So the Villagers have circled their wagons around FOX in the name of respect, comity and High Broderism. Why their don't actually join in the fun and report on FOX's biased coverage, since it might ultimately help their own ratings, is beyond me, but that's what we get. Ruth Marcus published an absurd piece in the WaPo on Monday, which Eric Boehlert takes apart, and yesterday ABC's Jake Tapper called FOX a "sister organization" and attacked Robert Gibbs over the White House's position. Other talking heads have taken up the banner. The Village doesn't actually recognize its Idiots, and has become them.
It's all very heartwarming to see all the little media Villagers gather around their wealthy potential future employer, Fox News, and defend it from the big bad White House, but seriously, is there any real doubt that Fox News (not the gasbags ---but Fox News itself) is biased? (As Boehlert asks here --- has Ruth Marcus ever watched Fox News?) There are so many examples that it seems ridiculous to have to make the case, but evidently the villagers are so brainwashed they can't even see what's before their very eyes.
[...]
But just as it took nearly 25 years for the villagers to grok that even though he was invited to dinner parties by important people, Rush Limbaugh is actually a malignant blight on humanity, those who don't watch Fox News (and therefore agree with it) simply assume they must be ok because they hire lots of credentialed journalists and are invited to all the important social events. It would be downright unseemly if it turns out that right wing fascists are walking among them.
The whole thing reminds me of when Dana Milbank called HuffPo's Nico Pitney a "planted questioner" and a "dick", jealously upset that a new media outlet like HuffPo actually got a question in a live White House press conference. It's Villagers guarding their corridors of power, whether the people trying to come in is the HuffPo or the Obama administration.
I'm watching for the reaction of congressional Democrats, which I haven't seen much of. FOX gets elected Dems, former elected Dems, and Dem strategists on their network as their bread and butter, and a key to their legitimization and continued existence.
In something of a win, FOX was told that they should not "expect" Obama to appear on their network for the rest of the year. MoveOn launched a petition yesterday asking Democrats to follow his lead and stay off the network. It's a start towards "fringe-ifying" FOX by taking away those that gets it legitimization and viewership.
Lest the White House not take me seriously, let me emphasize I am fully dressed and do not have a bag of Cheetos to my left as I type
As Chris wrote last night, the White House called me and all of you an "internet left fringe", and declared that I need to understand that running the country is difficult. This is nothing new from this Administration, since another (or perhaps the same) WH adviser dismissed those who push for a public option as "the left of the left", and Obama himself has said he doesn't read blogs, that he found DailyKos boring, skipped the Senate vote to censure MoveOn, and on and on.
Folks in Obamaland have been hyperparanoid for some time that a vast majority of the electorate not only understands the progressive internet media and organizing space, but that it's a Very Important Issue to voters, and they will take great offense if Obama said he read a blog every once in awhile and, hey, even found DailyKos to be interesting, and even voted with 25, or about half, of his Democratic colleagues against censure. Surely, that would have made front-page headlines, inspired huge attack ads from McCain, and caused us to lose the election, Obama advisers must have thought. In reality, not so much. "How will it play in Peoria?!", Rahm anxiously thought. "What's a blog?", Peoria resident might have responded.
Simultaneously, White House Communications Director Anita Dunn has engaged in something of a week-long war this past week against FOX News, on the record. Earlier she said FOX is "opinion journalism masquerading as news" to TIME Magazine, then followed up on CNN yesterday, saying FOX is "either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party", then did an interview with the New York Times published today, saying "We're going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent... As they are undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House, we don't need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave."
Perhaps this is either another game of 32-dimensional chess from the White House- this time with the media and the electorate instead of with Republicans in Congress- but it's like triangulation is again in vogue. And this time it's 21st century style- movement-based instead of issue-based. As John Harwood said when reporting the White House comment:
we've seen and certainly Bill Clinton learned that they Democratic President can get punished by the mainstream of the electorate for being too aggressive on social issues so for now I think the administration feels that if they take care of the big issues - health care, energy, the economy - he's going to be just fine with this group.
