cspan-washington journal time-democratic leadership

[w8liftinglady]

[Skidmore]

1. Boy, what a hit piece they're using.

[w8liftinglady]

2. they're worried.

[w8liftinglady]

4. the media has a lot to do with how the leadership is portrayed

[Daphne08]

3. I cannot believe this man cannot pronounce injudicious.

:eyes:

[w8liftinglady]

5. DLC="Republican-like"

good phone call

[w8liftinglady]

6. caller would like to see john edwards as 2008 nominee

[w8liftinglady]

7. "media twists the democratic leaders' comments"

[w8liftinglady]

8. this caller is excellent-comparing dlc and dccc

[Cassandra]

17. There was also the local party official from NY

who commented that the aims of the DNC and the DCCC collide. The DNC keeps recruiting ordinary people with a good message to run and the DCCC brushes them aside and promotes millionaires instead. The DCCC really wants to keep sucking at that money teat, don't they?

[flpoljunkie]

9. Article in Slate today, too. How about a hit piece on Rethugs, Weisberg?

http://www.slate.com/id/2137731/nav/tap1/



The Three Stooges
Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Howard Dean.
By Jacob Weisberg
Posted Wednesday, March 8, 2006, at 3:30 PM ET

According to the latest CBS News poll, George W. Bush's approval rating hit a personal worst of 34 percent in February, making him the most unpopular president since Nixon during Watergate. Thanks to the Abramoff scandal, confidence in the Republican-run Congress is only two points higher. Such numbers naturally provoke Democratic fantasies about doing in 2006 what Republicans did in 1994, taking both houses in a historic sweep. Conditions seem ripe in many ways. But Democrats do not have a charismatic schemer like Newt Gingrich to lead the way. Instead, they have Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Howard Dean.
Pelosi is a conventionally liberal congresswoman from San Francisco who serves as House minority leader. The quite conservative Reid, who comes from a small town in Nevada, is the Senate minority leader. Dean, the former Vermont governor who seemed headed for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004 until he yodeled in Iowa, is the chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Since assuming their positions, the three of them have shown themselves to be somewhere between useless and disastrous as party leaders. Individually, they lack substance and policy smarts (Pelosi); coherence and force (Reid); and steadiness and mainstream appeal (Dean). Collectively, they convey an image of liberal elitism, disarray, and crabbiness.

Pelosi and Reid do deserve credit for getting the Democratic troops in line. Both are former party whips, and since their promotions they've continued to wield the scourge effectively. In Bush's first term, when the too-nice Tom Daschle and Richard Gephardt ruled the roost, Democratic defectors let the president pass his tax cuts. In the second term, by contrast, the congressional minority has maintained discipline, winning a few morale-boosting victories and forcing some uncomfortably close votes. Bush was not able to peel off centrist Democrats to negotiate with him on Social Security, which meant a well-deserved defeat for his half-baked privatization plan. But whip work, which emphasizes horse-trading and instilling fear in the rank and file, is poor training for policy-making and message-building. Those are the facilities the institutional Democratic Party sorely lacks at the moment.

Nancy Pelosi epitomizes this problem. To understand her politics, think Huffington Post without the flashes of wit. Here is a typical Bush-bashing, cliché-ridden quote of hers: "The emperor has no clothes. When are people going to face the reality? Pull this curtain back!" Pelosi dismisses people who disagree as hoodwinked or stupid. She's not exactly Hillary Clinton herself, though. A five-minute interview is usually sufficient to exhaust her knowledge on any subject. And she can flop around like a fish. When Rep. Jack Murtha, D-Pa., proposed a pullout, or "redeployment," of U.S. troops from Iraq in November, Pelosi's first reaction was to isolate him. "Mr. Murtha speaks for himself," she said. But after taking a drubbing from left-wing bloggers and her anti-war constituents, she announced that she supported Murtha after all. This shored up her image as Washington's answer to Barbra Streisand, and set up Dick Cheney to paint the Democrats as defeatist and unsupportive of our troops in Iraq.

more...

[Cassandra]

11. He's not reading it from Slate, though...

he's reading it as an Op-Ed in another paper. I didn't hear which one was willing to pick up this crap. I was so angry I did some extra vigorous exercise this morning.

[flpoljunkie]

15. It was the Financial Times, requires subscrition, not widely read here.

[Cassandra]

16. Thanks for the info...

I'm sure the paper reprinted it with glee.

[Skidmore]

14. This is a nasty and spiteful article.

Just kneecap 'em, Weisberg.

[Vinca]

10. The last woman who called from California is a problem.

Republicans win because they would stand by Charlie Manson. Democrats - who can't help being honest - blab on the national media about how lousy they think their leadership is. Is it possible for us to keep our traps shut when there's a camera trained on us?

[Cassandra]

12. Yeah but when Charles Manson has been in office...

for a couple of terms, the bodies start to turn up in a way that's obvious to all but the most devoted cultists.

[Daphne08]

13. Happy to hear one of the callers mention the fact that

Republicans tend to "march in lockstep" and parrot talking points (very dangerous practices) whereas Democrats are proud to have a diversity of ideas.

Yes, we tend to think critically and ask difficult questions instead of following mindless orders.

[Cassandra]

18. I noticed that when Kolbe was on afterwards...

the host waited until the calls were over to ask about his position on immigration. His answer probably had the steam hissing out of freeper ears everywhere. They may protest later at the next open phones.