Herewith in reply to your questions, since they so noticeably procede from good faith and not partisan ideological dementia:

“You seem to consider Limbaugh a reasonable, though fallible sort, sometimes right, sometimes wrong. You’re quite exercised over the ‘loonies of the left’ and delight in naming them. You don’t seem to find any analogous loonies lurking on the right, at least none worth ever talking about (this is somewhat reminiscent of Lieberman over the past few years).”

Right-wing Loonies analogous to the Left-wing Loonies I attack on this blog would be (In no special order, with no special weights attached to their deleterious influences: abortion-clinic bombers, Pat Robertson, the Christian Identity movement, the pathetic remnants of the John Birch Club, some of the elements that congregate around Chronicles Magazine, and the scary people who send their kids to Bob Jones University.

“Are you such a committed centrist Democrat that the Republicans simply don’t matter to you? Is that why they come in for no opprobrium? Are you really a TNR type of guy; in its most recent incarnation it’s often left of center (by today’s standards anyway)? Or are you really more comfortable with the Weekly Sandard but still somehow manage to stomach TNR. And why, if the Nation is so reprehensibly radical, is there no similar denouncemet of the National Review or the Weekly Standard?”

You really hit the nail on the head, here. I am not a Democrat; I am not a Republican; and I believe that the metaphor engendered by the legislative seating arrangments in Revolutionary France obscures more than it explains. I do not believe that history unfolds as a series of conflicts between a “Left” and a “Right” and I think anyone who does is delusional, and is practicing a kind of historicist religious faith that is notable for being incoherent on its own terms. On the very rare occasions you come across someone who even attempts to explain Inca or Roman history according to a “Left-Right” schema, if you know anything about history, you know you are in the presence of a raving lunatic.

Such considerations certainly do result in me thinking that the self-identified “Left” has fallen on hard intellectual times, and I will give you a concrete example of why I say so, and why, yes,
I think the National Review, today, is far more sane and Liberal than the Nation.

When Jeremiah Wright got up before the NAACP, before an appreciative audience, and explained that “Blacks” (science says that there is no such thing as race) learn from a different part of their brain than “whites” (science says that there is no such thing as race) he was recycling the very same arguments that the people who owned his ancestors used to keep them in chains.

To say that “whites” are better able than “blacks” to sit in a chair and learn mathematics by rote is pure, stark, insane racism.

Go to the National Review and see how aggresively this blatant, disgusting racism was scorned and ridiculed. Now find me the Nation article (I could well have missed it) that does the same.

In any case, I have noticed anyone on this blog condemning this disgusting racism.

If “progressivism” means ignoring this kind of vile insanity, and it does, then, of course, I am an enemy of “progressivism” and the loony left.

Finally, I can consider voting for Obama because
I am not a blinkered ideologue. I understand the realities of American politics and fully understand that anyone gets as far as Obama has gotten is willing to make many deals with the devil.

I respected the dispatch with which Obama threw his “father” under the bus, once the association became unviable. If this guy gets the Democratic nomination, and he almost certainly will, he will run so hard and fast to the Right it will make your head spin.

Like at least a third of the electorate, I am not a partisan and don’t believe in heaven on earth, and am willing to vote for the most promising (i.e.,
least repellent candidate) when I care to vote, at all.

But I would have to be a “progressive” to believe that “Obama” is pure and Hillary filthy, damaged goods.

As I would also have to be a silly partisan ideologue to believe that either Republicans or Democrats are ruining everything, (they both are; they both aren’t) and that I must pull out all the stops, right now, to save the Republic from one or the other.

If Hillary had the nomination clinched, all of these ridiculous partisan ideologues, here, would turn their fury upon the Republican nominee, in exactly they way they are attacking Hillary.

