I really like what Markos from Daily Kos has to say....maybe netroots/bloggers is your third party. As for Harold Ford.....I've had enough of Mr. Lieberman II.
Meet The Press: Markos v. Ford
by BarbinMD
Sun Aug 12, 2007 at 01:35:59 PM PDT
And now, a not-so-brief recap of Markos' appearance today on Meet The Press, where he squared off against the Chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council, Harold Ford. Substituting for Tim Russert was David Gregory who framed the debate as:
Liberal vs. centrist--whose voice will dominate on issues like the war in Iraq, terrorism, health care, trade and more?
Gregory began by asking Ford about his recent warning against the Democratic Party "lurching to the left," and right out of the gate, Ford demonstrated why he isn't a United States Senator today:
First, you have to demonstrate your strength and trustworthiness on national security. [stay the course] You have to demonstrate that your values are squarely in the mainstream of America. [God, guns and gays] And, three, you have to demonstrate as a Democrat that you can be trusted on taxes, economic and fiscal policy. [back George Bush's tax cuts]
Otherwise, according to Ford, "we run the risk of being so excited and enthusiastic," that we will lose. Presumably that is in reference to us crazy, lurching leftists. Markos disagreed:
Well, we've had 20 years of Democrats arguing that we can't show passion, that we can't really stand strong for being Democrats, that we must blur the distinctions. There's been a line of argument that the DLC's been pushing for many, many years that this is a conservative country...And what we did is we started organizing. We started pushing Democrats to be proud to be Democrats. This had nothing to do with being centrist or liberal or conservative. It had to do with standing tall for core progressive principles.
At this point Gregory, apparently confused that this liberal spokesman wasn't in his pajamas ranting, asked who represents the liberal wing of the party. Said Markos:
...you're, you're trying to make it about me, and here's the difference is that this isn't about me. I run a site and I'm part of a movement that has hundreds of thousands to millions of committed activists working on behalf of their candidates...So it doesn't matter who I think is liberal enough or conservative enough. I don't make those value judgments. I don't--I'm not there--arrogant to think that I should be making those decisions.
Gregory then moved on to what advice they would give to the party's nominee. And Markos' answer demonstrated exactly why both the traditional media and traditional politicians fear and loathe the netroots:
Well, you know, you're starting talking about issues. What I want that candidate to do is to not be afraid to talk about who they are, to be authentic and to tell us who they are so that we can actually make a decision. And not me. I'm not going to make this decision. It's not my job to decide who the nominee's going to be. I want these candidates to speak to regular Americans. And for too long they've been speaking to the pundits, they've been speaking to shows like this one. They haven't been really communicating to the base because they had to go through this media filter and this political filter, and now we're destroying those filters. We're saying go straight to the people, talk to them, make your case.
People asking real questions and expecting real answers, rather than platitudes and pandering. God forbid! And Ford's answer? A laundry list of talking points and that:
...this is a moment that the country's waiting to hear where Democrats stand on these big, important issues going forward.
Ford didn't say why the moment for Democrats to take a stand on important issues wasn't 20 years ago. And that was when the gloves came off:
MR. MOULITAS: The problem we have, though, is we've, we've had a, a, an organization that, one, has, has been on the wrong side of a lot of ideas. We're talking John Breaux, Senator John Breaux, who's an architect of George Bush's tax cuts, which have led our nation to record deficits, record debt, and a crumbling infrastructure, as we've seen in Katrina and as we've seen in, in Minnesota. I mean, crazy thing, but the American people want their bridges to stay in one piece. So we, we have a situation like that. On Social Security...
REP. FORD: You can't blame the--Markos, I got great respect for you, but I'm not going to let you get away with blaming the Democratic Leadership Council or anything that we support, sir, for, for anything...
MR. MOULITSAS: Senator John Breaux, who was the chairman of the DLC...
REP. FORD: Right.
MR. MOULITSAS: ...was the chief architect. This is something you put...
REP. FORD: But not of crumbling--not of crumbling infrastructure.
MR. MOULITSAS: Well, what do you think, you're going to cut taxes and not pay for the priorities in our nation. I mean, obviously, there has to be a way to pay for these things. And to come out and say, "Well we're going to cut taxes, and we're going to let these deficits run up, and we're going to let our infrastructure crumble," clearly it's the wrong way to go. On health care, on the war in Iraq, which you still refuse to say is a big mistake.
REP. FORD: It's, it's...
MR. MOULITSAS: You, you were on just on Fox News. So, clearly, we have a situation where you have an organization that's been on the wrong side of the issues and has failed to really build a movement, has failed to really draw popular support...At YearlyKos, we had all these organizations at the same table--labor, the issue groups. The one organization that was still missing was the DLC. That's the one organization that refuses to acknowledge...(unintelligible)...with me.
Ouch. At that point, Gregory moved on to the war in Iraq, asking Markos about the so-called lack of consensus among Democrats about the timing of troop withdrawals.
MR. MOULITSAS: ...on the, on the Iraq issue, this is semantics. Whether we get out in three months, six months or a year, there is a strong consensus, almost universal in our party, and vast majorities among the American public that people want out. People want this war to end. They want our troops home.
MR. GREGORY: Right, but, but, but...
MR. MOULITSAS: They want to bring our troops home to be with their families. [...]
MR. GREGORY: Yeah, but doesn't that speak to the issue of, of how you form an exit strategy?
MR. MOULITSAS: Not, not at all. Because we're not going to get out while we have George Bush as president. I mean, so if we say we want to be out in three months, clearly we could be out yesterday, I'd want to be out yesterday. I also understand, as a veteran who worked in logistics, that you can't pull out 150,000 troops overnight or even in three months. So, yes, there's an ideal situation, which is let's get them out as quickly as possible, so that the poll questions in that regard I think are very much moving in semantics.
Gregory was left to change the subject to the 2006 elections, which gave Ford a chance to claim credit for our electoral successes, and when Markos countered that line of revisionist history with facts, it led to perhaps the most telling exchange of the debate:
REP. FORD: ...There's no need for us to argue. Those guys won, and we should be proud. I think...
MR. MOULITSAS: Because they were proud Democrats.
REP. FORD: And I'm one, too. There's no need to question my allegiance...We do nothing but help Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, John McCain and Rudy Giuliani when we argue essentially over semantics.
MR. MOULITSAS: So will you go on--will you stop going on Fox News and attacking Harry Reid for abandoning...
REP. FORD: No, but, but...
MR. MOULITSAS: ...the troops...
REP. FORD: I'm, I'm not...
MR. MOULITSAS: ...betraying the troops?
REP. FORD: I...
MR. MOULITSAS: You just said that a couple days ago.
REP. FORD: But, but, Markos, in all fairness, your site has posted awful things about Jewish-Americans. Your site...You--now you have a site up about...something about Cindy Sheehan, she uses it as a--she has a heavy presence there in talking about her run against...
Interesting, isn't it? When called out for his Lieberman-like habit of trashing Democrats, he responds with talking points straight from the mouth of Bill O'Reilly. Pitiful. And Markos' response?
MR. MOULITSAS: It's called democracy. If you don't like regular people--hundreds of thousands of people...
Because I don't control hundreds of thousands of voices. You and your organization have a few dozen people. You can control that message. And you don't need to attack Democrats.
Game, set, match. And Markos? Nice tie.
Update: You can watch the show here or here.
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