Metavirus is incensed:Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Friday that liberal groups targeting moderate Democrats with ads should back off, saying pressure from the left wing of his party won't be helpful to enacting legislation.
"I think it's very unwise and not helpful," Reid said Friday morning. "These groups should leave them alone. It's not helpful to me. It's not helpful to the Democratic Caucus."
Reid, who said he hadn't seen or heard the ads, added that "most of [the groups] run very few ads -- they only to do it to get a little press on it."
[That's] one more reason why I continue to find Harry Reid to be a poor leader for the Democrats in the SenateInexplicable? I'm an independent who's recently voted Democrat and am closer to being a blue dog than a Republican at the moment, so I'm left wondering what's so inexplicable. Does Metavirus think we moderates don't deserve any representation by these more conservative Democrats?
I've said it before and I'll say it again, the Democrats' biggest enemy right now is themselves. Comments like this from Reid and the inexplicable formation of the Conservadem Caucus are giving me the distinct impression that some people in Congress are looking to yet again snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Update: Take action now by going here to send a message to your Congressmen to support Obama's budget.
He is of course free to rally in support of the president's budget, but some of us don't support it over more modest alternatives that do not balloon the deficit post 2012.
As Hillary put it at the Democratic National Convention, I thought Democrats were supposed to not be the "fall in line party". Isn't the fact that over the past eight years Republicans always voted in lockstep widely considered a bad thing? Does the Left also have no tolerance for differing views among themselves now?
Reid is not a tool. Reid is the Democratic Majority leader of the U.S. Senate and understands the art of the possible and how to manage a big tent party. A day you target your moderates from the left is a day the GOP gains ground. It will happen eventually, but I see no reason to hasten it given the rancid state of the Right these days.
Update: Pete Abel at TMV said similar things last week
You make a good point. I too have historically been an independent up until the recent election. I generally fall on the libertarian side of the spectrum.
ReplyDeleteI don't disagree with the general principles underpinning so-called "blue dogs" and even conservatism. Read my post on the state of today's GOP ( http://www.librarygrape.com/2009/03/intellectual-bankruptcy-of-todays-gop.html ) and you'll see I wrote this: "Even though my views on policy matters have changed over the years, I still have a good amount of empathy for various classic conservative dispositions like fiscal restraint, individual liberty, resistance to statism, etc. Although there is still a great deal of wisdom locked up in conservatism, its current incarnation is as intellectually bankrupt as anything I could imagine."
The problem I have is that these generally good principles have calcified (in the right/right of center political leadership in washington) into unyielding dogma. We are in the midst of a serious recession right now and the ideology of "TAX CUTS!" and "LESS SPENDING!" is exactly wrong from a macroeconomic perspective.
So, with this in mind, I believe the GOP and the "Blue Dogs" in Congress are either: (1) shamelessly beholden to the energy/health care/etc. companies that line their campaign coffers and are taking their current positions based on their stated desire to "protect corporate interests; or (2) have been blinded by a calcified ideology to the point that they are unable to craft practical solutions in a time of great economic upheaval. Either solution is wrong in my view.
P.S. I really appreciate the dialog - both here and on my blog.
ReplyDeleteP.P.S. I added you to my blogroll
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