Maybe a version that unfairly ended too early, but not one that is inaccurate. My characterization is a pretty exact description of his stance as a Schachtmanite when joining the SP. I am sure you’ll agree that his comrades helped destroy the SP with their conspiratorial politics and bizarre political line. I’d add, that the strategy of working within the DP is and always has been self-defeating (this was before the Sh-ites started working within the *Republican* party, which I bet even you will agree is unliikely to lead to socialism.) There was a lot to atone for here.

The SP would still be marginal today even if they had kicked out the Schachtmanites. Still, we would be a lot better off if we had even a weak democratic left party to rally around or at least to frigging vote for. Instead we try to convince ourselves that the least-bad of our opponents are secret social democrats, despite all evidence, and work to support a party that represents the interests of the capitalists who fund it. It might not be fair to say that Harrington still thought like a Schachtmanite conspirator after he quit the cult. Still, DSA advocates the same failed strategy down to today.

As to your “debating tactics,” I will, in deference to your objections, merely refer to you as intellectually dishonest and not a dishonest debator.

As a parting gift, let me point to this excellent Nation article: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080519/betsyreed

Clinton I won because the Cold War paradigm collapsed around its own contradictions.

Lacking a permanent war and a permanent enemy more evil than evil itself, the Republican narrative tent has no centerpole.

Bush I ran after having won an immensely popular war for lfar less money and less lives than expected. To be sure, the economy still groaned under the leftover Reagan deficits, but growth had remained steady, if anemic, but why couldn’t he win?

Without fear–very large, very dramatic fear–the consistency and integrity of the GOP narrative that sweeps across crime to religion to race and the economy falls apart.

Reagan’s legendary “let them eat cake” attitude toward poor people came across as “toughness” at a time when “tough” was the most important of all adjectives a candidate could have in front of his name. The Cold War could have just has easily been called the GOP re-election plan, because whenever and wherever there is a permanent war, the GOP will win the presidency. The “tough” image stretches to fit across the entire GOP brand, from immigration, to crime to education, religion and economic growth.

The Democrats have no such center pole concept that can tie together all their positions. Unfortunately, in a world where entertainment and news media are the real religions, narrative coherence is essential.

The present circumstance is an exception only because W and his team have screwed up this war so badly, they’ve given away the game. People are fed up enough to actually rebel against the basic order of permanent militarism.

To illustrate: try imagining if the war in Iraq had not gone so badly. We’d be two months away from invading Iran, or Syria, or Yemen or somewhere and the GOP nominee would be 20 points ahead in the polls, even with the economy down the sewer. And the candidate would be talking about how tough he is on immigrants, crime, poor people, cripples and so on and on.

But because the war is such a massive failure, there is a very good chance the “tough” brand won’t find buyers this time.

This is a golden opportunity for the Democrats to form a new progressive majority. They won’t get it by tricking a percentage of the GOP’s base into voting Democrat. They’ll do it by peeling away libertarian and non-ideological Republicans on the party’s fringe. That’s all we need, along with a solid, united showing from the Democratic base.

That’s crazy. Really an incredibly tendentious and twisted version of Harrington. As for getting “inside his head,” he wrote numerous books that were completely honest about his ideological predilictions as well has his poltiical goals. Also some memoirs that dealt openly with the Shactmanites and his history with them. It would be hard to find a man of the left who was less “dishonest” than Michael Harrington. He’s by no means above reproach - his sectarian paranoia in dealing with early SDS and his apprehension about breaking with LBJ are two cases in point where he was wrong IMHO - but your characterization is bizarre and indefensible.

Your reading of politics leaves a lot to be desired, but you’re fond of putting that fact on display, so, no matter. It is not the choice of the VP that has scuttled the people running for president, it’s that the people running for president have been playing from the DLC playbook. That is, run to the right; run on free trade, hide labor in the closet, out-tough them on crime, spike the military budget, and in the case of the Clinton’s is included gutting welfare, and so on. THIS is the strategy that fails, and that Clinton uniquely managed to pull off (where Gore and Kerry failed), because he’s so damn charismatic.