That is actually much in dispute, since as Mike Lux wrote here, depression of base Democratic turnout- not anger from centrist voters over social issues- was the key to the losses that year. But Harwood's views are clearly echoed by this White House, which is determined to make sure it is not seen as either captive of the movement left or the movement right. Never mind that, um, the movement left helped get Obama's ass into the White House. Never mind that when a zillion of these Obama voters who report how they haven't voted since Ted Kennedy in 1980 (some even earlier) vanish if we don't get a lot of the hope-iness and change-yness that Obama promised, movement lefties like many of us at OpenLeft will be the only ones here battling to make sure we don't get crushed in Congress and at the ballot box. Never mind that the Obamaland folks' comments about blogs and the "left of the left" are actually aimed at elites, since "mainstream" voters don't care about or understand blogs or progressive movement institutions. And I have yet to find data or analysis of any kind demonstrating that other stupid things to smack the left that Obamaland has done- for example, his random editorial board interview praise of Reagan- was a significant contributing factor to his election, or even noticed by "mainstream" voters.
I'm glad that the White House is engaging some kind of war with FOX News, and I know that I, many of my blogging colleagues, and many of you here in our internet left fringe have thick skins. But there are limits to the bullshit, both in rhetoric and in policy delivery. And why the White House chooses to do stupid little things like this without any perceptible reward from voters is beyond me.
There was a post at RedState I read over the weekend, "Defending Against an Alinsky Campaign", that illuminated Glenn Beck's and other conservative tactics recently for me. In graduate school, I took a grassroots politics class in which I read Alinsky's Reveille for Radicals, which actually predated his more well-known and popular Rules for Radicals. In it, he discusses the necessity of taking an opponent, "fixating" on an element or characteristic that could be blown up, "personalizing" it/her/him for the general public to match a negative perception with the name, and "humiliating" it/her/him as much as possible until you win. You see this to a limited extent with Van Jones- which wasn't even reported in many major outlets before he resigned, and certainly much of the public could not name who he was. But you see it to a smaller extent with Yosi Sergant with the NEA. And you see it big-time with ACORN. The two videographers fixated on what could be blown up (getting a few employees to screw up), and then with the noise machine's help, personalized ACORN and made the employees emblematic of the organization as a whole.
The attacks are seemingly unrelated, but I expect to see more that are related to the original personalizations- e.g., a petition asking those affiliated with ACORN to step down. And in some cases, they don't even need to do it. As Paul wrote last night, Democratic members of Congress- many of whom benefited greatly from ACORN's voter registration efforts over the years and advertised their close ties with ACORN- have already distanced themselves. Obama, who himself represented ACORN in a lawsuit and was affiliated in other ways with the group throughout the late 1990s, called for an investigation. I don't see what Obama did as cowardly as Congressional Dems' actions, since even ACORN's chief organizer called for the same, but it adds to the pile-on and keeps the story in the news. It works in what one colleague calls concentric circles- personalize and attack those closest to the organization, then attack those close to those you just attacked, and so forth.
The whole episode got me thinking of response tactics and a failure in organizing to stop this in its tracks. One of my favorite posts by Matt Stoller was one he wrote around failure to stop Alito's nomination and tactics that could have been pursued, but were not. There was organizing here that could have been pursued, but was not. One response that perhaps should have been pursued is similar to what Wes Boyd and Joan Blades of MoveOn.org did in the wake of the Lewinsky scandal- make the ask to "censure and move on". Slap someone/an organization on the wrist, but recognize there are a few bad apples in every organization/corporation, and that there are bigger problems. The advantage to this is that our esteemed Democratic leaders in Congress, in this kind of situation, are looking for an easy out, something to kill this story and give them something to say when a CNN reporter sticks a microphone in their face about it. A resolution is much preferable to de-funding just as a resolution is preferable to impeachment.
