Going to the DLC meeting is crazier than
Ricky Williams
Atrios pointed this out.
The interesting part is that Podesta and Jackson, long an enemy of the DLC, are warning her off. Wolfson know he has a problem here.
"If she wanted to give a speech to a centrist organization truly interested in bringing the various factions of the party together, she could've worked with NDN," the blog said in a reference to the New Democrat Network, with which Daily Kos's Markos Moulitsas is associated. "Instead, she plans on working with the DLC to come up with some common party message yadda yadda yadda. Well, that effort is dead on arrival. The DLC is not a credible vehicle for such an effort. Period."
Other blogs noted that the day Clinton was calling for a truce, one DLC-sponsored blog was writing disparagingly of liberals. Marshall Wittman wrote from the DLC meeting in Columbus, "While someone from the daily kosy (misspelling intended) confines of Beserkely might utter ominous McCarthyite warnings about the 'enemy within,' here in Columbus constructive committed crusaders for progressivism are discussing ways to win back the hearts of the heartland."
Roger Hickey, co-director of the liberal Campaign for America's Future, said Clinton had badly miscalculated the current politics inside the Democratic Party and argued that she could pay a price for her DLC association if she runs for president in 2008."There has been an activist resurgence in the Democratic Party in recent years, and Hillary risks ensuring that there's a candidate to her left appealing to those activists who don't much like the DLC," he said.Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson tried to deflect the criticism. "Her point was simply to say that the goals and issues that divide us are less consequential than are the ones we share in common, and that unity is needed in the face of our shared challenge," Wolfson said.
John D. Podesta, who was White House chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, said he interpreted Clinton's remarks as critical of those on both sides -- centrists as much as liberals -- who would devote more energy to internal party battles than to confronting the right . But he said Clinton may have underestimated the bad feelings within the party. "I think she was trying to push the DLC back a little bit, but she walked into a crossfire maybe she should have realized was out there," he said.
Meanwhile, Jesse L. Jackson reopened his decades-old battle with the DLC by accusing the group of fronting for corporate interests while ignoring labor and civil rights leaders. "The DLC embraces CAFTA and sells admission to its conference to corporate lobbyists," he said in a speech to the AFL-CIO convention in Chicago.
All that needs to be said about Wittman has been said by Matt Taibbi
Dear Fuckhead,
No, I don't think you should run for the chair of the Democratic Party. I think you should get into your car, check into the nearest dingy motel, eat one last cheeseburger and blow your brains out.
Let's start with something small?your nickname. To begin with, it's taken. It belonged to a person that the world has judged to be of genuine historical import, a man with balls, a person who, by all accounts, literally bowled crowds of people over with his personality every time he entered a room.
You, on the other hand, are a nobody, a bureaucrat, a stuffed suit. You don't have a single idea of your own. You have to honk in order to get served at the local drive-thru. You think you're being cute and funny by taking Teddy Roosevelt's nickname, but it's not funny. It's sad. What you are, exactly, is a high school nerd who starts a Van Halen cover band and does David Lee Roth kicks when he rocks out in his garage in front of his only friend's eight-year-old brother. Outside that garage, the whole world concludes that you will never reproduce. That's you in your DLC offices, playing at being Teddy Roosevelt.
..................
People are slowly coming to understand what the DLC is. You are a tiny gang of needle-nosed cubicle slaves hired to sell out the genuine political aspirations of millions of people. You have been hired to rush from newsroom to newsroom badmouthing almost every principle your constituents have held for decades, and to propagandize at every opportunity the hopelessness of such ideas as peace, tolerance and ideological backbone.
It's bad enough that you are who you are. But that you should have fun doing what you're doing is just flat-out intolerable. I wouldn't get too used to it, if I were you. But that's just one Mooseketeer's opinion.
Whittman should be under no illusions as to the contempt he is held in by most Democrats. He worked for the Hudson Institute, home to various rightwing crackpots. Why not have Joe Trippi consult with Karl Rove on races. So his opinion is as relevant as mine on Jen's choice of lipstick.
A candidate to her left? You mean like most of the people planning to run, like John Kerry, Wes Clark, Mark Warner?
Most serious candidates, as well as Dean, were nowhere to be seen. And the comments from Podesta and Hickey are serious warnings. They're telling her that the party has moved left and there will be a price to pay for associating with the DLC. Podesta is clearly a Clinton friend and someone who they should listen to.
This isn't just me bitching about people I don't like. Podesta had President Clinton and John Lewis speak to a bunch of kids a couple of weeks ago. Not Al From or Bruce Reed. So when he says Hillary made a mistake, I would take it as a clear warning. Why? Because the weight of the party has shifted left. If you want to raise money, Kos can help you more than the DLC and there are no strings attached. The bright young Dems are working with the new think tanks. So you can disagree with the left, but you need them as the GOP needs the fundies.
What Podesta and Hickey are saying, gently, is that times have changed and that her instincts are off. I would bet Wolfson got an earful from them at some point. Because if they say this to the WaPo, there is a lot more anger behind the scenes.
