> I guess a lot of it probably boils down to a gut
> reaction toward Bai's frequently snarky prose. He
> applies it far more to the billionaires than to
> the bloggers, but there's no question that the
> bloggers come in for their share as well.

Because over the last 20 years the (left-lib) bloggers and those they represent have had /exactly as much power and influence/ as the billionaires. Kos exactly balances out the Mellon/Scaife money for example. And the (left-lib) bloggers have /exactly the same goals for the nation/ as Mellon/Scaife, Norquist, and Cheney.

Yup.

Cranky

You seem to value good snark above accuracy. I don't much care to whom he's sympathetic; I do care about his misrepresentations. (As with Lieberman.) He can love bloggers, but if he's wrong on facts, or emphasis, well ... cluelessness of a book's basic theme isn't really a trivial thing.

Money quote: "They were, in fact, the voices of the new public square, but it was more like the Parisian public square in the days of the Bastille -- not a place where townspeople came to carefully consider what their leaders had to say, but where the mob gathered to make demands and mete out its own kind of justice."

At least he understands something.

The clock is ticking.

And France became a Republic. Maybe we can, too.

And France became a Republic. Maybe we can, too.

And next time, maybe we can keep it.

Kevin I think you miss Joan Walsh's main point: this cluelessness isn't an accident. The main political reporter in one of the most important papers in the world just doesn't acknowledge some basic facts of American politics.

It's the same cluelessness that Peter Baker shows in the Washington Post Story yesterday in which Mr. Baker parrots the Bush Administration excuse that its democracy initiative failed because of sabotage from nasty State Dept bureaucrats.

Now Matt Bai puts in a book the same absurd arguments about the Democrats without acknowledging basic facts about what the party faces. Fact #1 the Democrats have faced an incredibly well financed political machine - from CREEP to the Reagans to the Bushes. Fact #2 this machine has used hate to attack the Democrats - red-baiting, the Southern Strategy, questioning patriotism, etc. Fact #3 most of the "think tanks" that frame the policy choices in DC are simply right wing PR shops - AEI, Cato, Heritage, etc.

It's not the snark - it's the ignorance.

And next time, maybe we can keep it.

Amen, hallelujah and may it be so.

I didn't read the book, but heard a few of Bai's NPR segments. What stuck in my craw was that Bai's whole argument is premised on his acceptance of three GOP talking points: 1) conservatives gained power on the strength of their ideas; 2) netroots is all about Bush hating; 3) global war on terror is the fundamental issue of the day.

Any fool (other than a highly paid journalist) can see that (1) is wrong - conservatives gained votes only as a backlash against progressive gains, civil rights, women's right and gay rights. There are no ideas here other than getting a bunch of yahoos riled up in self-righteous anger. The only "idea" was Nixon's - sell bigotry as a "Christian value" and the press will believe it.

(2) is merely psychological projection. Yes, the right wing is motivated by hatred and division. But netroots is motivated by a search for a real, fact-based debate. The right wing gained predominance through Heritage Foundation propaganda and sloganeering. I go to netroots because I am sick of the media's inability to see through all the slime, propaganda, misdirection, fear-mongering.

(3) is laughable on its face. The Bush administration has gotten tons of mileage with its fear-mongering. But as someone who grew up with the real threat on nuclear annihilation (either from the Soviets or crazy Richard Nixon or a rogue Air Force general) I find this fear of AQ amusing, all the more so because the Bush administration has done precious little about actually finding OBL or any other terrorist. The one time what the Bushies really think came out was in Rice's testimony before Congress, was that Bush thought that going after terrorists was like swatting flies. While I think OBL is actually alot more dangerous, nonetheless the nuclear threat of my childhood was far more perilous.

Anyway, it would be nice to see that there are good parts to Bai's book. But the fact that he is so far off-base in his basic premise makes me doubt that very much.

I nominate Blue Girl and shortstop for Optimists of the Year.

Thank you, Thersites. We are putting up a fight, at least. :)

As to Matt Bai - Yellow Dog at WTWC was not impressed. In fact, she was rather scathing, and I think I agree with her. I can't be 100% certain, since the book is still in my in-basket, but she sure made her case.

The billionators and the netroots made a big mistake, which was trying to remake Democratic Party politics. They ended up with Kerry in 2004, a lame opposition candidate to Lieberman in 2006, a too timid to oppose the president Democratic majority in Congress and a Cheneylite candidate to run for president in 2008. The abolitionists and their supporters did not make that mistake when they created a new Republican Party. The billionators, Springsteen and the netroots wasted an opportunity by not creating a new progressive or liberal social democracy party to oppose the duopoly of the Republicans and Democrats. Now it is too late to make a real change to our politics and national identity to undo what W. Bush has begun.

Third party. Gotcha. You keep, thinking, there Brojo. It's clearly what you're good at. How'd that Nader Green Party vote work out for you? No difference between the parties, right, buddy?

> The billionators and the netroots made a big
> mistake, which was trying to remake Democratic
> Party

Are you under the misimpression that there is any significant billionaire support for the Democratic Party? Hate to break it to you smart guy but the real money backs the Republican Party, George Soros notwithstanding. Soros hasn't spent anywhere near the amount that the Mellon/Scaife bunch alone have put into radicalizing the Republican Party over the last 25 years.

Cranky

Glib doesn't equal funny.

Bai is one of those jerks who things everybody is stupid except for him. I remember him saying Kerry was just as bad as Bush back in 2004. Sheesh.

