December 06, 2004
This is what happens when I leave the blogosphere for a couple of days
by Liza Sabater
Jeesh! I can't take a few days off to do tech work without the whole friggin' blogosphere going up in smoke. Matt Stoller has an awesome post at The Blogging of the President: 2004 | Atrios, Yglesias, Calpundit Go At It about the infighting going on in the Democrat blogosphere --which pretty much mirrors what is happening in the party at-large:
Yglesias and Drum allege that those who were against the action in Afghanistan were discredited, and that we need to condemn the Michael Moore's of our side. Atrios says that Michael Moore's prominence is due to a lack of leadership on the left, and that it was perfectly legitimate to oppose action in Afghanistan based on pragmatic concerns. It was probably wrong, but legitimate nonetheless, and claiming those who opposed action there were pro-terrorist cheapened the dialogue at a time when it was critical to have one.Needless to say, I have a great deal more sympathy for people like Atrios that don't have a career incentive to take seriously the claims of those who still support an obviously stupid and immoral Iraqi adventure, replete with torture. Nevertheless, this is a conversation our party needs to have, and I'm glad it's on the table.
I have not followed this war of words, so I cannot comment thoroughly on it, but it reminds me of the and earlier post of mine about the "battered voter post syndrome". The receiver won't attack the batterer. The violence is usually taken out on some other family member.
Read the whole thing, but especially, Hall of hellblazer.com comments:
The undercurrent here is that the "softs" lost the election for Kerry. So that's the framing for all this bickering back and forth.What I find so tragic is that it seems like some faction of the left - the flock of liberal hawks - seem to find it far more productive to slap around a bunch of pacifists than to take their pound of flesh out of the administration.
In an election where approximately 50% of the polled electorate believed we found actual weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that we have solid evidence of collaboration of Saddam and Ussama, it's clear that the problem isn't that we have too many "softs" keeping the war wing of the party from properly trouncing the right.
The problem is that reality doesn't even enter into the political equation. People - lots of people - believe demonstrably false facts. And it's this discontinuity which lost the election - far more important than "values" or homophobia.
The Republicans were excellent at framing the campaign and warping reality. Until the Democrats get to the point where the truth and reality of the situation breaks through this fog, Rove is going to twist it any way he wants and we'll continually fall flat on our face.
2006 is going to be another rout, given the way things are going - i.e. the hawks will continue to blame the doves and continue to ignore the elephant in the room. So to speak.
'Nough said.
UPDATE: Hall has more to say at Hellblazer: And another thing.
Posted by Liza Sabater in Afghanistan, Blogeratti, Blogs, Democrats, Iraq, Political Parties, Politics, Propaganda, War
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