Apologies for tossing out some meta on an otherwise peaceful Saturday afternoon, but I think the issues I'll be addressing here are of key importance to the site and, as they are intimately connected to the very nature of progressive blogging, they won't be going away any time soon.
Yesterday, Big Tent Democrat published a diary criticizing Barack Obama for commentary suggesting that the senator was resigning himself to the impossibility of immediate action with regard to ending the war in Iraq. This diary elicited an enormous amount of commentary, some of it supportive and much of it deeply critical. The key divide throughout was between those who took the diary as an instance of activist pressure on our elected representatives to step up action on this crucial issue, and those who regarded the diary as an unfair attack on what was merely a realistic assessment of political constraints.
My personal take on the matter is that BTD is correct in his assessment that a de-funding timetable is the only path out of Iraq that can be taken prior to Bush's exit from office. It is obviously an enormous gambit for politicians to take at this point - Bush would most certainly play chicken and, if he felt that the American public would pin the blame on Democrats, I believe he would allow military personnel to stop receiving their paychecks as a means toward the destruction of the Democratic Party. But, if, during the run-up to de-funding, American public opinion swayed (if it is has not already) to the notion that responsibility for de-funding would belong to Bush, I believe Bush would be forced to withdraw troops.
Congresspeople will not at this point take these steps toward de-funding because of the enormous risk they correctly associate with such brinksmanship, and Obama's commentary is indeed a reflection of this reality. Yet we are talking here about the most odious American foreign policy since at least Vietnam. We are talking about lives cut off in their prime in deference to an unworkable objective. We are talking about the soul of our nation. And it is not impossible that the de-funding plan would work. So, in these circumstances, who would blame someone for applying as much pressure as he or she knows how to our congresspeople to take such action?
At the same time, the notion that editorializing has no place here seems to me Orwellian. Once we equate honest observations as to the likelihood of de-funding with opposition to de-funding, we find ourselves uncomfortably close to assessing statements on the basis of their convenience rather than their objective validity.
So, both sides in this debate - and I refer here to the eternal meta-debate as well as the issue-specific one - are correct in their intentions and aims, but are working from different paradigms. How de we accomodate both paradigms?
My take is that there is no meta-bromide sufficient to synthesize both approaches into a common discourse, and that neither side can be de-legitimized. Nor should we conclude that activist vs. editorial discourse is not constructive - the positions one takes on these issues can only be clarified through interaction.
So why did I write this diary that poses no clear answers? Because I believe that, when we are cognizant of the way these two paradigms influence discourse, it greatly aids our ability to talk to each other constructively. That does not mean that activists on a given issue should stop arguing passionately with editorialists - the whole point of their position is to draw others into the activist camp, and to deny this attempt is absurd. Nor does it mean that the editorialists on these issues should relinquish their right to assess the facts as they see them. But, in remembering where each side is coming from and why they are arguing as they are, we can come away from these debates without feeling that someone has been betrayed and without having taken the debate to a personal level.