Reply #8: Not just one blogger's take, but a thorough argument

[pmbryant]

It's my take as well; he just articulated it in full and complete form. Yglesias, who I often disagree with, makes a very throrough presentation that Sirota is criticizing the DLC for positions it does not hold.

http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2004/12/responding_to_r.html#more

To make a long story short, David's post is basically non-responsive to the issues I raised. My post charges him -- and provides evidence -- that he's taken a quotation from Will Marshall's "Heartland Strategy" out of context. There's no rebuttal to be found. I point out that two of the people he cites as proof of the wrongheadedness of DLC strategy -- Eliot Spitzer and Ken Salazar -- have both been hailed by the DLC as pointing in the direction the party should go. There's no rebuttal to be found. In his article, David implied that Joe Lieberman was a supporter of the Bush tax cuts. I pointed out that Lieberman (a) voted against the Bush tax cuts, (b) opposed their full repeal because he supported the middle class elements (i.e., doubling the child tax credit, and a few other provisions), and (c) on the campaign trail in 2004 proposed the most progressive revision of the tax code of any major candidate in the race. David responds to this with an out-of-context Fox News quotation that continues to misportray Lieberman's stance on the issue.

I find this very disappointing, because I very much enjoyed Sirota's recent story about how Brian Schweitzer won the Governor's office in Montana. That was an extremely well written, logically coherent piece about a fascinating event that we all should read.

This latest effort by him is vastly inferior. I just read it myself and it is filled with name calling and questionable assertions, in addition to the problems pointed out by Yglesias.

EDIT: About trade issues, most of Sirota's article is not about that topic.

EDIT AGAIN: About national security, there is nothing in Sirota's article about that subject. Sirota's beef with the DLC appears to be different than yours with Beinart (who, AFAIK, is not the DLC).

--Peter