One way Democrats can counter this is by doing their best to make sure the voting public realizes that these are not just partisan battles but unique to the Bush team. 

They should make sure that the public knows that there are other candidates (Republican, conservative candidates) that are perfectly acceptable for the UN Ambassador's post (they can ask Steve Clemons for a list) but Bush insists on pushing Bolton even though the best a lot of Republicans can say about him is that "the President deseves his own team". 

I think Bush has no idea what he's doing. He only understands emotions--particularly revenge--not policy. The ideologues around him have their own agendas. They are using Bush to advance those agendas and Bush hardly understands or cares. As long as he feels "tough" and "important" he's okay . . .

Of course, I've never met the man, so maybe I'm being unfair to him . . . it's just my impression watching him on TV

I do wonder about their ability or willingness to lose power in the short term, but to seed the public sphere with ideas and policies that will, inevitably, lead to the adoption of their ideas in the long-term.

For example, take Social Security:  Bush seemed willing to part with Private Accounts, if he could implement a solution that would cut benefits for all but the poorest Americans.  If he were to succeed in those cuts, at some point down the road, even if his party were voted out of power over those cuts, the cuts would be hard to undo.  At some point, folks would wonder how to make up the shortfall.  Bam!  Private accounts are the only solution.

Am I being paranoid or is this what they're doing?

...is the liberal opportunity to imagine a fundamentally different direction based on progressive ideas and ideals. BushCo has  essentially turned the current agendaof the Democratic Party into a fetish of restoring America to where it was in December of 2000. Forget about looking for real ideas to tackle poverty, healthcare, the environment, education, let alone America's place in the world and a responsible economic policy. Poverty and healthcare were being shortchanged at the time; going forward those issues and others will be starting at least 2 steps back.

Unless of course liberals and progressives and any moderate allies they can join with realize that every force needs to be countered with more than an equal and opposite force to change  direction. Politically that will certainly take more than just restoring the rather meager state of things as they stood before; it will require reimagining the future in fundamental ways.

Ed, is this why your faction of the party attacks any Democrat who expresses any passion?  Because you think the Republicans are trying to bait us into appearing pissed off and irrational? You think that their aim is to drive us "crazy with rage", so we've lost if we engage in angry rhetoric?

To me, I think that responding to this crap in moderate, measured tones contributes to the perception of the middle that the Democrats can't be trusted to keep us safe. After all, if we won't even defend ourselves against the Republicans, and we crawl away and backpedal any time the right wing spin machine kicks into gear, and prominent centrist Dems join Republicans to attack more leftist Dems just to keep Tim Russert and David Broder happy, how can we be expected to defend the country against terrorists?

In any case, we now have a test case: will the party leave Dick Durbin hanging out by himself as the Republicans try to cut him to shreds?

I am loathe to defend Nixon, but I don't think he was madly swinging a wrecking ball, as the current administration is doing.

No. Try a little introspection. The fact that the most prominent groups in the antiwar protests were social anti-American front (Not in Our Name, ANSWER) groups for a bunch of unreconstructed Stalinists may be one reason moderates wonder about the left's committment to defending America. If Democrats can't confront the groups on their side that are as bad as the groups on the right, how can they even claim the highground. 

American have been dying (some literally) for an alternative to Bush and an alternative vision for the country. But the one we rejected 30 years ago isn't good enough 

""On the first point, I've wondered for some time if Bush, Rove, DeLay and company are attempting to entrench their party in government perpetually, or simply do as much damage as possible until they lose control of Washington.  They are obviously trying to do both, but I'm now inclined to believe the wrecking psychology is predominant, and that much of the power-abuse is designed to forestall the invevitable backlash while maximizing the short-term advantages of incumbency for both office-holders and their hungry and loyal constituencies. "
 
The Bushies know they cannot completely wreck the federal government, they are just trying to starve it down enough that Grover Norquist has a decent chance of drowning it in the bathtub.

Ed,

I think you're absolutely right in your analysis, but I guess I just don't see the same Democratic Party that you do. Granted, the Democrats start off behind in all cases because the Beltway media favors the GOP. But, still, look at Biden, Lieberman, and others who seem either to lack courage because they're so intimidated or else they're only in it for themselves -- i.e., they care about their own re-elections or presidential campaigns, whatever the case may be. They don't seem to be representing the "party" at all. Look at how they went after Dean? Even Durbin, who had nothing to apologize for, has put his tail between his legs and begged for forgiveness. When is the next time we'll see him take a courageous principled stand? You guys in the Democratic Party had better develop some real courage and stop worrying about what David Broder and Little Russ say about you. We're in a battle to save democracy as we know it and to save our constitutional government. Guys like Biden seem to think this is 1976 or something, when the choice was between Ford or Carter, two pretty good guys, or hell, even '88 or '92. You guys need to get real, Ed. Your party had better develop some balls or there won't be a party to kick around and we'll all be walking around looking at huge pictures of our Republican "leaders" on all our buildings.

