This recommended diary on Jim Webb is typical at this point of the liberal internet space. It quotes Webb saying the following:
"There are fundamental differences," McCain told Politico. "[Webb's GI Bill] creates a new bureaucracy and new rules. His bill offers the same benefits whether you stay three years or longer. We want to have a sliding scale to increase retention. I haven't been in Washington, but my staff there said that his has not been eager to negotiate."
"He's so full of it," Webb said in response. "I have personally talked to John three times. I made a personal call to [McCain aide] Mark Salter months ago asking that they look at this."
The diary is titled 'Webb Shreds McCain on GI Bill: "He's So Full of It"' and it is followed by 200 sycophantic comments mewling about how awesome Webb is. Not one person noted the next few paragraphs of the story from which this is quoted.
"Hell, no," Webb bristled when asked if there had been an implicit message that he would attack McCain if he didn't come on board.
"John McCain has been a longtime friend of mine, and I think if John sat down and examined what was in this bill, he would co-sponsor it," Webb said. "I don't want this to become a political issue. I want to get a bill done."
Indeed, Jim Webb doesn't want anyone to think that he doesn't honor John McCain's service. And he doesn't want to make the GI Bill a political issue, no way. That would be so uncouth, after all, Democrats and Republicans agree on stuff, right, and politics is bad, it's not at all the way that a democratic society manages decision-making. Webb is on the one hand calling McCain a liar and then a friend, and putting his head down so that the GI Bill won't be a political issue. How the hell does he expect change to happen if he's not willing to make basic questions of values political? Webb has blown his credibility repeatedly; remember the response to the state of the union, in 2007, when he said Democrats would show the Bush the way if he did not change course on Iraq. That didn't work so well, did it? He voted badly on taxes, FISA, and war funding, and he is quite clearly telegraphing his intentions. Sycophantic star struck media worshipping behavior only shows him that we are cheap dates.
So that's example one, but here are some more.
Let's start with the post-partisan crap, with Senator Daniel Inouye feting Senator Ted Stevens with a lobbyist driven fundraiser out of shared policy goals (drilling in ANWR) and long-term friendship. I used this example to criticize the argument that post-partisanship and reaching across the aisle is good in and of itself, which led Obama supporters to say that this is not the kind of post-partisanship they mean, they want a different post-partisanship that involves reaching across the aisle but in a good way. Ok then. And that's not to mention Chris's sarcastic post-partisan piece gutting the various straw men designed to demean and insult people who want to fight Republicans and have, you know, noticed the last eight years.
And then there are the number of people who take issue with a basic request for competence at the Obama campaign with regards to communications. People apparently don't want Obama sending out talking points or talking to bloggers, preferring that bloggers stay independent. Well excuse me, why do you think Obama surrogates suck on TV? They aren't getting fucking talking points, you idiots. How do you think this works?
While we're on Obama, consider the ridiculous defenses of Obama going on Fox News and lying about his intent to 'take them on', to which I could refer you to Chris's post once again. The straw men arguments were just disgusting and out in force.
Finally, we get to the unbelievably vicious attacks on Women's Voices Women's Vote. Why pretend like they operate in bad faith? This is a progressive organization that registers voters, something very few of us know anything about doing on a large scale level because there just isn't very much of it happening. WVWV does it systematically, they do it aggressively, and they did it when no one else would, in 2004 or 2006. Do you think it's glamorous to register voters or something? Do you think lots of people come up to you and say 'great job registering millions of voters in 2004', or nice job on that voter registration campaign in Ohio, you really empowered a lot of poor women? Do you think you get 15% of a multi-million dollar TV budget to register voters? Of course not. It's hard, difficult, boring fucking work that no other progressive group would do. But of course it's easy to go after these people and pretend like there's some nefarious Clinton-spawned plot when several of the board members, including Mike Lux who has posted here for months, are well-known Obama supporters, and the organization relies on academics and data-driven methods.
If I sound frustrated, it's because I am. The extent to which the progressive movement that came into existence over the past few years has prostituted itself for people who look good on TV while lying to us and stabbed our friends sickens me. It's just sick. You don't seem to understand how much contempt people in these Presidential campaigns have for you, how low we rank because we demand nothing of them. You know when Moveon was censured, they were censuring all of us, and they meant it. I've seen Senators turn away nastily from Moveon staffers after learning they were from Moveon.
Anyway, I'm tired of sitting on these bitter feelings, and I figured the best thing to do now is to write about it. |
