Have DailyKos readers ceased to have any pretense of impartiality and sense?
The first thing we do is call Alito "Scalito" and go nuclear against him - even though we didn't have the votes to filibuster.
The next thing we do is go after Joe Lieberman. Now, I'm no huge fan of Lieberman, but we slam him and basically say: "The Democratic Party - conform or die."
Finally, today, I read we're calling a former Dean staffer, running as a Republican in the bluest state of the nation (Vermont), and we're calling her "Turncoat Kate".
I've had enough.
We skewer moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans. We cackle with glee when "basically a Democrat" Lincoln Chafee is neck-in-neck in the Rhode Island senate race. Anyone who differs even slightly from the extremes of "D" and "R" opinion are drilled.
We're becoming the jackbooted thugs of the left. Everything we all hate about the Republicans, we are becoming. And I don't like it.
My story on the flip.
One day, I was a Deaniac in the wilderness. Politics was a game played by others, and I thought that I would only get involved in general elections and let the parties determine the candidates.
I followed Howard Dean and thought he was great. I didn't get involved, but secretly I was rooting for him. When he criticized the handling of the Iraq war, I agreed with him 100%. I agreed with his tough talk against Bush and White House policies.
To me, the best of all was that Dean in some ways was a moderate. He basically originated the idea of "civil unions" before it was even an issue. He was for sensible laws regarding guns in his state. He balanced budgets. I didn't like all of the red meat he threw out at all of his rallies, but I liked the base of his arguments - all that, and he opposed an unjust war in Iraq before it was fashionable to do so.
As DNC Chair, has he been like the average DailyKos reader? Hardly. He's been (horror) saying that abortion shouldn't be such a big issue in terms of getting to people to run for office. He's been trying to raise money for Dems in (shock) South Carolina, Utah, and other "lost states". If you think he's sitting here trying to find ways to "Tonya Harding" Joe Lieberman and other Democrats, think again.
We've completely lost that here at DailyKos. People who may think that civil unions are the answer to a fractious issue (created from thin air by Karl Rove) are pushed away. Anyone who thinks that maybe abortion-whenever-someone-wants-it shouldn't be the law everywhere are slammed up against the wall. Anyone who thinks that maybe Arlen Specter's slamming of Alberto Gonzales yesterday was a good thing -- without saying at the end of it "... and he's a Republican!" -- means I'm about ready to follow Pat Robertson and send my kids to Bob Jones University.
I still come to DailyKos for some different perspectives on the news, and of course Jerome a Paris and bonddad. But lately it's all about cheering for the "D"s and booing the "R"s, and if you go ahead and do that you're going to miss a lot. You miss a lot of fertile ground for Republican revolt - and I've got news for many of you: without "R" defectors, we have no way to get anything -- or building a majority in the house or senate.
I talked to my father about DailyKos the other day. He said he couldn't take it seriously. He said that "once someone gets their Kos endorsement.... it's the kiss of death." And he's correct. He sees DailyKos as just another Democratic party tool... a completely partisan outlet, no different from O'Reilly or Limbaugh. Once you're equated with the "No Spin Zone", your credibility for intellectualism is gone. You've just become another salesperson - another Coulter.
If DailyKos doesn't become more moderate soon, you won't just lose my dad: you'll lose people like me too, because you will have become the voice of a few, loud, vocal, self-defeating Democrats who will be doing more harm than good to the party. And that's when the slow, drawn-out drag to obscurity will start for DailyKos. I just hope that it hasn't started already.