Ok, you can debate the recent MA election for the US senate all day. But let's say the Democrats had a really powerful, electable female candidate (not Coakley in other words). Would this women still be electable if she had posed completely nude for a magazine? I don't think so. So now the "moral" conservatives have a senator that has a full frontal nudity centerfold available for viewing by those nice conservative moral women (and more likely the conservative men).
19 comments:
Maybe Lady Gaga from Brooklyn, NY, should run for Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand seat, so as to keep it out of the hands of the GOP. The people have spoken. They want to be entertained..
Str8 Republican men have Sarah Palin... Log Cabin Republicans have...
Whew, I'm glad you pragmatic Democrats are keeping us "naive" Greens focused on the important issues.
Brian, your snarky comments are always welcomed here. But we both probably agree that the Greens are about as effective as Teabaggers. And, both "parties" need new names!
I'm glad a blog based almost solely on snarky potshots welcomes snarky comments. Unless you're a big corporation, which I don't think you are, you're irrelevant to the Democratic Party. I'd like to believe that pressure from well-intentioned liberals like yourself will make the Democrats more people-driven, but I fail to see how focusing on Scott Brown's abs is going to make that happen. Maybe, with my overly rational requests for evidence of Change, I'm just too naive to understand the link.
I mean, reading your blog, you'd forget that the Democrats control the presidency and 59 pct of both houses of Congress.
So what was the point of this post? Not being a "journalist" like you Brian, I guess I can't be as accurate as all you "press" type people. I asked "Would this women still be electable if she had posed completely nude for a magazine"? Seems to me to be a valid question. Too bad you couldn't find it in yourself to respond to that question. Nope, it is far, far easier to be the odd man out. Much like the teabaggers, the greens hate Democrats and Republicans alike. Maybe the greens and teabaggers can find some common ground and get together.
Regarding your comment on my blog...
Listen, I'm sorry I'm sometimes snarky toward you and maybe it's counterproductive (though I do it surfaces when people are condescending or patronizing to me). But there's really no diplomatic way to say this, I believe folks like you are the biggest hurdle in implementing the progressive agenda. Given that, let me try to explain with as little hostility as possible. You're smart. You're well-informed. You seem to have a good core of values. You seem to believe in mostly the right things in theory. If you look at my whole set of political beliefs and your whole set, I suspect we'd share at least 80 pct and probably more.
I am critical of everyone (including the Greens' frequent dysfunction). But I also try to offer solutions. I think that's the biggest problem with Greens is that they focus so much on criticizing the two corporate parties that they sometimes fail to sufficiently emphasize the positive part of their agenda or to work out its nuances. Like you, I point out the hypocrisy of the right; unlike you, I do so of Democrats as well. But slamming hypocrisy is not ALL I do. I try to offer a different path. I think criticism is pointless unless you offer a different path. Getting people mad without offering them another way leads to either hopelessness or nihilistic rage.
I think there are a lot of well-intentioned rank-in-file people like yourself in the Democratic Party. I think the problem is that they don't exercise their power nearly enough. I heard all these liberals complaining that Obama was escalating in Afghanistan, that he's preserving much of Bush's executive power grab, that the health 'reform' thing is a fraud, an HMO giveaway, that he's freezing all spending except for the bloated military (as well as the Wall St. Bailout that candidate Obama voted for in the Senate). These aren't incidental little side issues, not a "perfect being the enemy of the good" situation. These are huge issues at the very core of his presidency. And yet these are all things he promised to do as a candidate. These are all things his liberal now-critics knew when they voted for him. He didn't deceive anyone. A lot of people deceived themselves.
A lot of liberals (your blog, Rachel Maddow, much of the blogosphere) focuses far less on pushing what they believe in and almost entirely in bashing the other side. As much as the right usually deserves it, it does nothing to advance the progressive agenda. It's just empty echo chamber stuff, self-indulgence really. It's fine once in a while as a guilty pleasure; I do it too. But when it's the be all and end all... I think more Americans are interested in ending the carnage in Afghanistan than Scott Brown's abs. I could be wrong but from what I could tell by a search, you never once criticized President Obama for his decision to escalate in Afghanistan.
