December 30th, 2005
It’s always hearting to read constructive and hopeful posts, at MyDD.com and elsewhere; posts about how eager many of us are to help the Dems take the country back — even if it’s one. office. at. a. time. At least this is how I read The Hollywood Mythspiracy diary that’s been on the front page of MyDD.com for much of the day. Matt’s brother and many of his acquaintances, is clear from the diary, want to help the Dems craft resonant messages, which is a good enough and laudable thing to offer on its own right; but, as he writes, Dems have not tapped into the eager resource that exist in young Hollywood.
Now, I know that Matt’s brother’s diary over at MyDD.com does not purport to suggest that having Hollywood writers craft the Dems message (i.e., via speeches, commercials and “narratives”) would be the magic bullet that would end the Dems apparent electoral woes. Clearly, the suggestion/offer made in the diary would only be one small — very small — part of the solution. I write and hope that it would be “only a very small part of the solution” because it must be understood that the long-term health of the Dem party, and of the Progressive movement necessitates the creation of a brick-and-mortar infrastructure to mirror/match/surpass what they’ve got on the right. Additionally, aside from the brick-and-mortar infrastructure, we, the Progressive constituency, have got to demand long-term leadership and vision from elected Dems — and from unofficial leaders (i.e., former presidents and non-elected party officials). For a brief encapsulation of the much needed long-term leadership that we need on the left see Rick Perlstein’s The Stock Ticker and the Superjumbo — his essay made the rounds on the internets a couple of months ago.
There’s such a thing as a Progressive philosophy… at the moment we simply want to win; so, we’re content with merely being partisan and will support a candidate that stands up to the right… but, at least I am, we’re ideological and have a strong sense of the rough outlines of our progressive values and ideology, even if these are not being articulated nor defended in the mainstream media by a recognizable leadership — much less by elected Dems. Our Progressive ideology, though, needs to be nurtured over the long-term if a movement is to rise from our ranks to challenge the right and, too, to move the nation’s center back to the middle (and, one would hope, one day, to the center-left).
What prompted me to write this is what I perceived as the undercurrent in Matt’s brother’s diary: an overt reliance on short-term and marketing-driven stylistic responses to the apparent electoral woes of the Dem Party (i.e., as if the Dems’ electoral problems would be solved if only the party made better commercials, told better narratives or gave better speeches. Sure, such solutions would make a difference at the margins in a couple of national races, but we — I think — need more than that.). This is a simplification, I know; it’s just that reading The Hollywood Mythspiracy diary I was reminded of an old Hollywood adage, There are no bad movies, there’s only bad marketing. Such an approach, one that relies too heavily on message alone, is what has weakened the Democratic party and, too, atrophied anything resembling a progressive movement in this country. As critics of the DLC have pointed out, this is precisely what that organization is guilty of: convincing the Democratic beltway establishment to target their message to specific audiences (i.e, the swing voters du jour ), and to mirror whatever the conventional wisdom of the day is on a given subject (i.e, national security, moral values, etc.).
Sure, governing and winning elections requires exploiting short-term strategies (i.e, effective marketing), but wrestling the ideological center of the country away from the right back to the middle will take: building physical networks off-line and creating a message delivery system to compete with the right’s echo chamber. (We gotta build a progressive/liberal competitor to FauxNews, damn it — if only I had a couple of million dollars to build my own media empire — okay, it’ll take more than a couple.)
December 28th, 2005
I came across the original post over at DailyKos.com. The Bulldog Manifesto asks:
Back when former President Clinton was being impeached, many of our current Congressmen and Senators were involved in the process. Men like Tom DeLay, Bill Frist, and Henry Hyde, among others, came out strongly in support of the impeachment of Clinton based upon the highest standard of “rule of law.”
Today, as impeachment makes its way back into the American vernacular, this time related to George W. Bush, the following quotes become quite illuminating.
While reading them, perhaps ask yourself, ‘What happened to the “rule of law?”
The Bulldog then provides us with these gems:
What Did They Say When Clinton Was Being Impeached?
Tom Delay (R-TX):
“This nation sits at a crossroads. One direction points to the higher road of the rule of law. Sometimes hard, sometimes unpleasant, this path relies on truth, justice and the rigorous application of the principle that no man is above the law. Now, the other road is the path of least resistance. This is where we start making exceptions to our laws based on poll numbers and spin control. This is when we pitch the law completely overboard when the mood fits us, when we ignore the facts in order to cover up the truth.
No man is above the law, and no man is below the law. That�s the principle that we all hold very dear in this country.”
Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.):
“I suggest impeachment is like beauty: apparently in the eye of the beholder. But I hold a different view. And it’s not a vengeful one, it’s not vindictive, and it’s not craven. It’s just a concern for the Constitution and a high respect for the rule of law. … as a lawyer and a legislator for most of my very long life, I have a particular reverence for our legal system. It protects the innocent, it punishes the guilty, it defends the powerless, it guards freedom, it summons the noblest instincts of the human spirit.
The rule of law protects you and it protects me from the midnight fire on our roof or the 3 a.m. knock on our door.”
James Sensenbrenner: (R-WI):
“What is on trial here is the truth and the rule of law. Our failure to bring President Clinton to account for his lying under oath and preventing the courts from administering equal justice under law, will cause a cancer to be present in our society for generations. I want those parents who ask me the questions, to be able to tell their children that even if you are president of the United States, if you lie when sworn “to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,” you will face the consequences of that action, even when you don’t accept the responsibility for them.”
Chuck Hagel (R-NB):
“There can be no shading of right and wrong. The complicated currents that have coursed through this impeachment process are many. But after stripping away the underbrush of legal technicalities and nuance, I find that the President abused his sacred power by lying and obstructing justice. How can parents instill values and morality in their children? How can educators teach our children? How can the rule of law for every American be applied equally if we have two standards of justice in America–one for the powerful and the other for the rest of us?”
Bill Frist (R-TN):
“I will have no part in the creation of a constitutional double-standard to benefit the President. He is not above the law. If an ordinary citizen committed these crimes, he would go to jail.”
Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas):
“When someone is elected president, they receive the greatest gift possible from the American people, their trust. To violate that trust is to raise questions about fitness for office. My constituents often remind me that if anyone else in a position of authority — for example, a business executive, a military officer of a professional educator — had acted as the evidence indicates the president did, their career would be over. The rules under which President Nixon would have been tried for impeachment had he not resigned contain this statement: “The office of the president is such that it calls for a higher level of conduct than the average citizen in the United States.”
You can find the Bulldog’s blog here: http://bulldogpolitics.blogspot.com/