Another was to organize to ask for support prior to such a vote. We, including myself, should have organized earlier for a statement of support from those who benefit most/have the closest ties to ACORN, found a Progressive Block that could have blocked a defunding vote (similar to Chris' theory around holding a Block to stand firm on the public option and other key issues), and worked to lock them in. ACORN's tool to ask your member of Congress to stand firm is another step towards this.
The one problem with the latter tactic, at least, is that we operate in a media environment where pressure to de-fund, disaffiliate, distance oneself from, etc. builds like a head of steam in 24 hours, and makes it difficult to organize that kind of larger effort. The Alito nomination and the whip count on health care took months. We didn't have that kind of time. Regardless, once the Senate vote came down, something needed to happen quickly, and it didn't. Progressive movement actors, myself included, have to learn from this episode and figure out where we all went wrong in working to support those attacked. Other organizations/people will soon find themselves in a similar situation. The writer at RedState suggested targeting purple-district Congressional Dems themselves with the same Alinsky tactics and force the already-cautious among them to distance themselves from Obama. I can see this having policy implications, such as around LGBT issues. This can all snowball quickly. It is important to learn from these episodes and figure out a quicker rapid-response.
As many of you know, I was involved with helping MoveOn get off the ground back in 1998, when I was at People For the American Way. Since then, they have come a long way to being a political force. A new documentary has just come out that Brave New Films is helping to promote, titled MoveOn: The Movie. The trailer is here, and it looks fantastic. It really documents the energy and the new strategy of doing multi-issue politics rather than single-issue siloed politics that has held the progressive movement back for so long. Since MoveOn's founding, many more groups, both at the national level like PCCC and at the state level, have seen themselves as part of a movement, and pitched in with various campaigns. MoveOn really has revolutionized progressive politics.
I'm telling you about this because OpenLeft has partnered with Brave New Films to help release both MoveOn: The Movie as well as Robert Greenwald's new film, Rethinking Afghanistan, based in large part on his recent trip there. For every DVD purchase you buy, OpenLeft will get $5, which will help us do our brand of multi-issue activism and building progressive infrastructure. It's a two-fer, and helps promote these great films. And I think you'll like both.
Please click here to purchase MoveOn: The Movie, and click here to purchase Rethink Afghanistan. And thanks for helping support progressive infrastructure (squared).
Remember right after the Obama victory when everyone asked what the progressive movement's role would be in this new political world?
The big question for movement leaders was (and is) what to do when Obama goes weak on an issue like FISA when the progressive base really wants to love Obama. The environmental bill presents some similarly muddy water and a strong line of progressive activism isn't obvious.
Fortunately, the public option is not muddy at all. It appears to be one big sweet spot for progressive activism -- with movement actors fighting on Obama's side (and on the side of 76% of Americans) against lame corporate Democrats who are standing in the way of Obama's agenda.
Better news -- progressives aren't missing this opportunity! We're going for it! We're fighting hard and strategically. Check out these five TV ads by movement actors. (And if you want to be part of the action, take out $20 and help fund whichever one you like best.)
The Chamber of Commerce is a right-wing hack group that essentially steals the branding of local small businesses they don't represent. Many local Chambers of Commerce aren't even affiliated with the national organization.
In the past, writing here on OpenLeft, I got the Chamber of Commerce to admit that they are now spending taxpayer bailout money to fund their right-wing issue-advocacy campaigns.
I've personally been told by old-school liberal institutions things like, "Oh, you can't attack the Chamber. Their branding is too strong." Umm, that's why you attack them. And today, my former MoveOn colleagues stepped up to the plate. An email from Anna Galland:
Less than 48 hours ago, the biggest corporations in the country declared war on President Obama's agenda. The scale of the attack is mind-boggling.
The right-wing lobbyists at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce will spend $100 million to defeat Obama's plans for health care and a clean energy economy. They call it their "most important project" in nearly 100 years.
