this will signal that Joe Kennedy is “one of us”. cringe
But, but,but,… the party has not been advocating the agenda of the party’s most liberal supporters, proving once again, that anything to the left of Attila the hun is viewed as extreme leftiness by these myopic idiots.
I was thinking how funny it is that all the teevee news shows tend to like to have black Republicans (who disagree with the president from the right) and white lefty bloggers (who disagree with the president from the other side) on as guests, and then the pundits follow on from there to suggest that this is an indication that Obama is not suitably centrist. Um, yeah.
But don’t you realize that elections have consequences to them?????
……………Except when the Democrats win.
There is no award in the Village for bravery or honesty. What they want instead is someone to tut-tut anyone admitting the status quo isn’t working, because anything more than a vague hopey-feely-“bipartisanship” is clearly out of bounds for facing our nation’s problems.
This is where the ever-present criticism from the far right starts to have an effect. Eventually it becomes common wisdom that Obama is far left, yet nobody can point to anything he has done that is really that far left.
All that is required for the Democratic Party to recover its political footing is to drop this nonsense about elected officials in Washington making serious political decisions.
More and more I find myself recalling the days of tending bar. Reading Broder & co is pretty exactly like listening to the predictable ramblings of barroom drunks — all cliched “niceness” devoid of thought or content or any indication of a connection to reality. It’s all about some vague feeling of comfort in affirming one’s membership in a giant lump of “good feelings” and winning the assent of one’s fellow impaired. Is this why the beltway “centrists” were so unable to find any fault with Bushes? They were overpowered by the scent of one of their own?
Anyway, it’s this kind of pervasive mindlessness and the adulation of it that makes it harder and harder to live in America — more, even, than the politics or the ignorance or the sheer evil of the military/corporate complex. Like struggling to breathe while trapped in a doubleknit bag full of stinky furballs. Happy new year.
The big mistake a lot of us made over the years was in getting up and moving to the other end of the bar when the drunken How The Hell Are Ya-type maundering started. What we should have been doing was knocking those pathetic fucks on their asses instead.
Well, as Eli Wallach puts in The Magnificent Seven, “sooner or later you have to answer for every good deed!”