There's been some talk about whether Obama's glorious  emergence this week means that Gen X has arrived politically, or whether Obama, born in 1962, is a Gen X'er or a Baby Boomer. This recalls for me the incisive remark of Michael Kinsley during the 2000 election campaign. In one of the debates, Dubya said something like "us Baby Boomers should impart the wisdom we've gained to our children." Kinsley's comment was that "anyone who uses the term Baby Boomer seriously has no wisdom to impart to anyone."

I posted this as a reply to RonK Seattle. But I think the opportunity to get satisfaction may have passed, and this has some things I wanted to say generally so I'm posting it here. This is my last diary entry on the Hon. Jim Moran.

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Thank you for replying, RonK, and I will apologize at least to the DailyKos community for my uncharacteristicly choleric outburst. I will not apologize to you, because I dispute every point you make here and, FWIW, feel wronged by your ill-considered rating. I gather I am not alone in disliking you. Several points:

Moran is my Congressman, and, I take it, not yours. Given that, I am no fan of his - his ethical challenges are quite well known (though coals to Newscastle in this Congress) and I generally see him as part of the sorry Northeastern Corridor "Enron Democrats" that William Greider described so well recently in The Nation. At any rate, this is not a dilettantish interest on my part.

My "Unpaid(?) Political Announcement" term was an annoyed jape at acaben's insulting smarminess and obviously not a serious accusation. Even so scabrous a debater as you must have known that secretly, and your feigned outrage is unconvincing.

As I made clear, my primary issue here with acaben is that he has annoyed me - and others - with his smarmy, unargued dismissal of Moran, always followed excitedly by something like "fortunately VA8 Democrats now have Andy Rosenberg to vote for!!" I've met Mr. Rosenberg, and he does seem presentable but I'd like to know more about why exactly Moran should be dumped for him, and be told about it in something other than a car salesman-like pitch.

If you read the original thread, you would see that Paleo raised the AIPAC issue, for which I commended him but was happy to see acaben asserting that Rosenberg has accepted no PAC money. If true, it speaks well of him and I will be happy to look further into his campaign. Nevertheless, it is disingenuous - transparently and offensively so - to pretend that Moran's Iraq remarks last year are not the occasion for this primary challenge. That was said openly in VA Democratic circles within days of the Washington Post story that got this out. Rosenberg's Likudish position re Israel/palestine was remarked by another commenter as well.

Your impassioned defense of this annoying person is remarkable, if misplaced, but I believe much greatar issues are raised by the attempt, PAC money or no, to punish Moran for his characteristically clumsy speaking of the unspeakable. Any honest person who has followed this Iraq travesty closely knows that Karl Rove came up with this now in order to, among other things, split the Democrats fatally as Vietnam did in 1968. I happen to believe that the hoary chasm between foreign and domestic policy has closed tightly and we can no longer pretend that it doesn't matter what we collectively do in other nations. I also, as I made clear in another comment, have friends on both sides - again, this is not a dilettantish matter for me - and specifically recognize the emotional pressures applied to American Jews, as Leon Wieseltier described in the TNR article I mentioned. You might have addressed these issues rather than defending someone who doesn't deserve it from something that I didn't in fact do to him.
 

I posted this as a remark in a dying thread started off by another of acaben's Unpaid(?) Political Announcements for Andy Rosenberg and re=post it here, with some editing to make the context clear.

What's missing in the flap about Jim Moran's "bigoted" remarks about Jews supporting the Iraq War is the actual context of his stupid gaffe. During the long "roll-out" of the Iraq War product, Moran was holding a town meeting with many of his constituents to talk about the Iraq war issue. One lady stood up, identified herself as Jewish, and said that she was horrified by the prospect of Bush's war and could not understand why so many supported it, including many of her fellow Jews whom she normally would expect to oppose doubtful wars. Moran then made his notorious remark, to the effect that strong Jewish-American support for the war was making the difference in the national debate. It was gauche and wrong-footed of course, but not far off when you consider that Jewish-Americans are more supportive of the war than many other ethnic groups - last I heard, 2-to-1 in favor even with this horror - and that Rove supposedly told a GOP group that the point of pushing the war was to split the Dems, particularly in the Washington elite, just as Vietnam did in 1968. Certainly, many American Jews hated this foul war from the beginning and many goyim love it to this day, and Moran is truly a putz, but he's gotten a bad rap from an AIPAC drunk with power after defenestrating McKinney and Hilliard. The main problem is what Bob Johnson said, that acaben has been BS'ing constantly about this and thinks he can get away with it. And that's insulting.

Properly positioned, Stephanie Herseth can be a valuable commodity in a revitalized product line of a reconstituted Democratic Party. Think of the early 70's, when ABC-Dunhill had Steely Dan making decent money (for those more modest times) but had Three Dog Night upfront and selling millions to keep the stockholders quiet. Herseth is one kind of Democrat we can use, among other kinds we can use in other situations. It was amusing to read the verbal wolf-whistles that sounded forth for this nice-looking upper-class achiever. It's great to have sexy, bright young Dems to offset all the young pro-sex "Libertarian" nonsense that hurt Al Gore so much. But looking for MLK-style courage and vision from a quintessential work-within-the-system type is doomed to disaapointment, particularly from one who labors in the fields of South Dakota. It would be very nice too, and help redress things quite a bit, if she had some real policy positions, but the main thing to remember is that she has no incumbency to stand on, let alone the built-in 6-year buffer that Daschle has. Also, for those of you who didn't grow up in a Religious Right-influenced state, let me tactfully point out that she's an attractive and very functional woman of 33, 34 who's single and, AFAIK, never been married - in a farm state, that's practically eccentric spinsterhood. I couldn't care less about her private life, but given the usual politics in such states and GOP viciousness I bet she has to be careful even with the massive weight of her ultra-elite family behind her. My pragmatic solution to this would be to give her a little money, roughly proportionate to her value to the party but a mere fraction of what a Dean or even Edwards would get. I would also write a message saying that I appreciate the delicacy of her position and hope she can finesse her way out of this trap, but am likely to keep giving more to those who may offer a bigger pay-off of whatever kind. Speaking for myself, I would love to see her aerobicized little ass (think Heathers) sitting in the big House and voting for Nancy Pelosi, but I'm not gonna expect too much beyond that.

I read here and there that Bush/Cheney will simply not allow a Democratic victory in the 2004 Presidential election, because they are afraid of what honest investigations under a Democratic President (and maybe Senate) would turn up about them. According to this idea, the fear of criminal prosecution would lead them to declare martial law or something of that nature. I've no doubt that there is a real and massive basis for criminal prosecutions, but I also cannot imagine the Washington political establishment tolerating it. I can just hear the Davids Broder and Gergen now, talking about the need for healing and closure and what-not, and how people need to still believe that all their leaders were honorable. Does anyone believe that there would be a real possibility of an honest investigation of what this Addministration has done? Or would 'bipartisan' backscratching and mutual protection rule as always?