With great and due respect to thereisnospoon, his diary currently at the top of the Rec List misses some important points. I'm too late to the game (and will be able to stay too little a time) to jump into his diary profitably, so I'm going ahead and creating my own. Even if you grant spoon's central metaphor of life as a game of poker -- and I do -- the way the Markos and others are proceeding vis-a-vis Kucinich is playing a lousy game, a game that evinces more interest in getting in one's punches than in achieving progress.
I'll point out where I think that spoon and Markos are wrong to bring out the bludgeon against Kucinich yet. I'm OK with people who say that if he does refuse to provide the decisive vote, at least under circumstances I describe below, they'll support a challenger. But that's not the same as what we're hearing: "Dennis delenda est."
Here's where we stand: Kucinich is one vote in Congress. He, so far as anyone seems to be able to tell, has no followers, at least with former Rep. Massa gone. Furthermore, I think that there is reason to believe that if and when push comes to shove -- if they need one more Margolies-Mezvinsky-style vote to put them over the top, Kucinich will allow himself to be persuaded to support the bill in exchange for some substantive concession on policy, such as an up-or-down vote on ERISA exemptions for state single-payer plans in the near future.
But let's say that I'm wrong. If so, if he's gone the Full Nader and is so firmly committed to his position, then why do you think that his getting slammed in the blogs is going to change his mind? Kucinich's answers do leave room for negotiation, and spoon's declarative statement that "Whatever deals were going to be made, have basically already been made" is unsupportable. Yes, there won't be any more changes to this bill once the reconciliation language is set, but that does not rule out side-deals of the sort I suspect has already been worked out in broad form. The question before us, then, is how do we make sure that, if push comes to shove, Obama and Pelosi (and Rahm) are willing to buy him off?
Bludgeoning him, under these circumstances, is exactly the wrong way to proceed. This right/ way, I submit, is to point out how much sense it makes for him to do so, how much he has to gain by doing so, and how much he has to lose by not doing so. Accusing him of being in league with the Republicans -- before push comes to shove -- is both wrong and deeply weird. This is not the way to get Kucinich on board. This is based on an absurd reading of the man -- that backing him into the corner is the way to make him capitulate.
Beyond that, while I agree about the policy that spoon and Markos promote -- I do believe that a failure to pass a decent, Sanders-infused bill would be a disaster for the party, and that a success here is something that we can and will build upon -- I think that essentially saying that "oh, this has just been a big bluff" is ill-advised. Remember, many people (me among them, at one point) said exactly that -- that opponents of the bill (which I gave up being after Lieberman betrayed us) were bluffing. And we heard people say -- it's in the damned archives -- that no, no, no, this wasn't a bluff, and it was scurrilous to accuse people of bluffing.
And now we hear people saying "sure it was a bluff!"
Well, for me, it wasn't a bluff. I remain willing to see this bill go down if Stupak gets his way. I am willing to give ground on things that pain me deeply, but not on everything. Credibility matters, reputation matters. Spoon says -- what I consider to be ironically --
[I]t seems necessary that some explanation be given, lest those of us who fought hard for the public option and told lawmakers to "kill the bill" just a few months ago now be ridiculed for inconsistency by those who should by all rights be allies.
You know what? Those of us who said from the beginning that we were going to fight for the best bill we could, and that we would then continue fighting to improve it, were not being inconsistent. When we accept a partially odious (and partially great, and partially hope-inspiring) bill now, we're just acceding to political reality. But there is a difference between saying that and starkly announcing that "the definitive commitments that we made months ago shouldn't be taken seriously -- but of course the next time we make such commitments, they should be taken absolutely seriously, right up until the moment that we announce otherwise.
My position is: you get ridiculed for inconsistency when your inconsistency becomes ridiculous.
Some of the problem here comes from the persistent netroots problem of staking out positions that are too certain, too extreme, and too lacking in nuance, knowing full well that one will eventually end up eating crow. Well, my friends -- don't complain when other people fail to avoid noting that your inconsistency is less forgivable than you think it should be.
I don't exclude myself from this criticism. I am surprised to find myself supporting a bill that includes a mandate without a public option or other controls -- my argument for why I do so is that Bernie Sanders came up with a good enough amendment that I could do so in good conscience. But I'll admit to some inconsistency and will not now assert that people would be wrong in calling me on it.
I think that part of what we may have here is a failure of transparency among the netroots. The shift on this issue seems sudden and coordinated, as if an edict came down and now everyone (except the poor, vilified Hane Hamsher and perhaps a few others) is expected to fall into line. Well, I already am in line, but I have left enough of my heart in the other camp to truckle and how this is proceeding. Ham-fisted imposition of discipline among the left -- however much it may be celebrated by those who frankly prefer the more moderate policy anyway -- is wrong not so much because it's wrong on the merits but because it won't work. It won't convince the likes of Kucinich, it won't convince people here, and acting as if it should just seems ridiculous. Perhaps there has to be a bit more transparency within the hierarchy of the netroots.
So, yes, politics is a poker game. Yes, the bill should pass. That answer gets you a "B". To do really well, you have to recognize that we are in a different environment now, one in which blogs like this and politicians like Obama are depending on people to come out for them and be part of a movement that is not predicated on back-room ward-heeler dealing. Don't pretend that this cold-blooded, realpolitik version of politics that spoon is peddling is not going to be highly alienating to a lot of people who should be on our side -- and needlessly alienating, too. I'd have a lot more respect for this sudden shift if there had not been so much incensed denial of the notion that this was just "taking a position," back in the day. I'd have more respect if our attitude towards Kucinich right now was not that we have to bludgeon him -- which some of us seem to enjoy doing a little too much -- but instead to lobby him to do the right thing if all the chips are down, and to lobby Obama, Rahm, and Pelosi and Reid to do whatever they have to do, if that final decisive moment comes, to bring him back in the fold.
If you ever say that "no more changes are possible," then you're no longer playing poker. Kucinich, I suggest, is still playing poker, and the odds are extremely good that there's no downside (he won't be the decisive no vote) and serious upside (he may still get a good concession at the last minute.) So let's put down the fucking bludgeon and try to work out how to figure together to solve the problem -- by strengthening the hand of our Last Poker Player, weakening the hand of his opponents, and trying to use logic and moral suasion rather than feel-good threats.
This switch on and lashing out at Kucinich may not "require an explanation," but it sure as hell does require a justification, because when you look at it carefully it just does not make that much sense. Explain what's going on better or accept the abuse.