Well, not to be too partisan here, but MoDo is one of the principal architects of The Clinton Rules.

The essential feature of said rules is that they are never EVER applied to Republicans. Ergo, she did not take your advice.

Now if she writes up another Democrat, and sees it clearly, writes it right, with less snark, then perhaps she will have started on the road to recovery.

And if dear God in Heaven she ever writes up Hillary in that way, then we can indeed consider her in recovery. But we should not be very surprised if and when she falls off that wagon...

Posted at February 24, 2007 12:30 PM in response to MoDo Road to Recovery

Oh please! Steve, this is technically what is known as bullshit. My biggest question -- is it coming from you, or are you just carrying water for these laughably titled ronin.

This is not a both sides issue. This is a Republican issue. That you seem ignorant of that makes you seem either a dupe or a stooge. So stop please. We expect better of you.

These "ronin" (ha ha ha ha ha!) are trying to spread blame around for the antics of their party and themselves. They are pretending to have courage they have never exhibited, for principles they have never lived up to.

So please stop with the faux bipartisanship. It's false and wrong and, um, bullshit.

Posted at February 7, 2007 11:10 PM in response to Seven Republican Senators Blast McConnell & Reid Over Iraq War Resolution Debate Fiasco

True, though I guess I think of Corporatism as a subset of Authoritarianism, just as I think of theocratic types like Dominonists and Fundamentalists as Authoritarians. All peas from the same pod, but not all Corporatists.

Another factor for me is that I think the American mythos celebrates the anti-authoritarian rebel, but scratches its head at the anti-corporatist and then asks "Are you a commie or sumthin'?

So personally I use Authoritarian. But I include Corporatism. ;)

Posted at January 19, 2007 2:24 PM in response to Defining Liberalism in the Netroots Era

I'm not going to say this exactly right, but I think you have to go back to the idea that the medium is the message. And that I would argue is the unifying theme of the netroots.

Net 101 -- we all know that the net as a medium is a distributed system where anyone can comment and persuade, so long as they have minimal access to the tools. How? Why? Because the net is purposefully anti-hierarchical. Information can come and go through a variety of paths to reach an end user. The original purpose of this structure was so that the net could withstand attacks and outages without breaking down.

The result is that traditional gateways and gatekeepers are rendered obsolete. This is where net neutrality is so important -- the powers that be are trying to impose a traditional gateway/gatekeeper structure. To riff off of your idea above, it is the new corporate approach to co-opting the medium, in this case by controlling its access points.

But the main effect is that, as an environment, the anti-heirarchical structure of the net creates a space that is also deeply anti-authoritarian. That's also reinforced by net neutrality, where the the barrier to entry for disparate voices is so low and authority such as it is can be knocked, mocked, attacked, and ultimately competed against, as Joe Klein can bitterly attest. And all with minimal effort as compared to, say, a television network or cable system.

It's funny, but when I read Crashing the Gates by Markos and Jerome, they emphasized that they were not discussing liberal principles but instead focusing on problems of the underlying structure of the Liberal/Progressive/Democratic alliance. They said that they saw that as the bigger problem.

But it seems to me that the structure IS the problem. It is inherently authoritarian, and that authority has been used to catastrophic effect for at least the last six years by those in power on both the left and the right. Case in point -- if you ever wonder why the DLC is held in such contempt by so many in the netroots, I would argue that it's really not so much their policies -- as Maya Angelou would say, we are more like than unalike in that regard. Rather, it is because the DLC works so hard to reinforce the current authoritiarian structure, only of course with their guys in power.

But the net has allowed tens of thousands of peons like myself to chip away at that structure, to challenge authority, to hold it more accountable than it has been for some time, and who knows, maybe to eventually co-opt it.

And then some new force will have to come along and challenge us.

In sum, I think the net signifies a change that our politics are only now beginning to catch up with. Besides Right and Left, we have centers of power that could clumsily be called Authoritarian and Individualistic. (John Dean's new book Conservatives Without Conscience is an interesting segway into this idea). IMHO when the differences blur between Democrats and Republicans, it is usually because they have come together on the Authoritarian side.

Personally I've come to look at the netroots as rediscovering the old definition of Liberalism, as it used to be defined in the Wikipedia. It's been changed since, so I'll just quote without linking:

Liberalism is a political current embracing several historical and present-day ideologies that claim defense of individual liberty as the purpose of government. It typically favors the right to dissent from orthodox tenets or established authorities in political or religious matters. In this respect, it is sometimes held in contrast to conservatism. Since liberalism also focuses on the ability of individuals to structure their own society, it is almost always opposed to totalitarianism, and often to collectivist ideologies, particularly communism.

