Learning from the Right: Let's Flak Our Own Guys

For years I studied the structure of the Republican Right and how a ring of think tanks, media outlets and pressure groups was created for what the Republicans called a "war on ideas." And this network of organizations has been used over the past four decades to attack the Democrats and Liberalism in general. But it also has been used to flak Republican politicians as well when they "wandered off the reservation."

I used to think that the Right was one unified monolith, and that all heeded Ronald Reagan's advice to "speak no ill of any Republican." But through the years I have seen even the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute flak Bush and other prominent Republicans for the purpose of doing the Right's agenda. Most obviously has been Larry Klayman (Richard Mellon Scaife's favorite bulldog) going after Republicans when they were not doing the bidding of Scaife and the other big-moneyed backers of the Right. So I think there is a lesson to be learned from all this.

While my betters here at Democrats.com may disagree with me, I think that liberal organizations should not just act as cheerleaders for Democratic politicians, and strictly attack the Right. I think we need to pressure Obama and the Dems in Congress hard over issues like RESTORING civil rights and liberties. (To me at least, no issue is more crucial for the long-term future of this country).

Now the difference between our approach and the Right's is that we should strive to be intellectually honest in the endeavor. Unlike them, we should never make things up. Our job is to help separate reality from the propaganda, so that Americans can recognize the straight dope. Nothing stirred my outrage more than the way the Right manufactured bogus scandals about the Clintons, that got trumpeted by the Right Wing Media -- until they were echoed throughout the rest of the so-called MSM. And I really couldn't stand those wild fishing expeditions by especially Dan Burton's committee. In contrast, the Democrats in Congress must use their investigatory powers to go after legitimate abuses, not waste tax dollars and congressional time on disingenuous investigations, like the Republicans did.

Look the bottom line is that most politicians are basically the popular kids we all knew in high school that ran for student body president. They are mostly attention whores that want to be popular. They are not the kind of people you and I could ever expect to form deep friendships with, let alone expect to act purely in our interests when in elected office. So that's why we have to keep the pressure on them, sometimes with the same aggressiveness we use against the Republicans.

One of the key points I make to those who argue that there "isn't a thin dime's worth of difference between the two parties" is that, even if we allow that this is true about elected officials and party bigwigs -- there is still one key difference. Namely that we, the rank and file of the our party, have distinguished ourselves clearly from our Republican counterparts. So it's up to us to continue to do so with our actions. Therefore, even if we concede the point about the "tweedle-dees and tweedle-dums", the scenario of having Democrats in power still far outstrips the alternative. This is because with Democrats in office, we have guys that we can push around, no matter how unprincipled they might otherwise be. With the Republicans in power, all we can mainly do is sometimes embarrass them into withdrawing some policy or whatever. Unfortunately, they usually find a way to bring it back, ultimately rendering whatever they did earlier as just a token PR gesture. If most Democrats really are spineless wimps -- let's be the tough guys they most dread! Let's be the squeakiest of the wheels that burn at their ears!  I say -- let's turn the screws on Obama and the Dems in Congress to get OUR agenda done...'cause after eight hellish years in the wilderness-- now at last it's our turn!!