The Politico allows Dan Gerstein, who works for Lieberman....to critique activists and Howard Dean.

[madfloridian]

Dan Gerstein was just plain ugly to anyone who opposed Joe Lieberman in CT. He is still working for him. Yet The Politico has allowed him to write at least two columns which critique Howard Dean's role (that's not his job as Lieberman's advisor...Lieberman's not a Democrat) and which bash anti-war and anti-Fox activists.

Here is his job description given at Politico:

Dan Gerstein is a political consultant and commentator based in New York. He recently served as communications director for Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman's successful general election campaign in Connecticut, and continues to serve as a paid advisor to Lieberman. He is also the author of the blog Dangerous Thoughts.

This is similar to James Carville's CNN consultant job which he recently used to say that Howard Dean should be fired. Something is wrong with that picture. He is by his own admission, and by many articles...either a formal or informal advisor to Hillary. Not a good thing. Begala is also a CNN advisor and works for Hillary's campaign. Doug Schoen is another...he recently called for Harold Ford to replace Dean as chairman. He is now a Fox Consultant, as is Harold Ford whom they wanted to be DNC chair, but who is now DLC chair. These are not good things.

Carville, Begala, and Schoen as consultants

Back to Dan Gerstein who is a paid advisor to Joe Lieberman.

This is his lovely article about the immature bloggers and liberal activists, written while he is a paid advisor to Joe Lieberman.

Liberal Bloggers Demonstrate Their Political Immaturity, Democrat Says

If the liberal blogs want to understand why so few people outside their narrow echo chamber take them seriously, and what it will take to gain the broader credibility they crave, they should look no further than their handling of the recent flap over John Edwards’ foul-mouthed blogger hires.

This ugly morality tale - which mercifully concluded Tuesday with the second of the two offending online staffers resigning from the Edwards campaign - revealed the Kossacks in all their angry adolescent glory: impudent, impotent, unreflective and unaccountable.

Throughout the course of the controversy, the left’s bigger digital diatribers never stopped to address the substance of what the Edwards bloggers actually wrote before joining the campaign. Had the bloggers done so, they might have found the postings were widely deemed by Democrats and Republicans alike as bigoted and patently offensive to many Christians, not just devout Catholics or evangelicals.

...."Catholics are one of the biggest and most important swing-voting blocs in this country. They often tend to decide elections. So it’s probably not the smartest idea for a leading Democratic presidential candidate to hire people who openly defame Catholicism’s sacred figures by talking about the Lord filling the Virgin Mary with “his hot, white, sticky spirit.”

Next, while this article about Howard Dean is not really an ugly one....it is not his business as Joe Lieberman's advisor to tell Democrats what to do.

REMEMBER: Joe Lieberman is not a Democrat. He is an independent.

Howard Dean’s Dilemma

In this Dean vs. Deaniac struggle, we vividly see the most consequential fault line in the 21st century Democratic Party. The primary conflict is no longer an ideological split between left and center, or a structural split between outsider and insider, as the Netroots would have us believe. It is far more of a tactical split between the purists and the realists, between those who loath conservatives above all else and those who like to win elections.

It is a measure of how far our party has shifted in spirit and tone that the author of the Dean scream now falls squarely in the realist camp. One could argue that it’s more a measure of the difference between campaigning and governing, and the extent of the challenge Dean faces in wedding the angry Democratic wing of the Democratic Party with the far less polarized and partisan voters that the party leadership hopes to add to our ranks.

Therein lies Dean’s delicate dilemma in reassembling a Democratic majority: how to harness the admirable and valuable passion of his energized base, which he is largely responsible for unleashing, without letting it descend into electoral poison for the independents that our party must attract to win the White House and hold onto Congress. The more immediate question, in the wake of the Fox fight, is how to convince the party activists that our main goal is to beat the right at the ballot box, not punish them on the idiot box.

Methinks someone should tell him that the party chairman honestly believes in the power of politics from the ground up. He wants the power to stay outside of DC. Tell Danny boy that Howard Dean believes that you get power by giving up some of the control to the ground level. It is his policy and his strong belief.

Tell Dan to shut up, that the guy he works for is an independent now...one who often threatens to leave the Democrats for the Republican Party.

Fox, CNN, the Politico....advisors working for Hillary and Lieberman...advising Dean and grassroots as to their role in the party.

Not proper. Gerstein even gets his picture posted large on the Politico website. I made it smaller.