Ed:

On passion, I think the Moderate/Centrist part of the Party was more than a bit scared of the wild eyed rage of the some of us.

What I think these posts demonstrate is now we are all on the same page in our assessments of BushCo.

We won't agree on everything, but in opposition, it is important to be clear that we a re facing one of the most dangerous governments in recent memory.

Armando at dailykos. 

Keep in mind, the current Republican strategy has been the result of the unfortunate coincidence of a series of elements - the 15-year rise of the radical Christian jihad, the 30-year push for Goldwater party orthodoxy, and September 11.
Integral to all these elements, with the possible exception of 9-11, was substantial organizing and well-funded operations at the grass roots. I remember arriving in Colorado Springs in the late '80s; the buzz was just beginning about some guys named Reed and Dobson - they were just a couple whackos preaching hatred on the plains to the northeast of town.
But in the interim, the Republicans have come to embrace the agenda of both the Goldwaters and the Dobsons, to substantial negative effect on political discourse.
I guess my point is, Democrats would be deeply, deeply mistaken to think that they can somehow win this battle by "proving things in the media," or "speaking truth to power," or any other of those activities that typically don't require much effort outside of Washington, DC. The opportunities are out in the field, identifying where the push-back is already taking place at the grass roots, and crafting strategies, policies, messages etc. that capitalize on these opportunities. It's essentially what the GOP did with the Norquists and Dobsons; our problem is long-term in that it's not clear what ideals the Dem's would embrace at this point. For every Cantwell, there's a Lieberman; for every Obama, there's a Landreau. 
The Dems have some shop cleaning to do, in addition to the critical need for new thinking, new strategies, and someone - Howard Dean, say (yup!) - who can see the real payload is out in the states.

Ed is no doubt right and it is nice to see someone call the Republicans for what they are.  However, why is this so rare?  Democrats for starters need office holders and officials to say it.  To fight back and tell the truth and when the Republicans denounce us say it again and again.

Democrats also need to think more about why Bush is in the White House.  It is not enought to attack Gore and Kerry.  Democrats have to office constructive ideas that will make peoples lives better.

Personally, I believe Democrats should not only embrace the markets and internationalism as well as programs that ameliorate the problems of such ideas.  It is also time for us Baby Boomers to grow up.  Life is not always easy and problems cannot always be solved without pain. 

Bush is making the rich more permanently secure without aiding those whose pensions are being ruined and whose social security is being threated.  Bush claims to be protecting us for attack without ever saying that is hard and painful and all of us must joint together.

Democrats need to be the ones to stand up for all Americans and tell them the truth.  It will be uncomfortable but in the end we will will not only because our ideas are better but as we saw in Bill Clinton and we saw two decades ago in Robert Kennedy Americans like fighters.

However, the ideology-based politics of both extremes will lead to damage to the country, although in very different forms.



I agree, and I have gotten myself into trouble on "liberal" sites more than once by stating my belief that all extremists are fascists at heart: extremists, almost by definition, are so convinced that they know The One True Way that they have no problem forcing their prescriptions and proscriptions on others, because, after all, it's for their own good.



But the difference is that the extremes of the left are on the fringe of the party, and the extremes of the right are running the party.



I think we also need to be precise about what we're calling "extreme." ANSWER, yes. PETA, yes, EarthFirst (I think - which ever one advocates spiking trees and burning down new developments), yes. ACORN, no. Progressive Policy Institute, no. Unions, no. "Mainstream" environmentalists, no.



Not every progressive proposal is extreme - and neither is every conservative proposal. The difference is, in the current political environment, even modestly progressive proposals don't even get a hearing, and the conservative proposals that get attended to aren't conservative - they're either radically reactionary or corporatist. Even the conservative proposals that start out with a grain of merit are soon subverted to advance the extremists' agenda.



Uh, IMHO, of course. And I'm afraid I've strayed a bit from the topic of Sui Generis, so let me see if I can bring it back around... yes, I do think this situation of the lunatic fringe having an iron grip on both the aparatus and the agenda of the party in power IS without precedent. (Although I am not an historian, so I must include a disclaimer that I could merely be ignorant of a precedent, if there is one.) It is not uncommon, I think, for extremes to influence those in power. If it's not completely unique, it is at least very, very unusual for the extremes to be those in power.

<i> We haven't really seen anything like this in recent U.S. political history, and that's why Democrats have to not only fight these people, but understand and outsmart them.  The stakes are getting higher every day.   </i>

maybe you (and Gitlin, etc) should start listening to the advice of the people who figure out the nature of the Bush regime YEARS before you finally had your "light-bulb moment", but whose observations were belittled by people like you as coming from "the loony left."

