In Praise of Amateur Political Pundits

(1:15 PM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)

I didn’t think I had much to say about the recent inter-blog Obama/Clinton wars.  Not much to say about the “anti-Hillary” diaries on DKos and “anti-Barack” posts on blogs next door on the net.  Not a lot to say about the exchanged fire over claims of racism and sexism.  Hardly anything to say about the foul language.  Not much about the current calls for renewed unity and some of the brush-off responses to those calls.

And maybe I still don’t have anything much to say.  But I would like to take a moment to praise all of it, or very, very nearly all of it.  

I would like to praise Alegre for not backing down, even now, in her calls for Clinton to continue to Denver.

I would like to praise Bob Johnson for his ridicule of certain pro-Clinton bloggers.

I would like to praise Jeralyn at Talk Left for holding out in favor of Clinton for as long as she could and Big Tent Democrat for arguing that Clinton should be named Obama’s veep.  And I would like to praise every incredulous response.

I would like to praise every well-reasoned post on the Front Page of Daily Kos and I would like to praise every or nearly every foul-mouthed ill-considered and stupid comment in the worst thread in the diaries on Daily Kos.  And everything in between.

In sum, I would like to take a moment to speak in praise of amateur political pundits.

Amateurs who never once argued for more war.  Who never excused torture.  Who never argued that “post 9/11” was the name of a new moral universe in which secret prisons were, just maybe, okay.  

Who all of them believe in the fundamental human right to birth control.  Who, every one of them, wants African Americans to be fully recognized and affirmed as equal citizens in this participatory democracy.  This, even if some of those amatures fuck-up in understanding the female or the black or the female black experience.

Who never thought that the Republican line “You have no civil rights if you’re dead” was worthy of anything but scorn.  Who never felt the need to be polite in saying so.

Who never tried to cover-up with silence their own worst mistakes.  Whose own worst mistakes did not include hiring and airing the views of trained White House war propogandists.

Amateurs who never made made money by apologizing for the abuses of state power.

Who don’t want to kill 100,000 Iranians because their figurehead President is a dumbass.  And who never said “Oh, well, maybe” about it.

Amateurs who would let a diary by Thomas Friedman or David Broder sink like a stone on the recent list.  

Amateurs who never did anything worse than say something (or a lot of somethings) really stupid about a candidate in a primary race.  

Amateurs, which is to say citizens, engaged in the conversation that matters most of all.  The one about the good society.  And who often did it rudely.

The amateurs in the blogs.  The ones who get called “angry” by the likes of David Gregory.  David Gregory, who blames bloggers for having “polarized the aptmosphere” in politics . . . and then says of Scott McClellan’s accusation that the press rolled over for Bush:

I think the questions were asked. I think we pushed. I think we prodded. I think we challenged the president. I think not only those of us in the White House press corps did that, but others in the rest of the landscape of the media did that.

If there wasn’t a debate in this country, then maybe the American people should think about, why not? Where was Congress? Where was the House? Where was the Senate? Where was public opinion about the war? What did the former president believe about the prewar intelligence? He agreed that – in fact, Bill Clinton agreed that Saddam had WMD.

The right questions were asked. I think there’s a lot of critics – and I guess we can count Scott McClellan as one – who thinks that if we did not debate the president, debate the policy in our role as journalists, if we did not stand up and say, “This is bogus,” and “You’re a liar,” and “Why are you doing this?” that we didn’t do our job. And I respectfully disagree. It’s not our role.

Here is the perfect circularity of the hermenutical hell inhabited by professional pundits.  It’s not their job to be “divisive,” and those who are “divisive” can be dismissed as amateurs.  And then a million Iraqis die.

I think this is worth saying.

The very worst thing that 99.9% of the amateur pundits said, was something nasty about a candidate or that candidate’s supporters in primary race.  With cuss-words.

That is not damage.  That is a dinner party.  

Damage is David Broder saying Bill Clinton should have been impeached for lying, but not George Bush for a “policy difference.”  Damage is Broder asserting that anyone who feels a sense of urgency about this needs, I dunno, a nice cup of tea.  From Greenwald:

Kingston, Ontario: I’m rather surprised by your and your correspondents’ calm tone of voice this morning. Unless the New York Times editorial page is wildly off-track, the U.S. is in the grip of a major constitutional crisis, with the government trying to set aside long established guarantees of legal behavior, both internally and in relation to international law. Where’s the sense of urgency?

David S. Broder: Far be it from me to question the New York Times, but I’d like to assure you that Washington is calm and quiet this morning, and democracy still lives here. Editorial writers sometimes get carried away by their own rhetoric.

That’s damage because Broder is paid specifically to enforce a calm on the waters surrounding a sinking ship of state.  It’s damage because Broder is paid to shape, to “clarify,” to reassure, to placate, to bring to heel.  To narrate.  He is not paid to cuss.

The damning, crushing decorum of the aristocrats of the professional chattering class is a thousand, a million times worse than a rant about the sexism of Obama supporters in a blog written by an impassioned amateur who wants to see her candidate in the White House.  I will take a country in which the latter is praised and the former shunned, abhored, despised, made to be unthinkable, any day of the week.

This post was inspired by a line in a recent essay by Katha Pollitt, whom I like just fine, praising the Clinton candidacy.

There’s another reason to be grateful to her. Clinton’s run has put to rest the myth that we are living in a postfeminist wonderland in which all that stands in women’s path is women themselves. Like a magnet–was it the pantsuit?–Clinton drew out the nation’s misogyny in all its jeering glory and put it where we could all get a good look at it. “Iron my shirt” hecklers. Wearers of Bros Over Hos T-shirts and buyers of Hillary nutcrackers. Fans of the Citizens United Not Timid website (check the acronym). Vats of sexist nastiness splattered across the Comments section of hundreds of blogs and websites. It’s as if every obscene phone caller and every exhibitionist in America decided to become an amateur political pundit.

Oh dear, it spells “cunt.”

“Vats of sexist nastiness.”

Look.

I don’t know who thought we were living in a post-feminist wonderland, but if there were a few folks out there who needed the myth put to rest for them, then sure, I am glad the myth was put to rest.   I also don’t know how many people thought we were living in a post-racist wonderland in which black activism is or ought to be passe.  If anyone thought so, they need not look far to be dissuaded.  No need to go to a blog for either one.

I would rather read that then be assured “that Washington is calm and quiet this morning” by David Broder and “I respectfully disagree. It’s not our role,” by David Gregory.  I would rather there be misguided anger than enforced quietude.  I would rather the debate for the good society get heated than rot.

I would rather the amateurs engaged in it clumsily.  God save me from the professionals who never do it honestly at all.

People, Americans, got angry during the primary race.  They said so.  Their fingers on the their keyboards got ahead of their brains in their skulls.  Good.  

Very good.

At least for once our choices were between a cunt and an inadequate black male.  

Seems like progress to me.

(H/T GOTV for linking to the Pollitt article, to make a different and good point.)