Saturday, February 24, 2007

The establishment pundits who indulge in over-the-top criticism of "netroots" aided activism need to own up to their self-interest.

Supporters of Internet initiated and supported grassroots efforts -- for Dean in 2004, Lamont in 2006, etc. -- base their support in a candidate's willingness to address issues that are not being adequately addressed by established politicians, or, their opposition to or dissatisfaction with established politicians' positions on specific issues. Such conflicts are exactly what democratic politics are, or at least should be, all about.

Critics of such grassroots efforts (for instance, Joe Klein, who recently attacked netroots efforts to challenge Rep. Elaine Tauscher in California), are to a man people who earn their bread and butter as part of a professional political media and consultant class.

Members of this class, naturally and self-interestedly enough, prefer a politics that, while it may not bear much on the real and pragmatic concerns and interests of ordinary voters, strengthens media power (and their power) because it is created within the media and is totally dependent on media cooperation — that is, the politics of flamboyant, unresolvable distractions called the “culture war” and the titillating pleasures of trumped up “character” assassination and scandal.

However you dress it up, people — all across the political spectrum — participate in politics and vote based on their own self-interest and their view of the broader best interest of the country. Left, right or center, people want, and have a right to, representation. No one votes for someone to be lukewarm and “moderate” in representing their interests and hopes for their community and country.

Those who object to a politician like Tauscher as someone who poorly represents them may or may not be ultimately successful with replacing her, or encouraging her to act in a way that is more representative of their views and interests. But, in acting to secure representation for themselves, they are doing EXACTLY what is required of us all as active, participating citizens in a democracy.

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Thursday, February 22, 2007

In an interview yesterday with ABC News, Vice President Dick Cheney said that the Murtha and Pelosi plan for Iraq validates the al Qaeda "strategy."

"The al Qaeda strategy is to break the will of the American people, knowing they can't win in a stand-up fight, try to convince us to throw in the towel and come home and then they win because we quit," he said.

Al Qaeda wouldn't be around to boldly and publicly insult America if this adminstration hadn't totally failed -- over 5 years and counting -- to track down their leadership and hold them accountable for the mass murder they committed on our soil. Dick Cheney should be ashamed to use the sneering words of al Qaeda -- the unrepentant, un-captured, unbowed murderers who attacked this country under his administration's watch -- against his own people. Most especially when, adding insult to injury, it is his administration that chose, very early on, to walk away from a "stand up fight" with al Qaeda's leader, Osama bin laden.

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