The word "liberal" derives from the Latin "liber" ("free") and liberals of all stripes tend to view themselves as friends of freedom, particularly freedom from the shackles of tradition. The origins of liberalism in the Enlightenment era contrasted this philosophy to feudalism and mercantilism. Later, as more radical philosophies articulated their thoughts in the course of the French Revolution and through the nineteenth century, liberalism equally defined itself in contrast to socialism and communism, although some adherents of liberalism sympathize with some of the aims and methods of social democracy.

Conservatives have paid lip service to some of these ideas since Goldwater. But these are essentially liberal ideas; and so perhaps the collision of the anti-authoritarian net with the astonishingly authoritarian Bush Administration was inevitable. Whatever the case, it does seem to me to point towards both a political crisis and new cultural moment.

Posted at January 19, 2007 12:56 PM in response to Defining Liberalism in the Netroots Era

I have the same sympathies and the same disagreements. A third party entity usually only succeeds when it subsumes an existing power structure.

I do think that Leigh has a point, but should apply it to a takeover of the Democratic party rather than imagining a new, freestanding party.

Posted at November 10, 2006 9:40 PM in response to Border Politics

Apparently so has TPMCafe. Stop it, will you?

Posted at November 1, 2006 3:59 PM in response to CNN Goes All Kerry, All The Time.

I did a gutcheck to find out why I could only shake my head at this sort of nonsense, rather than shake with rage as I have in times past. And I guess it's that from my point of view, this line of attack has been par for the course for going on four years now in one form or another. As it turns out, I am relieved that it's come to this, for three reasons:

1) They have so clearly Jumped The Shark. In fact, I think we have a new mataphor in there somewhere, and I hope the smart folks here at TPM will coin it.

2) I think it tells Independents that the Bush administration has abandoned them, since many of them are indeed thinking of voting for the Democrats. An absurd attack like this only works on those who toe an authoritarian line, which Independents by definition don't. So now they're free to be, well, independent of this president and his hucksters.

3) It tells me that Bush is burning bridges he'll need later to salvage a lame duck presidency. Hard to slap someone on the back later when you called him a traitor the week before. I forsee they're thinking they'll pull a Clinton and preside over a fractious House, without taking into account that Dems have a better policy position from which to wage that kind of fight -- e.g. people want Social Security and health care, they don't want to be spied on and have their phones tapped.

All in all, I can see why the netroots aren't freaking out -- it's just one more reason to work harder for the last few days.

As for the MSM, did you really expect them to be outraged?

Posted at November 1, 2006 2:38 PM in response to Where's the Outrage?

I took a crack at a similar question last year here at TPM. But for me, the short answer comes from the definition that the wikipedia used to use:

Liberalism is a political current embracing several historical and present-day ideologies that claim defense of individual liberty as the purpose of government. It typically favors the right to dissent from orthodox tenets or established authorities in political or religious matters. In this respect, it is sometimes held in contrast to conservatism. Since liberalism also focuses on the ability of individuals to structure their own society, it is almost always opposed to totalitarianism, and often to collectivist ideologies, particularly communism.

The word "liberal" derives from the Latin "liber" ("free") and liberals of all stripes tend to view themselves as friends of freedom, particularly freedom from the shackles of tradition.

I further boil that down to Liberty, Equality, Community.

Posted at October 30, 2006 8:06 PM in response to What It Means to Be a Liberal

I'm not a lawyer but I know what my political response would be -- we have dealt with terrorism in the courts before, after Timothy McVeigh attacked the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. And 12 ordinary citizens were able to look that killer in the face and figure out the right and wrong of it just fine. The republic didn't crumble and "cold blooded killers" were not set free.

The president doesn't have magical powers here -- pick any 12 Americans, as our laws mandate, and guess what? They'll figure it out the right way again, just like they did with McVeigh. Our legal system is strong enough, our people are smart enough.

The problem here is that the Bush Administration and it's Republican supporters don't believe that.

Posted at July 4, 2006 4:15 PM in response to Hamdan and the Dems

Jan, my moral journey is none of your God damn business, is it?

What if I want to change the church I grew up in? Just like I want to change the country I was born in? You're wankerific suggestion would mean that I'd have to leave both to do it.

I find your response foolish and silly and deeply lacking in knowledge. So save your upright moral rectitude brigade for the anti-tolerant right. It's more their style.

Posted at June 29, 2006 7:41 PM in response to Obama, Religion and the Blog Reaction