I was one of many Kossacks who have been critical of Evan Bayh in general, and of his decision yesterday to bail out of the Indiana Senate race at the 11th hour in particular. But now, if the report diaried below is true, I must say I agree with his diagnosis of the problem -- though not his decision to pull a Palin and cut and run.
Update: Several of the comments below point out that the surprising quotes from Bayh are unsourced in my link. There is speculation that this is really Onion-like satire from Michael Berube; after going back and doing better homework, I have to confess that this is the most likely scenario -- I couldn't find the original quotes anywhere else, and in fact, they do all too perfectly describe Bayh's actions. So my original pleasnat surprise is converted to embarassment.
Maybe I should just delete this post, but I'm going to leave it up as an object lesson, so others don't make the same kind of mistake I did -- before you post something, verify the sourcing! Sorry!
Here's the statement Bayh reportedly made -- frankly, I doubt many on this site will disagree; I sure can't:
Bayh blamed "so-called centrist Democrats" for enabling Republican obstructionism, claiming that they were exploiting Senate filibuster rules to extract concessions that capitulate to capricious Republican demands and water down White House initiatives. "A handful of ‘Blue Dog’ Democrats in both chambers did all they could to blunt Obama’s agenda, block meaningful health care reform, and reinforce the image of the Democrats as a party unable to govern," Bayh said. "The Republicans couldn’t have done it all by themselves—they needed the help of a key group of Democrats who were willing to repeat their talking points and serve as all-purpose concern trolls. Some of them did it for personal gain, some for sheer pettiness, but it doesn’t matter what their motives were. What matters is that they have effectively sealed the Democrats’ fate for the foreseeable future."
Bayh refused to name specific members of Congress in the statement, but a senior aide said privately that Bayh was "especially furious" at Senate Democrats who pose publicly as "deficit hawks" but vote repeatedly to lower tax rates on the very rich. "Evan wants those people out of the Senate altogether," said the aide, "and he wants them out now."
Here's the link: Gridlock.
I'm surprised (really I'm not, it's just a rhetorical flourish) that the media has failed to report this aspect of Bayh's criticism. All you hear from the cable news and print media is how Bayh was frustrated with liberal bloggers and, by inference, liberal policies of the Obama administration. Heaven forbid that the media would report that Bayh calls out exactly the culprits who deserve to be called out: the congressional republicans and their democratic "centrist" enablers.
My problem with Bayh, however, is this: if he really believes the quote above, how could he possibly convert a safe Democratic seat to one that will be difficult to hold? How can he justify making the problem worse by enabling even more Republican obstructionism?