My piece on "The Good Fight" was limited to an analysis of a single paragrpah because I thought it was a good vehicle through which to focus on some of the serious political and moral problems in Beinart's book.

I want again to say that I admire a lot of other things in the book.Beinart is smart and liberals need such spokespoeple and thinkers.

However he is still trying to fight against a "left" that doesnt really exist. I dont know how the poll he cites was done but I can say, as someone who lives in New York and was here on Sept 11th,2001, who knew three of the victims personally, and who spent many nights trying to calm my kids down after their nightmares in the days thereafter----I agreed with the decision to militarily dismantle the Taliban and so did the vast majority of people who later opposed the Iraq War.

Beinart STILL is implying that he and his friends have more will to fight Islamicist murderers than does this supposed group of
soft-on-terrorism liberals.He wants to argue with nameless,faceless people who were polled.We do not know the exact quesitons they were asked or what other quesitons were asked or how it was determined that they are 'liberals." Nor when they were asked the quesitons and what the context was. How convenient. Why not argue with prominent Democrats and liberals who responsibly opposed the war in Iraq and whose voice is critical to avoid myopic policies re Iran etc?

As to Michael Moore---What is the point of arguing about whether or not Michael Moore's lifetime group of statements is good or bad? Undountedly Michael would frame his past remarks differently--but Michael Moore is not running for President or going to be part of the State Department. His personal views and character dont matter. His only relevence to the current mentality of the "base" of the Democratic party is the major impact that his major work has had on a mass audience.
To me, his major work on the war "Farenhiet 911" was much more positive than negative.
What he wrote in Mother Jones, regardless of the context, is irrelevant.

Beinart needs to decide--does he want to put his considerable energy into polarizing the Democratic/liberal comunity or into uniting them?

-Danny Goldberg

Posted at June 8, 2006 9:37 AM in response to Readings and Misreadings

There was a huge audience for Moore's movie and his last two books were both number one bestsellers as were Al Franken's last two books. As far as Donahue's show--it has been widely documented that he had better ratings than Hardball at the time it was cancelled and that it was cancelled for political reasons.

Conservatives have been creating populist media since 1987 when the Fairness doctrine ended--aided by hundreds of millions spent on right wing think tanks, money losing papers like the NY Post and Wash Times etc.

Liberals have only started recently.

As for Air America its got plenty of warts.-But-given that its a wholly independent brand new company--with no partnership or investment from major media companies--the fact that its developed a national audience of a few milion in two years--is a testament to the hunger for an alternative
progressive media.

Posted at June 6, 2006 3:11 PM in response to Beinart's Exceptionalism

A couple of responses.

First re Michael Moore. He is not running for any public office and he is not going to be appointed to the State Department so trying to find one statement or another that me made to "judge" him is not all that important. What is important his Moore AUDIENCE---and to ignore them or the Moveon or Daily Kos or Air America audience is politically insane for Democrats. I also feel that these populist voices, warts and all, will help the people who really do have to make policy decicions avoid becoming prisoners of the hot-house atmosphere that led very smart people to be so wrong about both VietNam and Iraq.

As to the point about "cleansing" of the dysfunction---I think I made a mistake writing that. I do not ,for a minute, suggest that the Democrats who supported the war should be eliminated from foreign policy leadership---my point is that they should not have a monopoly on such leadership which many of them seem to want to maintain. If it is true that at one point only 16% of the US public was against the war ( a number which sounds too low to me) that was,in part, because many Democrats who should of known better were saluting the Bush/Chenet flag.

Posted at June 6, 2006 12:00 PM in response to Beinart's Exceptionalism

Mary

I am not attacking Democrats--Im urging them to get their message out sooner rather than later. There is disagreement among Cognressional Democrats on wheher to come with a national message sooner or later. I'm for sooner.

Of course I share your views about the bias of the mainstream media. That's why I work for Air America. But Democrats need to take into account the playing field. Complaining about media bias is good. I love what David Brock and FAIR do because it noodges the mainstream media away from intimidation by the right.

But to be effective Democrats have ot take into account the flawed media as part of the plaing field they are actually on in 2006.

Re Air America--Democrats are welcome on almost all of our shows. This is why both the House and Senate Democratic leadership recently had a reception for us to encourage the growth of the network. Of course its not perfect--its a new independent company trying to do something that's never been done before and its not for everybody.But millions of people a week are hearing views otherwise unavailable via electronic media.

Posted at March 17, 2006 2:33 PM in response to Congressional Democrats should express beliefs immediately