Obama decidedly does not represent that strategy, but that fact hardly erases the notion that we ought to be concerned with the sectoral and political implications of the whole ticket. Kennedy hated Johnson, but Johnson brought voters into play that would be unavailable to Kennedy.

On the race issue, I’m suggesting something a little more subtle than your sledge hammer responses leave room for. Of course, no hard core racist will be swayed by a white on the ticket. But let’s admit that there are plenty of people who do not think of themselves as racist, but who still have a some small never-acknowledged-in-the-sun core of our great American afflicition. *Those* people may be swayed. Stop pretending this condition is a binary rather than a spectrum.

Asking for foreign policy experience is not the same as asking for a Kissingerian war monger. You take reductionism to new lows. Congrats. What I am saying is that someone on the ticket with some experience will help. I don’t find it likely that Obama will be led into some disastrous and misguided war. Do you? If so, then he is not fit to receive your vote.

I actually think experience is neutral and depends much on the context. A total lack of experience can sometimes be a very good thing. However, there are two other considerations. This president has to win battles in a political realm with actors who are savvy political players. Lack of experience here can hurt. And the addition of someone like Jim Webb (who doesn’t really fit your derisive caricature), is a move over perceptions, and a move to blunt the attacks that wil be made in the general. It’s castling your king before the other guy can start in on you. The campaign is *all* about perception.

Lastly, you would improve your sense of things greatly if you started to think of Bill and Hillary as a unit. The bubba pander did not begin in early ‘08, it began in about 1991. It began with her husband. It began with the DLC, and it is the position that’s been pushed by them ever since. It’s “beyond moronic” to think she staretd this in reaction to Obama.

Further, if Hilary gets picked by Obama as his running mate, it will offend a lot of people.

You seem to consider Limbaugh a reasonable, though fallible sort, sometimes right, sometimes wrong. You’re quite exercised over the ‘loonies of the left’ and delight in naming them. You don’t seem to find any analogous loonies lurking on the right, at least none worth ever talking about (this is somewhat reminiscent of Lieberman over the past few years).

Are you such a committed centrist Democrat that the Republicans simply don’t matter to you? Is that why they come in for no opprobrium? Are you really a TNR type of guy; in its most recent incarnation it’s often left of center (by today’s standards anyway)? Or are you really more comfortable with the Weekly Sandard but still somehow manage to stomach TNR. And why, if the Nation is so reprehensibly radical, is there no similar denouncemet of the National Review or the Weekly Standard?

And why, considering all this, would you even consider voting for Obama, who is, at a minimum, a left-leaning moderate with a fair amount of integrity? (Which means that he may seek to work with Republicans but he’s not likely to make a sudden lurch to the right for some political gain.)

Why wouldn’t McCain automatically be your guy?

I’m mystified.

Um, Harrington came to the point you are referring to as a Troskyist following a deeply dishonest plan to dupe liberals into taking orders from one of the slimiest Leninist cults ever to aggregate in the sewer of politics. At some point he may have started believing his own propaganda and become a sincere welfare-state DP liberal. Since neither you nor I are inside his head there is no way to know.

Hmmm. You say you don’t like the DLC, but your comments represent their worldview verbatim.

This is exactly why almost every Democratic VP or VP nominee in our lifetime has been a white southern male viewed as more militaristic than the presidential nominee himself. Don’t you think you should ask yourself why the combination has LOST election after election after election?

The idea that a voter who’s “worried” about Obama’s ethnicity is going to have his mind changed by the selection of a Bubba-lite style VP is beyond moronic. In fact, a Bubba-lite VP would only draw Obama into contrast, further accentuating his attributes as a highly educated, urban, mixed-race, northeastern liberal.

Dano asks:
“Can someone please tell me what in the hell is wrong with wanting someone with foreign policy and military experience?”

The people who drove us into Iraq had foreign policy and military experience going back to the Nixon administration. That’s not to say that experience is necessarily a negative, just that it can by no means be assumed to be a positive. If experience is important to you, you’ll be voting for McCain.

