Snark O' the Day: "Raging" "Impotent" Netroots, Eh?

by Blue Stockings |  I don't think so.  But it's a meme that's emerging since the Lieberman thing and the media are running it for all it's worth.  Here's a piece by James Kirchick in The New York Daily News to prove it, all "Obama isn't afraid of the raging, impotent netroots because Joe Lieberman blah blah netroots furious rah rah blah dee blah blee." Read it yourself. 

With respect to that particular piece, Thers pretty much says it all.

It's pretty much impossible to take Jamie Kirchick seriously; nobody does.

But it is interesting, in a boring and predictable sort of way, that there is apparently a Big Liberal Media market for his silly pieces about the ineffectiveness of the left "netroots" at the same time as there is a Big Liberal Media market for even sillier pieces about how the right "netroots" is going to totally revitalize the Republican Party... by, uh, copying the methods of the left "netroots." Shazam!. 

The Heretik, even so, is a bit disgusted.

So Obama bites the left hand that fed him. Just last month Obama was a socialist.  Now he is a radical moderate centrist. It’s all so very pragmatic.  Pragmatic is the word you use when your ideals fall, but only after people have fallen for you.

 I disagree.  I don't trust presidents with personal ideals, even if the ideals are the same as mine.  Idealists tend to be procrustean in trying to cut reality down to the size of their own ideas and inflexible about recognizing any limitations on their ability to carry through.  They don't care if implementing their ideals makes reality worse and they say things like, "You have to break a few eggs to make an omelet."  In other words, they end up as ideologues.

As a progressive, I want a president who is a pragmatist and proceeds cautiously.  This is because one of my friends here turned me on to the I Ching and I have come to believe that any powerful movement left or right always produces a counteraction of equal force (as we've just seen).  Find the center then move leftward deliberately but by degrees is what I say.  It's the only way to ensure that the changes "take" and that people on the other side won't grab the reins out of your hand and turn you the other way.  All the evidence suggests that the left has been right and the right consistently wrong.  Obama, being intelligent, has got to see this too. 

Anyway as my co-blogger has repeatedly pointed out, Obama is doing exactly what he said he was going to do:  reach across the aisle.  Being intelligent and adroit and a pragmatist, he is able to change positions (unlike Bush) and I trust he can see himself that the right wingers had everything wrong from beginning to end.  

At least I hope.  I've been accused before of rationalizing in defense of pols I like.  

I'm somewhat cheered by BooMan's take on it:

James Kirchick likes to crow about how the Netroots don't matter. There are a few former (Republican and Democrat) office holders that might beg to differ. But, Kirchick is right about one thing. If Obama listened to the Netroots' advice all the time he wouldn't be president-elect. However, the FISA bill is not one of those examples....[I]t was Obama's biggest mistake. Having said that, he generally ignored the Netroots' advice and, for the most part, he was wise to do so. He ran a far smarter and more disciplined campaign than I could have ever dreamed up.

Anyway, I'm not pissed off with Obama (yet).  But I AM pretty irked with by a couple of things attributed to Congressional Dems and their minions.

Here's the Rude Pundit to say [rudely] what needs to be said about a couple of remarks by fellow Democrats that brought a furrow to my brow and a frown to my lips:. 

[W]hat has the Rude Pundit mightily pissed and feeling like a piece of ass that was roughly fucked without even the courtesy of a reacharound is this remark from a Democratic Senate aide regarding the meaning of the vote on Lieberman: "The left has been foiled again. They can rant and rage but they still do not put the fear into folks to actually change their votes. Their influence would be in question." As Jane Hamsher said, "This is about telling you that you mean nothing."...

In fact, it was the progressive, liberal surge for Obama, the massive enfranchising of disaffected populations because of progressive ideas, that gave the Democrats the increased numbers. Joe and Jane Twelve-Pack decided that they'd been dicked around enough and maybe some of those crazy ideas about economic justice and government of the people were real.

Hoyer....said, "[W]e intend to govern from the middle, not the muddled middle, but the principled, consensus-creating middle that has marked our country’s progress." The problem there is that the middle has no principles. That's the convenience of being in the middle. There is only capitulation there and oh, so much compromise (some of which is, of course, inevitable - we're not dunces)....But "foiled"?

Here's a warning to the Democrats in Congress: you better...deliver on some shit. Or, unlike the bitches of the Christian right who just take it, we will make you pay. One of the lessons of this past election is that we've learned how to field and support candidates.  (The Rude Pundit; emphasis added)

Yes, we have.  And will.  And any smug DINOs in Congress had better realize that this is just the beginning.  We'll do even better the next time around.

So we'll just see how it goes.  Like the RP said in the piece I just quoted from, I didn't really believe they'd let Lieberman go and I didn't think Obama was wrong to be magnanimous, so whatever.  He must know that he's used up his full lifetime allotment of betrayals.  We'll see how he goes from here. 

Memeorandum has more.

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Snark O' the Day: WSJ Blames Atheists for the Collapse of Wall Street

Katie Couric Talks to David Letterman About the Palin Interview

Talkin Turkey: The Sarah Palin Turkey Slaughter Incident

Suffering Fools: GOP Senators Get Sent to Funky Town

Conservatives Declare Us the Victors in Iraq: "THE WAR IS OVER AND WE WON"

Snark O' the Day: Conservatives Mull Over their Defeat Some More

Bailing Out Ingrates: A Taxpayer's Rant