Here's what people like you need to do --- make a scene.   You have spent your careers making sure you have "access" --- well, the shit is hitting the fan, and you can either show up to a DC Social Circuit cocktail party and start telling the Republicans there what scumbags they are in no uncertain terms (making sure, of course, that every DC gossip with media credentials witnesses it) or you can sit back and wring your hands are keep repeating the mantra about how we need to understand and outsmart these people.

Unless and until we change the nature of the debate, nothing changes.  And the nature of that debate will only change when the Kilgores and Gitlins who have cultivated access force a change.

"Republicans didn't have to work very hard at persuading conservative Democrats over to their side."

Oh, I disagree.  They did have to work hard to get the job done.  Don't forget that 15 years after the Republicans became the majority party in '68, Democrats still held both chambers of Congress.

In 1993, there were many, many more Democratic Representatives and Senators from conservative constituencies than there are now.

Republican control of Congress was accomplished and cemented only by relentlessly pursuing the polarization strategy.

Once self-identified conservatives began to outnumber self-identified liberals around 1970, the gameplan became one of trying to force conservative Democrats to change their party affiliation to match their ideological affiliation.

. . .  

The fact that this polarization strategy may have started to collapse in on itself doesn't mean they have yet come to terms with this fact. 

Rove has been successful by alternating approaches, extreme polarization with appeals to the middle of the road.   Bush ran in 2000 as a "uniter, not a divider" and as a "compassionate conservative" and enough people bought into it, that he was soon sworn into office.  After 9/11, he struck a note of national unity, but later grabbed on to the issue for partisan advantage.  

One thing a lot of people fail to "get" is what exactly Karl Rove is.  He is the son of a prostitute (a "bar fly") who couldn't remember who she spent the night with in return for those beers on the night he was conceived.  He spent a childhood as an outsider, laughed at and reviled by the "normal" kids, and only found out at age 15 that the man he thought was his father wasn't (when the guy denied him and kicked him out of the house).  This is a guy filled with rage against people like.... well, to put it straigfht, "people like us," i.e., people who didn't come from that Dickensian background, which back in the 50sand 60s meant he was literally treated as trash.

Look at his political career since age 19 when he went out and disrupted a Democratic conference on poverty by putting out flyers promising free beer and money to street people and listing the address of the conference.  That stunt got him hired to Nixon's "dirty tricks squad" working for Donald Segretti. Remember that he nearly got swept up during Watergate for being the guy who went around to college campuses and put on workshops on running "dirty tricks" for the College Republicans.  His term in the mid-70s running the College Republicans (wheh he wasn't a student)after engineering a right wing "coup" in the organization set the stage for the Ralph Reeds and the Jack Abramoffs and the Grover Norquists.

Looking at Rove, you understand that "you can take the boy out of the gutter, but you can't take the gutter out of the boy."  Look at his political campaigns - where he has gone after "respectable" people on the very point by which they defined their "respectability."

This guy is a walking political cancer on the American body politic  - his entire career has been that of "retribution" against all who slighted him.  And he managed to hook up with a rich kid who felt the same way after alifetime of being laughed at and put down for being an incompetent.  The two of them are the two sides of the same coin.

Everything they are doing makes A LOT more sense if you look at it from the perspective of people who, one way or another, have no intention of ever losing another election.

I think Emma's comment is right on.  We've been complaining for years about the un-level playing field in the media, yet we continue to show up for a game that's been rigged from the start.  When Sean Hannity is considered a journalist and Tim Russert won't ask a follow-up question to blatant Republican lies, why are our people continuing to show up?  The Republicans have effectively cowed most of the media into submission with numerous tactics, including the most brilliantly simple one: denying access.  Ask too sharp a question?  No more White House privledges for you.  Report on someone else disclosing a CIA undercover agent's identity?  Jail time for you!  Use public broadcasting to ask real questions of real people - including conservatives?  That's liberal bias to be sure Bill - time for you (and your little trouble-making show) to retire. 

I believe it was Andrew Sullivan who recently wrote about "media bias" not being such a big deal in much of Europe because media doesn't pretend to be objective there.  You want the conservative viewpoint?  Read the conservative papers.  You want the liberal viewpoint?  Read the liberal papers.  I don't like that idea, but I can't help but wonder if that sort of realistic assessment isn't more helpful considering where we seem to be at right now in this country.  Republicans have successfully shifted the whole media paradigm to the point where any journalists asking any questions that don't manifestly support Republican interests are automatically labelled as "liberal".  Look at how much of the media handled Howard Dean's recent "inflammatory" comments, or how they dealt with the Newsweek flap.  The dice are loaded people.  The house always wins in the long run, losing just enough here and there to convince the suckers to keep playing.  In the case of our current media establishment, the "house" is owned almost entirely by people of decidedly conservative persuasion. 

So, what about Emma's suggestion?  What if every Dem in Congress simply stopped showing up for the Sunday talk shows?  What if they refused to answer questions from Fox News "reporters" or "journalists" from the WSJ?  What if instead they held open Town Hall meetings or joined Bernie at the Table for One?