[Alex]
Matt Stoller at MyDD.com argues that "In a bar fight Obama and Hillary are not on our side" Tough stuff, no?
"What I see in the Hillary crowd is an acceptance of the status quo, a belief that you can ‘take Iraq off the table’, and a willingness to accept a Democratic party dominated by relatively awful elite interests. Their assumptions are that Bush is a bad President, but that our basic public discourse is fine, that America needs to scrape the barnacles off the hull. Iraq was not executed properly you see, but let’s not be too indelicate about it. I see this too with Obama’s people, who are by and large the Daschle crew. If you liked Tom Daschle as Senate leader, you’ll love Obama as President. He basically accepts the dominance of immoral elites as necessary and good, and as far as I can tell wants to futz around the margins with well-crafted but small scale legislative efforts. It’s impossible to know whether his stroke of bravery – being against the war in Iraq – was principle or a savvy attempt to win in a crowded Democratic primary in 2003 where the target was liberal voters. All of this is fine for a mediocre and moderate Senator from Illinois, which is what he’s been. But until he proves otherwise, he just is not with us. He doesn’t believe that bullies in power are the problem, he thinks that mean words are the problem. Ok, fine, but don’t expect me to buy that unifying nonsense as anything more than cult of personality mass media power."
This is good fun, isn’t it? Then Stoller really goes off the deep end:
"There are two candidates who can pass the bar fight primary. One of them, Wes Clark, passes the test clearly. He is a genuine liberal, and has fought the right clearly and consistently for the last four years, most recently in Connecticut when he was the only real surrogate against Lieberman. I don’t see how Clark can seriously compete, but this willingness to be on our side in a bar fight, recognizing the institutional challenges posed by the right, explains his continuing netroots support. And then there’s John Edwards. I think Edwards is split. He’s spent much of his time working with unions, on the road, in low-key meetings. Elizabeth Edwards has done outreach to bloggers, so there’s at least acknowledgment of the dirty hippy crew. He’s announcing in New Orleans, which is dog whistle politics on our issues. He knows he was wrong on the war, and feels our betrayal. Unlike Clark, though, I still haven’t seen him stand up for us in a real way. I haven’t seen him attack McCain, for instance, or go after the politicians who supported the Bankruptcy Bill. I haven’t seen him challenge any right-wing interests in a serious way, and so while I acknowledge he’s in the ball park, he’s not there yet."
The Stoller primary, then, remains to be won. Why, though, do I have the feeling that whoever wins it will end up disappointing – even betraying – the redoubtable Mr Stoller?
[Also: how priceless – I wouldnt want to say egotistical – is it that Elizabeth Edwards’ "outreach to bloggers" should be such a compelling argument for supporting him? Nor, naturally, is there anything solipsistic about all this "our betrayal" stuff on the war…]
The Dish 