Bloggledygook

Trippi the light fantastic.

In the  WSJ  Joe Trippi shows exactly why his candidate got roasted in the primary and the Dems went on to field a loser. He seems to think that Kerry actually ran to the middle! He obviously hates that part of the Democratic party that  the DLC represents, but listen, Joe, those are the people who elected Bill Clinton. Twice.

And check this out:

The Democratic Party has to be the vehicle that empowers the American people to change our failed political system. We all know the damn thing is broken. Democrats should lead the way by placing stricter money restrictions on candidates than the toothless Federal Election Commission does. A party funded by contributions from the people can do this. A corrupted and corroded party cannot. The Democratic Party shouldn't wait for campaign-finance reform--it should be campaign-finance reform.

What is he talking about? 27 million from George Soros wasn't enough? Or is he forswearing 527s and going door-to-door to collect old ladies' pension money?

Trippi contends that all the good ideas come from the left. Really. Howard Dean didn't lose because of the srcream, but because other than his few lefty  sophomores who just want to get along, no one in the country thought that he had any idea whatsoever to do about global terrorism.

There's a battle going on for the future of the Democratic party. If the Dean/Trippi wing gets the upper hand, look forward to more years of one-party rule.

Sizing up the opposition.

The New Republic critiques  the GOP in an article about Republican contenders "not on the short list." Are Republicans as interested in Democrats as Democrats seem obsessed with Republicans? I understand the value in knowing who and what you're up against, but wouldn't it be a good idea to start looking under the furniture for someone who can actually win next time?

Ukraine roundup.

Go here here and here for some of the best coverage of the present situation.

The Politics of the Future.

But, the neoconservatives asked, was this bourgeois fellow really so bad, so base as all that? Was he not, in fact, the living repository of the “values” or virtues that enabled the     capitalist system to persist? And were those values not, upon closer examination, morally preferable on their own terms to the relativism and even nihilism often embraced by his critics? Were the critics not, in certain respects, the material beneficiaries of the very values for which they had such contempt? And was our bourgeois not, therefore, worth defending against a pitiless cultural assault on the moral legitimacy of his very existence?

With this set of questions, Tod Lindberg, research fellow at the Hoover Institution and editor of Policy Review, outlines the embodiment of a type of building block of American liberal democracy in his article Neoconservatism's Liberal Legacy. The defense of the bourgeoisie, Lindberg claims, would make it "possible to envision a future for capitalism that was not quite so gloomy."

Lindberg begins his piece with a definition of politics being a method mediating difference and disagreement. Indeed, he says, politics in the absence of disagreement would be unnecessary, and that the expunging of disagreement "is the history of totalitarianism in the twentieth century."

 

Raise your glasses.

Stephen Green  has announced that he will be back and blogging on December 1. For all of us who were entertained and informed by his indefatigable blogging throughout the election, especially on election night, it is a welcome return of an urbane, witty and intelligent voice.

Welcome back, Stephen.

10-1

These guys are making me nervous.

Kiev's "Joan of Arc."

Interesting profile  of Yuliya Tymoshenko, also called the "gas princess" and Yushchenko's pit bull" and possibly one of the new breed of Ukrainian democrats.

Secession in Ukraine?

The Regional Council of Donetsk has announced a December 5th resolution declaring itself a "semi-independent" region within Ukraine. Yushchenko is making some bellicose remarks about the criminality of such a move. The map in this story drives home the regional divide between east and west. Kind of brings the whole red state - blue state thing into perspective.

Madrid and September 11th.

Joe Gandelman guest-blogging at Dean's World quotes Reuters as reporting a link between September 11th and the Madrid Bombings:

Hijacker Mohammed Atta, believed to have piloted one of the airliners that crashed into New York's World Trade Center, visited Spain two months before the attacks and met two men.

One was Ramzi bin al-Shaibah, who is being held by U.S. authorities, while the other was unidentified.

ABC said investigators now believe that third man was the one who in December 2003 activated the Qaeda cell that carried out the March 11 attacks, which Spaniards call "our Sept. 11."

Yeah, but Reuters still can't get over equivocating, can it? What's with the "believed to have piloted?" That's like saying, "Hitler is believed to have invaded Poland sometime in 1939."

I'm partial to Teddy Bears and Duckies.

Oliver Kamm writes in what he says is to be his last post of the year:

Conventional journalists criticise bloggers for being parasitic rather than investigative, and Pajamahadeen, with its metaphorical connotations of guerrilla warfare, scarcely dispels that suspicion. But — though I declare an interest, as a (non-conservative) blogger myself — I am an unabashed fan of the medium. It is admittedly a ready vehicle for dilettantes bearing grudges, and at its worst it attracts political obscurantists. But at its best it offers additional checks and balances on the flow of information.

Had there been an equivalent force in this country — a Pyjamahadeen to match the Pajamahadeen — the Hutton inquiry might not have been necessary. Concerted scrutiny on the internet of that notorious broadcast might have spared the BBC later embarrassment — and the rest of us Greg Dyke’s self-regarding memoir.

I truly believe that we are witnessing a sea change in how we get our news. As democracy continues to break out all over, it may have finally come to the media.