The Democratic Weaselship Council

[Q]

The Democratic Weaselship Council
If Democratic centrists want to repeat Bill Clinton's success, they should stop attacking fellow Democrats as "far left" and concentrate on uniting the party against Bush.

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By Joan Walsh

July 29, 2003  |  Has Karl Rove taken over the Democratic Leadership Council? I can't think of another explanation for the centrist clique's destructive guerrilla war against fellow Democrats. Tuesday's New York Times outlines the latest assault: a DLC conference this week devoted to blasting the party's presidential hopefuls for their "far left" critique of President Bush's budget-busting tax cuts and his dishonesty in leading the nation into war. If hitting Bush on those blunders really makes Democrats unelectable, the nation is in worse trouble than the DLC thinks.

No one knows right now which issues will carry the day come November 2004. Bush is stumbling lately, but an economic rebound and some success in pacifying Iraq could send his poll numbers soaring again. The left's perhaps-fatal weakness is wishful thinking about Bush's vulnerability. Yet two facts are and will remain politically crucial: The economy is a shambles at least partly because of Bush's wrongheaded, reward-the-rich tax cuts, and the nation still doesn't know the truth about why we started a bloody, costly war that's a long way from over. Democrats can and do disagree about how to deal with both sets of issues -- how to repair the economy as well as Iraq -- but saying the party shouldn't criticize Bush's approaches is dangerous and delusional. - http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2003/07/29/dlc/index_np.html

[Iverson]

1. 1,2,3,

kick.

[Capn Sunshine]

2. As a DLC member I'm not going to defend this

I think these statements are total bullshit. I agree with Q. But I never felt the DLC needed "power" , so in that sense they are doing what needs to be done: marginalizing themselves in some time warp cocoon of Lieberbluster.

I liked it better before we became influential. This will help immensely to return things to their 1990 state.

Maybe then, the more worthy attributes of the "Third Way" philosophy will get exposure without having all the baggage currently dragging along with it.

I'm doing an article for Blueprint to that effect; it probably won't see the light of day, but look for it elsewhere. Maybe even HERE :)