December 3, 2004
SCOOP LIEBERMAN?:
Not his party (Jonah Goldberg, December 3, 2004, Townhall)
The desire to remake the Democratic Party isn't new either. In the 1970s, the sainted Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson led a coalition of intellectuals and activists who wanted to beat back the blame-America-first pacifists taking control of the Democratic Party. They failed, and most of them are now "neocon" Republicans, like Jeane Kirkpatrick and Richard Perle. And the remaining 1940s-style union Democrats Beinart wishes to reincarnate left too. We called them Reagan Democrats.Beinart seems to think it's possible for the Democrats - now soaked with multiculturalism - to stand up to Islamic totalitarianism, although, ever since Vietnam, they'd been unwilling or unable to get their act together to fight Soviet totalitiarianism. I think that's wishful thinking on steroids. If you think that's unfair, ask yourself why Beinart has to go back to the 1940s to find a Democratic Party he wants to emulate.
That raises another reason why Beinart can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. The Democratic Party in the 1940s wasn't nearly so democratic. Today, because of the primary system, mass media, and campaign finance reform, the party elders and elites have much less power. The Democrats of the 1940s could purge people. Today, even if they wanted to, party leaders cannot cull their ranks for fear of the lawsuits alone. Not all Democrats are the problem. But the activist base of the party is. Unfortunately for the Beinart feather of the Democratic Party, you can't just dissolve the base and appoint a new one.
What other option does a morally serious person like Mr. Beinart have but to follow the Scoop Jackson Democrats into the GOP? Posted by Orrin Judd at December 3, 2004 10:44 AM
He could mount a local drive to formally purge the most leftwing significant party member in his local region. I suspect they would purge Beinart instead, making the choice for him.
Posted by: Ripper at December 3, 2004 11:40 AM"The Democrats of the 1940s could purge people." Indeed. They purged Henry Wallace in 1944. No chance that happens today.
Posted by: Fred Jacobsen (San Fran) at December 3, 2004 2:05 PMHe has to become morally serious first. :)
Posted by: kevin whited at December 3, 2004 2:07 PMBeinart's ideal seems to be a purge of the moonbat left by the party, followed by a co-opting of the Republican party's moderates that would move the GOP (in his eyes) too far to the right, and leave the Democrats as the governing party in the middle. The problem is it's hard for Peter's minority in the Democratic Party to figure out any way to purge the majority under it's currently designed system, since the activists control the bulk of the apparatus.
Posted by: John at December 3, 2004 2:14 PMFrankly I would've taken Beinart a lot more seriously if he had made this call about 2 years ago.
His stint at TNR has done virtually nothing to further moderation in the Dem Party, instead he's taken a formerly moderate journal, the one-time voice of the DLC, in an increasingly moon-bat direction.
I dropped my subscription in the run up to 2000 b/c of their insanity.
Once Bush was elected they descended into outright Bush derangement syndrome.
This was after all where Dana Milbank first made a national profile for himself.
Beinhard, TNR, and Mart Peretz deserve everything they're getting for throwing in their lot with the nutcases.
Posted by: at December 3, 2004 3:06 PMFrankly I would've taken Beinart a lot more seriously if he had made this call about 2 years ago.
His stint at TNR has done virtually nothing to further moderation in the Dem Party, instead he's taken a formerly moderate journal, the one-time voice of the DLC, in an increasingly moon-bat direction.
I dropped my subscription in the run up to 2000 b/c of their insanity.
Once Bush was elected they descended into outright Bush derangement syndrome.
This was after all where Dana Milbank first made a national profile for himself.
Beinhard, TNR, and Mart Peretz deserve everything they're getting for throwing in their lot with the nutcases.
Posted by: Jim in Chicago at December 3, 2004 3:06 PMI keep wondering if Beinart has Andrew Sullivan Syndrome.
Posted by: Bart at December 3, 2004 3:36 PMI remember something my hometown Omaha World-Herald said a few years ago (paraphrasing): "American liberals desperately need a strong leader willing to kick the nutsos out of the movement, the way William F. Buckley did a long time ago with the conservatives."
Indeed -- but consider what James Taranto said yesterday about Beinart's column:
[W]hen the New York Times asked delegates to the 2004 Democratic Convention "which issues were most important," only 2% mentioned terrorism, 1% defense and 1% homeland security. If there's a significant constituency for a 21st-century ADA, the Democratic Party probably isn't where it's likely to be found.
Buckley's problem revolved around the proper means to keep screwballs out of his movement. Beinart's problem is that, nowadays, screwballs are the movement.
Posted by: Matt Murphy at December 3, 2004 7:50 PMBeinart's behavior, does help explain how the Liberal kept losing to the troglodyte National
Party for 40 years