But pushing this would mean acknowledging failings in your own party ("criticizing everybody" as you might say mockingly), in holding your own party accountable (and not just the easy targets like Lieberman and Ben Nelson). Is there really anything wrong with telling your party that they are power (presidency and 59% of both houses of Congress) and that maybe they should act like it?
(cont)
At the end of the day, I'd rather the corporate Democratic Party in Washington magically transform itself into the progressive vehicle it once was. I simply don't see that happening without a strong push from a party to its left. Otherwise the few real progressives in the DC party (Kucinich, Feingold, etc) will have no leverage, no support and will continue to be marginalized into virtual non-existence by those owned by corporate cash. It's massively corporate drift in the last 20 years, without any effective pressure from the left, seems to illustrate my point quite well. I was a Democrat long before I could even register to vote. But the corporate bent of the last Democratic presidency disillusioned me so much that I fail to see the point of remaining in a party where I'm irrelevant to the bosses. Obviously you disagree but hopefully you at least understand where I'm coming from.
Nice wordy post Brian. I don't criticize Democrats? Where to hell have you been. I've criticized Schumer, Clinton, Murphy and Gillibrand. I don't just criticize them, I write to them and I post their responses here. I've publicly stated that I will not vote again for Schumer, Murphy or Gillibrand. I really don't know what more I can do. Although, you didn't really offer any solution either did you? Even after writing a few hundred word post for criticizing me for the same thing. I do what I can. I'm on a local political committee, I've served in local public office, I'm currently serving on a college council. If you have the magic solution that will make both you and me politically happy, by all means let's hear it.
I stopped reading your blog regularly some time ago so I must have missed your statements that you would refuse to vote again for said people (I do think I remember the Gillibrand one). I did look at the last 20 or so entries and saw the same old, same old and erroneously concluded that nothing had changed. Assuming that further information is correct, I do apologize for partially misinterpreting your views. So I guess my next question would be: when Schumer, Gillibrand and Murphy run again, who will you vote for? The Republican? A 'third party' candidate? No one at all?
That is the problem isn't it. Probably a 3rd party candidate but more likely no one at all. I agree that voting for a Democrat is becoming a waste of time.
Listen, all I really want is for people (everyone really but especially liberals) to honestly give ALL of the candidates a fair shake when they consider voting and hold ALL of the politicians accountable. If you do that, then I have no complaints whatsoever regardless of who (if anyone) you end up finally voting for.
I just looked at the last 36 posts. Here is the breakdown as I calculate it. Eleven of the post were personal or about a scientific topic. The rest were either of a directly political nature or politically oriented. Comments on climate change, energy production, the US census, health care etc. Several were of John Stewart making fun of someone like Sean Hannity. A couple concerned commentaries about homosexuality and health care that were published in the ADE. Posts #36, 35, 33, were all about Cong. Murphy (D) and very critical. A couple were on 3rd party 'teabagger' candidate Doug Hoffman and were critical (for good reason in my mind). The rest were more critical of the government in general and not of a specific politician or party. But what it really boils down to is that one post about the candidate of the moral people, Brown (I don't remember his first name and I don't really care to spend 10 seconds of my life looking it up) that seemed to rub you the wrong way. Well, I'm not going to apologize. As you pointed out you don't read this blog (I also don't care) and I write this blog for myself not anyone else. It's going to stay that way.
"I write this blog for myself not anyone else."
That may be your primary reason but you obviously care at least a little bit about feedback. Otherwise, you wouldn't even make the blog public or allow comments. You post it in public, expect comments. That's the way things work.
People who care zero for what other people think write in private diaries, not interactive blogs.
And just to correct your misquote: I said I didn't read your blog regularly anymore. I didn't say I stopped reading it completely.
I'm sorry I tried to offer you an olive branch earlier. It was a mistake on my part. I'll try not to let it happen again.
I don't know nothing bout no olive branch. I love olives.
Kinda thought keeping a diary was teenage-girlish. No thanks.
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