Good job, Sen. Thompson!
Mon Sep 10, 2007 at 03:48:02 PM PDT
I was just reading this story about Fred Thompson having billed some hours back in 1990 working on behalf of Libyan terrorists who were implicated in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. It occurred to me... hey, this is something Democrats should really get out in front of. Some Democratic candidate ought to put out a statement saying something like this:
"Fred Thompson understands that Islamist jihadi terrorists have an an absolute right to have their day in court, to be presumed innocent, and to receive competent legal counsel. That's the American Way. Anything else would be clearly unconstitutional. And that's why I join the ACLU and the Democratic Party in saluting Fred Thompson for standing up to give terrorists a helping hand when they needed one. Good job, Senator Thompson."
The great thing about this is it's absolutely true. He didn't do a thing wrong. We should make a point of telling every paranoid xenophobic anti-constitutional Republican voter that we think so.
I Am A Frickin' Genius
Fri Aug 25, 2006 at 08:16:48 AM PDT
Folks, I have thought up a Plan. A Plan for building a bipartisan consensus on an issue of national importance. Are you ready? Here's how it goes:
Single, affluent people have to pay significantly higher taxes than married people with the same income, right?
And there's nothing Republicans like better, or care about more, than cutting taxes on wealthy people, right?
Name That Movement Part Deux (with POLL)
Fri Jan 30, 2004 at 10:17:54 PM PDT
In my
diary entry yesterday, I talked about the fact that everyone says we Democrats need a movement to help us regain power in America, but few people will say what that movement should
be...
Name That Movement
Thu Jan 29, 2004 at 07:10:54 PM PDT
Bob Johnson has a
diary entry up about Robert Reich's
piece in the New York Times, which discusses the Democrats' need for a movement to rival the conservative movement.
In comments, I said:
You know... this may be kind of a trivial point to bring up, but... isn't there something weird about a movement with no name?
I mean, haven't all the big movements in the past had names? The communist movement, the civil rights movement, the youth movement, the black power movement, the student movement, the environmental movement--and, of course the conservative movement, with its "movement conservatives".
But look at Reich's column: He mentions the conservative movement twice, but never names the movement that the democrats need and that Dean most starkly represents. He just says the Democratic party "has had no analogous movement". Boy howdy, there's a rallying cry--"Up the analogous movement!"
He's not alone. Practically every time I hear someone saying we need a movement today, that's all they say. "We need to build a movement." Or sometimes it's a Democratic movement, but to me that's the same thing as having no name at all--the movement isn't about being Democrats, it's Democrats wanting to have a movement, because movements are good at getting people elected.
I completely agree, too: we do need a movement. But I think we need to be able to say what the movement is before we can have one. It seems to me that this equivocal, hesitant metadiscussion of a hypothetical movement-we-ought-to-have exhibits the same fears that have paralyzed the democratic party since the 70s. Nobody wants to call it the liberal movement because liberal is such a negatively stereotyped word and nobody wants to call it the progressive movement because that might alienate the electorally-critical centrists and moderates.
Am I just nuts, here, or does anyone else feel this way?
Bob, in a reply, suggested this might be a good idea for a diary. Let's talk about it. What is this movement that we on the left need to create? How do we (for lack of a better term) brand it? In one or two words, what--aside from taking our country back and changing America--are we doing this for?
If we don't have an answer, one that we're willing to go to the wall for, then I don't think we can have a movement.
What would you like to be doing at midnight?
Wed Dec 31, 2003 at 10:53:18 PM PDT
Years ago, on New Year's Eve, my friend Bill told me that ever since he was a kid, he'd had this idea that whatever one was doing at midnight on New Year's Eve was, symbolically at least, what that person would be doing for the next year, and so it was important to choose one's activities well.
I liked that idea, and have held to it ever since. Every year, my wife and I choose something to be doing at midnight that symbolizes our hopes for the next year.
Well, I'm hoping to spend 2004 getting a new frickin' president, among other things. But I haven't yet settled on a way to symbolize that. Any suggestions?
What will you be doing?
The Democratic Pledge
Sat Nov 15, 2003 at 08:54:25 PM PDT
In the comments to the "Unifying Democratic Message" post, poster
537 votes suggested what I think is a
real winner:
We the People of the United States will form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common Defense, promote the general Welfare and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.
I already said this in the comment thread, but I wanted to say it again here: That is a stroke of genius.
Not only does it state our goals and values concisely and beautifully (James Madison was a very, very talented writer), but it is also the perfect rebuttal to the Republicans' incessant claims to be the party of patriotism. They may call themselves that, but we really are--we're the ones who defend the Constitution, the ones who stand by the values the country was founded on: Liberty and justice for all. Let's say so.
The Republicans have done their best to make the American flag the Republican Party logo, usurping the symbol of patriotism for themselves. Well, let's adopt our own patriotic symbol--one that comes right out and says what we believe. Let's make the Preamble to the Constitution the Democratic Pledge.
Let's push this idea. Every Democratic meeting, every campaign rally, right up to the convention next year: Let's call on the whole crowd to stand up, hands on hearts, and recite the Preamble to the Constitution as a pledge of Democratic values.
What do you think?