Brojo,
I doubt Springsteen thought Kerry was the best candidate. What he knew however, was the fact that Bush was a hell of a lot worse.

So Kevin, just so I understand: Bai's basic premise fails to hold water (leading me to assume that he presents very few facts to back up his premise) and yet you found his book to be "a terrific and insightful piece of reporting?" Exactly how does that work?

Because it appears to me that you are saying that, as long as someone has great rhetorical skills you don't give a damn that what they are saying is a bunch of lies and horseshit. And that can't possibly be right.

Oh. Wait. You approvingly quote Andrew Sullivan all the time. Never mind.

I, like most here, haven't read Bai's book, but I've been reading him regularly in the Times for some time, beginning with his '03/'04 "Howard Dean is a big problem for the Dems whether he wins or loses". I disagreed with that analysis, and I disagree with what Joan reports from this new book.

As everyone is saying, it's nonsense to say the GOP started winning elections because of its bold new ideas. They cracked the Roosevelt coalition because of Vietnam and the Civil Rights revolution; Nixon ran a one-for-you, one-for-them administration that was almost Clintonian in its cleaving to he middle; and Reagan won because the Carter administation, with gas prices soaring and the hostages on TV every night, had been totally discredited (even there, Reagan couldn't take a consistent poll lead till a week or so pre-election).

And this is not just a GOP thing: Franklin Roosevelt was considered a cipher prior to his election (Will Rogers called him "a man who very much wants to be president without knowing what he'll do"). He was elected because Hoover had screwed things to roo-tattoo. This is how the American political system works.

It's what happens AFTER that's significant. Roosevelt obviously changed the world. Reagan, too, made a difference, implementing policies that, however we may dislike them, made much of the electorate feel things were under control again. It's the job of whomever we nominate/elect to set a course -- and that course, in retrospect, will constitute the "big ideas" Bai is so convinced our party lacks.

If President Edwards/Obama/Clinton implements national health care-energy independence and extracts us from Iraq with a hint of dignity, Bai'll be amazed how bold that vision will appear to historians.

My impression was that Bai was a snot about Democrats/liberals generally, if not an outright douchebag, and that he gave Republicans entirely too much credit for saying nice things while they do really nasty, fucked-up stuff, whether it's sabotaging government and its institutions or calling their political opponents traitorous commie scum (no, really, guys, those are your big ideas, and you should be proud of them.

Aside from that, it sounds peachy.

I dunno Kevin. I haven't read the entire book yet, but from the reviews and excerts I've read, I think Mat Bai and myself attended two different YearlyKos conventions in Vegas in 2006. Mr. Bai's convention had something to do with arrogant left wing bloogers either selling out to DLC-like Governor Mark Warner or trashing his entire campaign. My YK06 convention had netroots activisits listening and interacting with a variety of democratic leaders like Gen. Wesley Clark, Governor Howard, Senators Harry Reid and Barbara Boxer and possible presidential candidates like Governors Bill Richardson, John Vilsack and Mark Warner.

Maybe I just went to the wrong parties, compared to Matt Bai.

Most people who have taught learn the phrase "Silence = assent." So it is here. The only value of their "silent dissent" is that they can now use its alleged existence to defend themselves from charges of stupidity and incompetence. I suppose they are pleading guilty to cowardice already -- remember, silence = assent.

If a doctor, during the course of an examination, notices some symptom of illness but says nothing, and the patient eventually suffers some serious malady, is the mere fact that the doctor noticed it exculpatory? Isn't the doctor bound by some professional code to speak out? Wouldn't any professional be?

We need to work very hard to drive a stake through the heart of the current Republican Party. And then...We need to drive a stake through the heart of the Democratic Party.

They are both hideously corrupt, craven and wed to a military and corporate kleptocracy that is bleeding the soul of this great nation.

I'm with Esaund, above, except I only heard a part of one discussion with Bai on WBUR's "On Point". Bai kept hammering on the netroots, and how the newfound Democratic grass roots activism was fatally flawed because they were unable to put forward a *new* idea about how this country ought to be governed. He said that the Republicans came out with *new* ideas in the 60's and 70's, which is what led to their nascency in the 80's. Well, from where I sit today, the Republicanism in the 2000's is not much different than the Republicanism that I read about during the 30's and 40's. Republicans didn't want a New Deal for everybody then, and they're still trying to dismantle The New Deal today. If there was a *new* idea that the Republicans came up with, it was the "trickle down" theory of economics, where you can tax less, somehow still get the same services from the government, and as a result we'll all get fantastically richer. (I didn't notice that happening to me. Did it happen to you?) But I'm not sure if this is what Bai meant, since he never actually said what *new* ideas the Republicans came up with. And, as I sat in my car listening, I kept trying to figure out what he might have been referring to. Maybe he explains all that in his book.

He not only faulted the newly awakened netroots and progressive activists for not coming up with *new* ideas, but for sticking with our old, laughably simple notions of social and economic equality and justice in these days of The Global War on Terror, and the Global Economy. (The ol' "9/ll changed everything" argument", I guess.)

So I'm confused. Does he want us to come up with new, ersatz ideas with which we can bamboozle the electorate the way the Republicans did? Does he really think that striving for economic and social justice and equality are passe? Or is he just clueless? He sure sounds like someone who's conclusions are suspect, so I won't be wasting my time reading him.

Cranky hardly describes an observer who thinks that (left-lib) bloggers (sic) have exactly as much influence as billionaires. How many billionaires actually have enough integrity to be Democrats anyway!

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