Congress is voting on a crucial energy bill in less than two weeks, and you can count on a barrage of misleading TV ads and arm-twisting in Congress aimed at weakening the bill. We're countering with an emergency organizing drive to strengthen the energy bill—but we urgently need to raise the funds to power our organizing drive.
Can you chip in $45 to help fight back against the Chamber's campaign?
Your local Chamber of Commerce represents small businesses, but the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is different—it represents the interests of mega-corporations, especially Big Oil and Coal.
In the next ten days, we'll pull out all the stops to block the Chamber and strengthen the energy bill.
Huzzah! And a boding of future anti-Chamber activism is in the P.S. of the email.
P.S. If you're a member of your local Chamber of Commerce or run a small business, please sign our petition asking the U.S. Chamber to stop lobbying against Obama's clean energy jobs plan:
Knowing MoveOn, signing this petition is the first step in what will be a multi-step activism chain sticking it to the Chamber. If you are a local small business person, step up and sign!
I'd note: It should not require MoveOn to do this. The unions should have been doing this for years. The Clinton'ites should have done it back in their heyday. But now somebody is doing it -- and I, for one, am very supportive!
Over at the Dollar a Day to Make Norm Go Away campaign, Norm Coleman's insistence on being a sore loser has raised over $60,000 to help progressive congressional challengers defeat Republicans in 2010.
And that number gets higher by the hour.
This campaign was launched 2 weeks ago by Howard Dean's Democracy for America and the new Progressive Change Campaign Committee (which I co-founded after leaving MoveOn.org, along with some other great folks).
The goal is to change the incentives for Coleman's DC funders. Before, there was really no downside for those bankrolling Coleman's endless court challenges and denying Al Franken his Senate seat. But as thousands of us sign up to give $1 every day Norm refuses to concede -- to help progressives defeat Republicans -- the equation changes.
There are two things that make this campaign work: scale and buzz.
We've achieved great scale, but I'd like to formally invite anyone who hasn't already signed up to join the cause: NormDollar.com
I'd also like to thank DFA, MoveOn, Darcy Burner, Chris and Natasha at BlogPAC, and countless blogs for sharing news of this campaign with their networks.
I know as well as anyone that some emails that you expect to work simply flop. Others that you expect to be par for the course go gangbusters -- inspiring droves of activism. Innovation and creativity are key, so I'll never fault anyone for trying weird, wacky new things -- even if they fail.
With one caveat: Every activist email must have a plausible "theory of change." People should see some concrete theory about why taking action could lead to a desired result.
But some people choose to inflame people's passions just to get their email addresses (and, more likely than not, to fundraise from them -- as opposed to later engaging them in quality activism). This sullys the online activism process for the rest of us.
That's why getting emails like this one from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee recently was both insulting and maddening:
Dear Adam,
First they counted the votes. Then they recounted them. Then they painstakingly went over every disputed ballot by hand. It was the most thorough and exhaustive recount process Minnesota has ever seen.
It's time to give it up, Norm. President Obama needs Al Franken in the Senate. It's time to concede the race. Click here to add your voice.
First the bipartisan canvassing board declared Al Franken the winner of the U.S. Senate race in Minnesota.
But Norm Coleman didn't like that result, so he took it to court. And now when even his own lawyers are predicting he'll lose, Coleman's threatening to keep appealing to more and more courts.
How many more recounts does Norm Coleman want? How many more delays? How much longer will the Republican Party hold Minnesota's Senate seat hostage?
Coleman can end it today and give Minnesota the two Senators it's entitled to. But he's not going to give up unless we convince him to act. So let's speak with one voice and tell Norm Coleman it's time to go.
It then links to a page with a "petition" to Norm Coleman. If you sign, you land on a donate page. If you scroll to the bottom of the email, you also see a donate button -- and a tell-a-friend button, so the DSCC can get your friends' emails.