As regards Obama, if you think his inexperience in foreign policy is a problem, perhaps you should review the performance of past presidents. The only two with previous foreign policy experience were Richard Nixon and GHW Bush. True, the two were far more capable of understanding subtlety and strategy than is the moron currently occupying the office, but the record shows those abilities didn’t prevent them from stepping squarely into the deep doo doo.

Contrast that with William Jefferson Clinton, who on Day One had ZERO foreign policy experience. His record has a few blemishes: the mishandling of Iraq sanctions, Sudan bombing and Bosnia crisis, but, on the whole, he kept the country out of major conflicts, which was a major, often underappreciated, factor in keeping the economy and domestic policy on track.

More important, the idea that the VP should fill in holes in Obama’s profile is a little silly and, the record shows, not something voters buy. Usually, the opposite is the case. An older VP nominee with vast foreign policy experience and disdain for academia/latte/Volvos and NPR would only draw an even bolder contrast with Obama, rather than ameliorating his critics’ concerns.

and…

“And, can you not see the full-throated howler you just left on the screen? Stop pandering to bubba, but bring on Hillary?”

You may recall that Hillary was not always a Bubba panderer. She resorted to that specifically as a tactic to respond to Obama’s appeal. As even Marc has pointed out, she is now working verbatim from the McCain/GOP playbook.

As a vice presidential nominee she would have no political, moral, financial or logical reason to maintain that strategy. She would be there to support Obama 100 percent and wait to accept the hand off in 2016.

Which, of course. leaves out John McCain.

Especially those who wear those irritating flag pins, cover their hearts when pledging allegiance…….don’t get me going on that ‘allegiance’ thing. Another story all together.

All shallow drone like ‘nationalist’ symbols.
‘True’ patriotism is intelligent patriotism. Patriotism that probes and challenges, criticizes, exposes and amplifies for the ‘international’ community of humanity, faults, mistakes, imperfections and imperialist policies of the big chauvinistic bully.

The big bully that lies and people die. People dying trying to crash their gates, that should be open anyway, to join the big pigs pile. Disgusting unintelligent fools all.

First, if you ever read my posts here, and I’m not saying you should, you’ll know that I loathe the DLC, and its whole strategy. I disagree with reg on the progressive tone (he mentioned that earlier I think), mainly because I think there is profound discomfort over the economy, and I think Paul Kennedy is right about his overstretch thesis. I also think that people’s political views tend to the center-left much more than you would ever know by looking at the media. The right has managed to make the word liberal demonic, but the people are, actually, liberal, in the main.

Second, Obama does not pander to Bubba, but if you need to do that at all, the VP slot is the place to do it. Some people worry about his being black. Some worry about his age. Some worry about his experience. The VP slot is the place to square the frame.

Third, can someone please tell me what in the hell is wrong with wanting someone with foreign policy and military experience? Would you prefer we have a ticket with neither? I don’t want jingoistic uber-patriots, but I do want someone who knows and respects military culture. We’re overrun in this country with obsequious deference to the military, it is annoying, and dangerous. But there is still a noble tradition that takes the form of military service. The left makes a great mistake when it ignores this, worse, when it ridicules this. That is not pandering to bubba, that is doing on the left, with the military, the same thing Obama is doing with race and political polarization.

And, can you not see the full-throated howler you just left on the screen? Stop pandering to bubba, but bring on Hillary? Have you been paying attention at all, Van Winkle?

Mark Penn himself couldn’t have said it any worse than that.

This is exactly why Democrats keep losing elections. They don’t understand branding nearly as well as Republicans do.

Specifically, Democrats think that because Republicans paint them as too intelligent, too urban and not militaristic enough, they need to respond by taking actions that make them seem less intelligent, less urban and more militaristic.
So off goes Michael Dukakis to ride in a tank; John Kerry to open the DN Convention with a military salute and then to pose in duck hunting gear and Al Gore to wear earth tones and turn up his Southern accent. And then on to lose, of course.

