"Our party," he said, "is too beholden to Democratic consultants."

understandinglife

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Tue Apr-25-06 10:48 AM
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"Our party," he said, "is too beholden to Democratic consultants."

The "he" in "he said" is Senator Feingold.

quotes interview of Russ Feingold:

Once he'd felt the Dems had again lost their resolve to fight, and once the information concerning the warrantless NSA spying had come to light, he'd decided the right thing to do was to simply take action. And he did."Yes," I followed up, "and don't get me wrong, I strongly support your effort there, but might you have gotten more support from your Democratic colleagues had you consulted with them first before announcing the Resolution publicly?"

He explained that had he done that, the matter would have then been vetted by "Democratic consultants" who would have decided to kill the idea entirely before it could even be proposed on the floor. "Our party," he said, "is too beholden to Democratic consultants."

And, then offers the following:

As for Feingold's explanation, it is easy to see exactly what he is describing. Democratic consultants attacked and tried to kill his resolution even after it was announced and had been widely publicized. Is there any doubt at all that had he consulted in advance with Democrats, all that he would have confronted would be efforts to dissuade him from doing anything?

As Crashing the Gate chronicles, and as Feingold implied, the Democratic Party has all but turned itself over to highly risk-adverse, overly calculating political consultants who have drained the party of ideals, passion, energy and life. Almost all of them inspire nobody, because they so transparently lack any governing principles or passion about anything. They embrace only those ideas which are guaranteed in advance to be popular, and they run from ideas they believe in and that are right whenever they are told -- by the bookish, soul-less consultants who dominate them -- that those ideas are risky or unpopular. And everyone sees this and knows this.

In summary, states what many have written, countless times here at DU:

But what is critically important is that Democrats stand for something. It almost matters less what that "something" is than that they demonstrate they are capable of taking a stand even in the face of whiny, fearful warnings from their consultants. The Censure Resolution is still pending. The administration's blatant lawlessness -- exacerbated greatly by their recently intensified efforts to quash dissent, intimidate investigative journalists, and prevent disclosure of their wrongdoing -- is a serious threat to our country, and it is very difficult to see what possible justification exists for having Democrats continue to stand by, quiet and invisible, while all of this unfolds. More than anything else, that's what Democrats have become -- quiet and invisible.

Well, I think we all know some Democrats who are anything but "quiet and invisible" - Conyers, Murtha, Feingold, Gore, Kerry, Lee, Waters, .... - to name a few.

What we need to continue doing is encouraging them to be passionate about protecting our Constitution and our planet from the gravest, most lawless threat ever encountered - the Bush Neoconster Imperialist Regime.

Never Forget: George W. Bush willfully violated National Security to cover-up his willful launch of a war of aggression and illegal occupation of Iraq.

"Our party," he said, "is too beholden to Democratic consultants."

First, we FIRE All the Consultants.