A very recent front page entry has a disgusting picture of a person abasing himself before another. From context it is rather clear who is meant to be in the respective positions.
Sigh....
I really do not know what is so hard to understand about that it is not a good idea to demolish those people who are the closest to your side from the available array of influential people. Closest is of course a relative term, in absolute terms it may be a considerable difference but that is irrelevant here. If you cannot appreciate that you need to read further.
A front pager is at it again, together with so many other ill-guided souls on this website. I really do not know what is so hard to understand about that it is not a good idea to demolish those people who are the closest to your side from the available array of influential people.
The purist (left kind of purist) person says: I want x and y, and if I do not get it I will demonize Obama and the Democrats. I do not care about what the other players do and can do (Republicans, teahadists, Koch brothers, Murdoch etc) because they are so vile I do not want to listen to them. And I do not expect anything from them, so why should I criticize them.
The pragmatist (left kind of pragmatist) says: I want x and y. Now who is the closest to this view from the available array of influential people ? [closest is relative, in absolute terms it may be a considerable difference but that is irrelevant here. If you cannot appreciate that you presumably belong to the category above]. Oh, it is President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid! So I will go and support them. It is called a tactical coalition. Usually works better than wishful thinking.
So much for the direct evaluation of positions. Now, if we want to go meta (in the original definition, not this site's) then I guess a screeching purist fraction helps Reid to make the point that he cannot go any further with concessions, before he looses the support of the Democratic base (gliding smoothly over the fact that the majority fraction here, which likes pontificating, never was a base in any meaningful sense of the term).
Now taking meta one level further we might see that the Rebublican strategists actually appreciate the dems loosing their base over these additional concessions Reid is currently figuring out how to minimize them. So Republicans have no incentive to behave reasonable and stop their outrageous negotiation/blackmail attempts.
So in the final analysis a united house stands, a divided house falls. If the Republicans would see they cannot play/manipulate the (purist) left so easily or not at all, it will be unrewarded behavior for them, so the rational ones among them (the players, not the played) will reduce that behavior - win/win for us. The only thing needed would be for the purists among us to direct their outrage strictly at the policies which might get slipped into Reids bill, not at the Dems who do that to cut a deal, not because they like those policies (this is obvious since the changes discussed now have not been in the bill before).
So those of us liking the feel of red hot outrage running through their veins, this need not to be toned down, just re-focused explicitly on the policy options thrown around, and not invested in character assassinations such as weak, traitor, no balls, stupid, naive, incompetent, childish, etc. You know the list. The main players closest to our side (Obama, Reid, Pelosi) have not gotten to their positions by having any of these character traits.
United we stand, divided we fall.
It really is as simple as that.