I am writing this to ask a question (an admittedly leading one) why so many prominent progressive bloggers engage in discussion with DLC's Ed Kilgore. It's a slight elaboration on a comment I made in
Mike Stark's excellent recently receommended diary
I don't want to pick on
Armando, but he's been engaged in an ongoing discussion with the guy about the Democratic party, policy and strategy, etc. I don't think we'd be having that kind of conversation with his boss, Al trash-the-grass/netroots From, so why are we having it with him?
As far as I can tell, Ed Kilgore's virtures are that:
- He'll engage in debate with other bloggers
- He's a nice guy personally
- He's taken some reasonable positions on issues very recently, like criticizing the hack Greenspan and opposing Bush's plan to trash social security
To the last point, in other words, he's the mouthpiece for DLC flip-flops and/or hopped on Democratic party bandwagons. As
the recent Nation article on the DLC points out, the DLC supported privatization until a couple years ago. And with a quick web search I found a
DLC newsletter piece extolling the sage advice of Alan Greenspan - maybe Ed Kilgore wrote it - also from a couple years ago (well
after Greenspan's shilling for Bush's tax cuts).
And to the point about him being friendly and open, well, that's great, but he still works for Al From and the DLC. Progressives might want to take some advice on older-than-the-hills negotiation techniques (which is equally applicable to choosing policy and strategy as to business dealings):
Good cop, bad cop: - This is an extremely effective technique used by negotiators across all industries. It involves two salespeople working as a team. First is the "bad cop," which will deliberately insult you and act overly aggressive toward you. Then, along comes the "good cop", which tries to befriend you by pretending to act on your behalf and "defending" you from the "bad cop." As the negotiation progresses, you become more likely to accept the "good cop's" advice, eventually caving in on the sale. The key to breaking this tactic is to be just as harsh with the good cop as the bad cop.
Sound familiar?
So, if Ed Kilgore is a nice guy and is smart, fine, go have a beer with him and/or enjoy a pleasant conversation with him. He's buddies with Josh Marshall? Fine, let him enjoy his substitute teacher gig.
But know who he is: the DLC's "good cop" - whether he realizes it or not, that's the role he serves. He may seem like he's presenting a reasonable position. But at the same time, the rest of the DLC leadership are working with Bush to trash social security (like Al From), voting for right-wing legislation (our favorite senators on the bankruptcy bill just the most recent example).
So, my pointed question: why does anyone think that anything this guy says makes the DLC more reasonable to work with?