Nowhere in the entire email is there a theory for why a DSCC petition to Norm Coleman will make any impact.
And, if you think about it, why on earth would Norm Coleman listen to the DSCC? Can you think of a less credible messenger than the DC committee whose sole role is to defeat Senate Republicans like Coleman?
I'm not saying the DSCC has no role to play in getting Coleman to step down. I'm just saying they should play an honest and effective role.
While General David "Betray Us" Petraeus must be thrilled with his conversion from traitor to saint in the eyes of the pseudo-left and amazed that such things can be accomplished simply by changing the political party of the president, the group that formerly bashed him with an ad in the New York Times and now supports whatever Obama does is not as new to supporting wars as this simple story suggests.
As many of you know by now, The Huffington Post reported yesterday that Senator Clinton slammed the activist organization Moveon.org at a fundraiser in February:
John and Elizabeth Edwards may not be on the 2008 presidential campaign anymore, but they are on a different campaign: making connections between the costs of the Iraq war and our weak economy.
Elizabeth Edwards, who is good about making constructive criticism of the media, observed that reporters
"certainly don't cover the connection between the issues," she said the American people see there is "undoubtedly a connection between oil, the costs of transportation in this country, and this war."
Two weeks ago I presented my case for why I prefer Obama to Clinton. In the context of my personal endorsement, and in the context of which candidate I will vote for if Pennsylvania ends up mattering on April 23rd, I completely stand by the content of that post. In fact, even if Pennsylvania doesn't matter, I'll vote for Obama anyway, since a couple of my activist friends are running for DNC delegates under Obama's name in my congressional district. That won't be futile, either, since even if Obama drops out by then, they could still win. For example, in 2004 State Rep. Mark Cohen won a delegate for Dean in Philadelphia eight weeks after Super Tuesday (Dean receive about 17.5% of the vote in PA-01, ten weeks after he dropped out). Needless to say, local Philly for Dean completely kicked ass.
However, as a member of MoveOn.org for about seven years now, I voted for Hillary Clinton in their presidential endorsement vote. Why? Not because I think MoveOn.org should endorse Hillary Clinton, but because I don't think they should endorse Barack Obama. Obama skipped the vote to chastise MoveOn.org a few months ago, while Clinton showed up and voted against chastising them. No thank you sir, I don't want another. What kind of message would it send if Obama can skip a vote like this, and still be endorsed by MoveOn.org over a candidate who voted no? Certainly not the sort of message I want to send about the netroots and new progressive infrastructure. If you betray our institutions, don't expect our institutional support during primaries. Allegiance needs to flow both ways in order for an alliance to be functional.
It might seem strange that I would vote for different candidates in different places, but it seems perfectly reasonable to me to wear different hats in different contexts. Endorsements in primaries have political implications that go beyond the quality of the candidates in the primaries. Since the political implications for me personally and for MoveOn.org as an institution are different, I think voting differently makes sense. Also, MoveOn.org did not offer a "no endorsement" option, which I would have selected if it was available.
So there. Now I think I have voted for every Democratic candidate in a straw poll this year except for Gravel (I'm pretty sure I voted for Kucinich at one point, even if I can't remember when). My horrible bias shows once again.
Well, you know it's getting close to the end of the quarter when the fundraising letters start coming in fast and furious. But most of the Democrats I know are feeling pretty unhappy with the quality of representation we've been getting in DC lately. That's why it was refreshing to get this fundraising email that eschewed feel-good campaign rhetoric and took the straight-shooting approach.
Hello babaloo,
One person really can make a difference.
In just my first nine months in Congress, I've already set in place an agenda that's preserving the status quo.
Since I am passionate about new energy technology, I was particularly proud of the legislation I wrote and introduced to increase research and development funding for cutting edge, 21st century geothermal technology. That legislation was put on a calendar to be considered for a House vote back on June 21, and no further action has been taken on it since that time. Currently, my bill is on hold while I'm trying to round up a veto-proof majority so I can bring the bill to the floor for a vote.
