It seems to me that the diary title alone almost says it all. This evening, just minutes ago, as I was listening to Tweety Bird pontificate about health insurance, he finally hit a new low.
According to Tweety Bird, the "netroots" are not real Democrats. They don't vote in elections. They are a bunch of whiners and back seat drivers who don't care about governing. That may just be the last Chris Matthews show I ever watch, and if you want to express a similar sentiment, send e-mails to hardball@msnbc.com
This is the gist of what I said in an e-mail to Matthews followed by a few extended comments.
Firstly, I have voted Democrat in every general election since I was 18 (more elections than I care to admit). I have voted and caucused in primaries. I am a small donor to the DNC. I vote in special elections.
Last fall I was a neighborhood team leader for the Obama campaign (incidentally, some of my experiences about that were diaried here on Daily Kos). In fact, a significant portion of the local Obama volunteer network was people like me.
I don't see how I can be called a whiner or how someone can say I am uninterested in governing. Maybe Matthews believes people like me drag the party too far to the left. If so, he is entitled to his opinion. But he is not entitled to lie about the base and the netroots. While it may emotionally satisfying to Matthews to lie about the base, he is forgetting that only was Dean the Chair of the DNC, he was a very effective Chair.
I knew from the very beginning that I would not get single payer from Obama (or any other Democratic candidate). I knew that Obama would transfer more troops to Afghanistan. I knew we might have to make compromises even on the public option. I knew that Rubin and Summers would have influence in the White House.
But I did not campaign, vote and give money to be shat on. Obama reserves his righteous indignation for Howard Dean, while getting punked by Lieberman. Obama said he would give the country back to the people. Instead, he opted for the centrist, trickle down approach to financial bailouts, instead of imposing real accountability.