Taibbi Taunts Dems

(@3 AM – promoted by On The Bus)

Matt Taibbi reminds me of that yappy friend who could get you into trouble at a bar. he is one of the reasons I still subscribe to Rolling Stone. Although we often bemoan the lack of critical coverage in the MSM of our political authority figures, he has consistently swiped, barked, spit and frothed at the Bush administration. In the latest issue, he venomously roasts the Dems as posers and collaborators. The whole article is worth a read. He introduces his tasty vitriol by arguing that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi has orchestrated the one of the ” most awesome political collapses since Neville Chamberlain“, they have consciously and purposefully betrayed ardent anti war believers. Indeed after reading the article, it clarifies for me why I think current leadership cannot be trusted to advance any progressive ideals even with a change in presidency.

Because. They. Don’t. Want. To.

If Reid and Pelosi were your lawyers in court and decided not to mount a defense because the “timing was wrong”, wouldn’t you fire them? If Reid and Pelosi drove your taxi to a location to one other than what you requested because you didn’t actually understand where you wanted to go, wouldn’t you refuse to pay them? If Reid and Pelosi were your surgeons and decided the life saving procedure you needed just wasn’t worth doing because they had other priorities, wouldn’t you….. probably be dead?

Yeah, this feels good, baby….

After all we aren’t sophisticated practitioners backed by years of training and indoctrination into the political process. We are just the great semi unwashed….

I have a fuzzy memory of my introductory political science professor, Victor Fic, telling us in his booming Czech inflected accent that politics was the art of the possible which in my youth I took to mean, silly goose that I am, that it was the realm in which nothing was impossible.

Taibbi asserts that the notion that the Democratic party in this current congress truly wants to end the war is laughable and while nobody would go on record, most congressional aides see the anti war efforts emitting from Dem leadership and the party by extension as a lame dog and pony show with no serious effort intended. Naturally, one has to take Tiabbi on faith when he makes that claim. Certainly nothing leadership has done undercuts that. Heroic efforts, risky gestures, and the like seem to be missing in action. Limp and lifeless has now become an actual style of leadership. Wonder how they will teach that in B school?

Tiabbi does admit there is dissent within the party toward the current tactics, but they are boxed out. Representative Barbara Lee is quoted as saying that when she tried to submit an amendment to cut off funding unless it was tied to withdrawal, I couldn’t even get it through the Rules Committee in the Spring she noted. Yeah, that wasn’t just Republicans double teaming her. Another Rep, Lynn Woolsey articulated an obvious strategy that was not employed. Her stance? Democrats should have refused form the beginning to approve any funding that wasn’t tied to a withdrawal.

Her lament was that perhaps the Democrats should have been bold. Wow. Radical. Act. Bold.

Finally, Tiabbi accuses the current Democratic leadership and to some extent the party of inhaling some elements of the anti-war movement itself and using it specifically for the purposes of electing Democrats. He suggests that the Democrats infiltrated peace groups and filled them with party hacks. Not much proof is offered of this, and given the de-centralization of the anti Iraq war movement itself, it might simply be a Washington phenomenon. There are too many pissed off anti war activists still reminding us of work to be done.

Ultimately, says Tiabbi, the Democrats strategy is to assume voters see them as the anti-war, despite doing much to the contrary. Tiabbi doesn’t ask it but I will: can this negatively impact the upcoming presidential election. Although many are basking in optimism and occasional glee about the prospects for a Democratic president, if the voters want change, the problem is almost anybody represents change ( even McCain because he actually wants all conflict all the time which might be good for the economy who knows it worked before) and the Pelosi/Reed duet is both tone deaf and short on snappy new tunes to pipe into the muzak making machine. We want a grand rock opera and we’re getting the wheezing of a lone accordion. We want a buffet of tasty, colorful, delights for the palate and we’re getting gruel with a few worms tossed in. It isn’t enough to get a new president, Pelosi and Reed are so used to sleeping with the enemy, that they will need intensive de-programming therapy just to come to grips with the idea that if we do end up with a Democratic president, it means the public might expect some legislation that does not originate from Republican ideals.