Two months ago, I was honored to lead a bipartisan, all-freshman Congressional delegation to Iraq. I returned impressed with the signs of progress there and am now more likely to listen to those who want more time in Iraq. While I still favor a timeline, I'm now open to crafting it in a way more favorable to generals' wishes.
I feel privileged to be able to sit down with Republicans, see what would be acceptable to them to end the war, and present it to the president. None of that would have been possible without your support in my campaign for Congress. Now I'm asking for your support again.
After you donate, there's a box where you can share your thoughts and ideas. I probably won't read them, but you don't have too many other choices, do you? What are you going to do, help a Republican get elected?
Thank you for everything you do.
Jerry
P.S. I value your support and commitment, at least when its expressed monetarily. So keep your dollars coming and your opinions to yourself.
When I spoke at the Living Liberally conference in Des Moines, I talked about the importance of building the kind of movement where we had each other's backs. We're going to disagree a lot in terms of tactics and tone, in terms of specific ways forward on some policies, in terms of which candidates we like in primaries and how much to criticize Democrats, etc. But we have to stand together when the going gets tough and the right wing comes after us.
I know that not everyone in the progressive movement was totally comfortable with the MoveOn ad about Gen. Petraeus, but whatever you thought, the right wing is now coming for them with all their hounds baying. This censure resolution in the Senate is a load of crap, designed to intimidate and silence strong dissent on the war. Democrats should both stand tall with MoveOn, and start shoving all the hatefilled quotes from Limbaugh, Coulter, Hannity, O'Reilly, Dobson, Robertson, etc. down their throat. Dems should file a hundred such censure resolutions before this piece of crap ever comes to the floor.
Whatever the Dems do, though, this movement should stand strong with MoveOn, all of us defending their right to speak out and their position on the war to the hilt. To the barricades, friends, because if this bullshit goes down without an outcry from all of us, they'll come for us next.
Once again, my opponent for the Democratic Nomination to the United States Senate from Massachusetts has failed to stand up to the Bush Administration relative to the War in Iraq.
Like he did in October, 2002, in voting for the Iraq War, John Kerry has yet again demonstrated an unwillingness to take on the Bush Administration's public opinion spin strategy.
In fact, John Kerry has not only been all too willing to allow Republicans to frame the questions concerning the Iraq War, he has also demonstrated a penchant for succumbing to these questions, as well.
Let's be clear about what is going on here. Moveon.org criticized General Petraeus in an ad which ran in Monday's New York Times and Republicans called upon the Democratic leadership to denounce the ad. My opponent, Senator Kerry, called the ad "over the top" and further stated "I don't like any kind of characterizations in our politics that call into question any active duty, distinguished general who I think under any circumstances serves with the best interests of our country".
There is no doubt General Petraeus has clearly subjected himself to criticism within the political arena by spearheading the Bush Administration's efforts to rationalize the War in Iraq. Senator Kerry's comments are misplaced.
Is it not time for the Democrats to start framing the questions?
The first question should be: "What is General Petraeus doing testifying before Congress in the first place?" General Petraeus did not start this war based upon false and misleading pretenses. President Bush and Vice President Cheney should be appearing before Congress and telling the American people how "their" war is progressing. Did President Bush not tell us the mission was accomplished years ago? What mission was that?
The truth of the matter is that there is no American military solution to the problems in Iraq and the bottom line is that we need to support our troops by beginning their immediate and complete withdrawal.
These are concerns that can only be answered within both a military and political context and the best person to answer these questions is not General Petraeus, but rather, the political and military leader of our country--President Bush.
Today at noon, citizens of Indiana's 6th Congressional District, who are also MoveOn members, gathered in front of the Anderson, Indiana office of Congressman Mike Pence.
There were groups all around the country doing similar protests at their local Congressperson's office.
I was at today's 6th District protest, I am the Democratic Candidate for this seat and the rest is below
