I'm a liberal, and an unapologetic one. I won't apologize for the liberal past of my forbearers. I won't apologize for the fight against poverty. I won't apologize for demanding a rational foreign policy that kept the U.S. a respectable member of the family of nations. I won't apologize for standing up for a woman's right to make her own decisions about her health care. I won't apologize for believing passionately in the right to privacy for all Americans.

I particularly won't apologize for the fight for civil rights. I certainly won't apologize for being appalled and repulsed by the fact that torture has been added to our nation's repertoire of "intelligence gathering tools." And I won't apologize for having full-throatedly opposed George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq, a war based on lies.

Granted, those last few points are less pertinent to the assumption Eric lays out in his post introducing his book and this discussion:

What underlies both sections is the following assumption: liberals made a series of fundamental mistakes beginning in the mid-sixties. They were arrogant. They were "elitist." They did treat white working-people--their primary political constituency--with disdain. They were insufficiently sensitive to the cultural concerns of everyday American, particularly with regard to issues relating to religion, and even more particularly with regard to abortion. And they became wrapped up in the divisive politics of identity that made it impossible to communicate with much of the country or cooperate with one another. (I mention a series of other problems, but you get the point...)

Looking back at those past "mistakes," it's crucial to remember that the "divisive politics of identity," and the lack of sensitivity to the "cultural concerns of everyday Americans" are one way of characterizing the liberal fight for civil and abortion rights and income equality. That's the way, in fact, conservatives and the traditional media have tended to define those policy efforts, so I'm disappointed that Eric seems to accept the definition.

For liberals, progressives, Democrats, those were fights worth having. While Democrats and liberals might have stumbled in their response to the backlash, a liberal ideology and quite simply good government--demanded that those fights be waged. And a liberal ideology today demands that we don't lose any more of the ground gained in those critical efforts at providing the common good.

As the jumping off point for a discussion about reclaiming our heritage as liberals, those assumptions rankle. I'm not arguing for a head-in-the-sand approach to evaluating the mistakes we've made in the past, because they have been many and legion. But we need to clearly recognize that the mistakes weren't the ideas or the policies. The mistakes were in the politics. The last thing liberals should be is apologetic for their efforts to make our society more just, more equitable. Particularly considering, as Eric does, that the majority of American opinion aligns with our values.

Eric continues:

Liberals need to admit their mistakes. They need to admit that they don't have the answers for everything. And they have to treat their opponents with respect.

Again, liberals have made mistakes, but they pale in comparison to what the Republicans have wrought. Out of control deficits and a devastated economy. Another quagmire of a war and what's worse, a war we entered on the basis of lies. A destroyed international reputation. A failing infrastructure. Torture. It's less important that we treat our opponents with respect than that we shine a bright light on the depth and breadth of the mess they have created.

In that vein, where Eric's argument strengthens (and contradicts itself) is in his call for liberals to fight back.

But far more significantly, they have to stop acting so defensively. They need to shake off their Stockholm Syndrome. They need to fight back whenever they see themselves libeled and slandered particularly by people who pretend to speak (or are perceived to speak) for liberals when they do it, like Nick Kristof, Maureen Dowd, Tom Friedman, Joe Klein, many, many editors of The New Republic over the years, and virtually everybody who is chosen to speak for "liberals" on cable TV, (Olbermann and a few others excepted). I mean the country is with them, and their history is a far prouder and more successful one than that of the current crowd of lunatics can claim, so why continue apologizing for mistakes of thirty or forty years ago?

We definitely need more fighting liberals, more fighting Dems, willing to stand by our heritage of fighting for a better society that has benefited America. We need unapologetic leaders who will stand forcefully for our ideals. I know few liberals or partisan Democrats who are going to disagree with that notion.

We also have to shine a bright light of contrast between the achievements of liberals, between the goals of liberals and the immense damage the conservative movement has wrought on this nation. Can that be done respectfully? Perhaps, but from my perspective it's more important that it be done forcefully, sharply, than that it be done respectfully.

The call to action for liberals made by Ruy Teixeira and John Halpin in their four-part series, The Politics of Definition, is summed up neatly in their thesis:

Progressives need to fight for what they believe in -- and put the common good at the center of a new progressive vision -- as an essential strategy for political growth and majority building. This is no longer a wishful sentiment by out-of-power activists, but a political and electoral imperative for all concerned progressives.

Substitute "liberal" for "progressive" in that call to action, and we have a starting point for not only rehabilitating a word, but embracing and reclaiming our liberal heritage.