Enough already with pandering to Bubba. It simply doesn’t work in any sustainable, politically viable way. More often than not, Bubba simply sees liberal pandering as yet another slight to his ultra-fragile, uber-important self-image as a “real” American.

It seems, mostly, that Obama understands this and has a vision to take the party into real politics where the idea isn’t to trick a few voters away from your opponents by mimicing them, but to actually persuade them away by making clear, timely arguments that demonstrate the opponents’ weaknesses, rather than try to siphon away their strength.

Hillary will make an excellent VP.

By nominating her, Obama will bury the idea that the viscious primaries left the party divided–a meme the mainstream media is currently pounding away on–or that the Clinton legacy is somehow something to be embarrassed about, rather than to celebrate as a high-water mark for economic growth, human rights, ecological protection, diplomacy, jurisprudence and, really, progressivism in general.

You are so confused and wrong in so many ways I will have to quote you.

“When Samual Stott isn’t proffering Limbaugh propaganda and suggesting that the best thing for the Democratic Party (which he hates) would be a knock-down fight that goes all the way to the convention, he’s accusing various commenters of not engaging him in intellectually serious and honest debate.”

1. Whether I agree or disagree with Rush Limbaugh on any given point is irrelevant. If Rush says X he might be right, he might wrong. I am not an irrational Leftist, so I don’t have to know what Rush thinks to know I think the opposite. I don’t adduce Rush as an authority and touchstone. You do.

2. I don’t hate the Democratic Party, I hate the DSA, George McGovern, Black Panther, Michael Moore, Tom Harkin, Jeremiah Wright, Nation magazine, Council on American-Islamic Relations wing of the Party. I support the Scoop Jackson, Joe Lieberman, FDR, JFK, New Republic Wing.

The argument I made was that as a matter of fact, the Democratic race is not closed. You nowhere, yourself, address my argument.

My other argument was that the Left is full of anti-democratic loons who can’t argue, and become enraged when they face opposition —with their ideas, with their candidates.

Clearly you are having a bit of trouble in this regard yourself. You accuse me of arguing that “the best thing for the Democratic Party would be a knock-down fight that goes all the way to the convention.”

I said no such thing. I said that Party loyalists should be celebrating the fact that a woman and a black are the Party’s contenders.

You are putting words in my mouth, just like you are ascribing partisan sympathies to me that I don’t have.

I am not a Republican. I am an enemy of the Loony Left. I might not vote this time, but if Barack gets the nomination I might vote for him. It depends upon how hard he runs to the Right, how quickly he jettisons his Loony Left supporters. Reverand Wright knows exactly what I am talking about.

And in closing, Ms. Beacon, I will quote you a final time:

“Honest debate means that you argue things that you honestly believe.”

That sums up your confusion nicely. Honest debate means nothing of the kind. Honest debaters can easily argue pro one day, con the next.

Honest debate means that you observe rules of rationality, eschew logical fallicies, (such as ad hominem and ascription of personal motives) and attend arguments, not the people making them.

How delusional does one have to be to actually believe the Democratic Party is run be left wing nutballs?

Sam, sorry. But the DP is run by the same sort of people who run the GOP: corrupt, all-American pols intertwined with the wealthiest interests in the country.

“Tuesday night Barack Obama effectively clinched the Democratic nomination — again.

“Now, more than ever, there remains no democratic way for Clinton to win the nomination….”

“It’s all over now, except for the paperwork.”

My point was that Barack Obama has not clinched the nomination, “it” is NOT all over, and there IS a way for Clinton to get the nomination: by winning it according to the rules set out by the Democratic party.

Whether those Democratic rules are democratic is a legitimate topic of debate, but the Democratic party, I have to explain, is not a democracy. It is
an elective organization goverened by rules of its own invention.

Those rules are undeniable. Super-delegates are empowered to vote as they please. Obama has not won until that pesky Democratic Party “paperwork” says so. To argue otherwise is to be
wrong.