As a long-time lurker/first-time poster, I am probably biting off far more than I can chew here. I know I'm late on this, but a tension seems to be percolating through out many subsequent conversations on this site, and if we take a step back to focus on what purpose we want to ultimately serve, hopefully we will see a more constructive way to approach these moments in the future.
Let's say we keep score of the points of intellectual substance in the recent debate between Kos, Kilgore and Wittman over the bankruptcy bill, Lieberman, and the larger issue of the DLC's attacks on bloggers, and the party's left-wing in general. Clearly Kos has the DLCers out-pointed. Jonathan Chait, a DLC-style Dem centrist, admitted as much over at TPM when he pointed out that Wittman never offered a rational defense of Lieberman's vote against cloture. And Kos is correct that the DLC affiliates do hit the talk show circuit as designated-bashers of the left wing of the party, and in doing so they are harming the party and its efforts to unify.
Kilgore admitted as much to Kos in his emails, and implicitly makes
this argument himself when he complains that his work on policy gets ignored.
Kos wins. Who the fuck cares.
To waste effort on this type of in-fighting and squabbling hurts everyone and helps our enemies who are busy passing all of these god-awful pieces of legislation that have us so angry in the first place. We Democrats didn't lose in November because of the DLC. We need the DLC and the moderate Dem constituency to have a chance in national elections. Period. Marshall Wittman and others like him are essential to our winning strategy, whatever defects may exist in his analysis of Lieberman's vote. He was a McCain-backer who became so disgusted by this administration that he left the GOP and started working FOR US DEMOCRATS. If we found a hundred thousand more like him in the right places before last November, and convinced them to do and vote as their hearts told them, like he did, we would be gleefully discussing the execution of President Kerry's agenda for his first 100 days right now. Armando has frequently praised Kilgore's insights on various matters during their exchanges in recent months. Kilgore and Wittman are talented, insightful, and useful allies in our effort to cut through all of the GOP's bullshit, dissect the flaws in their plans, and infuse some reality into these policy debates, courtesy of the reality-based community.
And God knows the DLC needs us, the party's base and activists. As much or more than we need them, since we are steadily growing our ranks while theirs have steadily shrunk over the past decade. They acknowledge their need to develop better grassroots capabilities and we could help them greatly in that regard. So it's certainly reasonable of Kos to ask that the DLC stop attacking the left-wing of the party in exchange for ink and airtime. But it's not reasonable to write off the DLC and the moderate Dem constituency they represent. If we end up doing that we are unmistakably shooting ourselves in the foot.
It seems like any time one group tries to talk to the other we have to sort out our differences before the conversation can begin. Chait's first post on TPM was a defense of his stance on the war. That's so obscenely stupid, given that he was there to talk Social Security. Why are we re-fighting the primaries over and over again? Is there any doubt that if we had been able in June to strike the compromise on the war that eventually was struck--Kerry's NYU speech in September and consequent rise in the polls through the first debate--that we would've won in November? Not in my mind. It's also worth noting that a bunch of Clintonite DLCers were very instrumental in the crafting of that speech, even as it gave voice to a position on the war that was closer to the Dean/blogger/party base and activists' view than anything Kerry, Holbrooke, et al. had mustered earlier in the campaign. The point is that when we actually work together we win. See also Exhibit B: the bitch-slapping we are currently putting on Bush in the Social Security debate.
So while Kos was right on substance, his style left much to be desired. We need unity now right? Well even if the DLC is being foolish on Fox News or the WSJ editorial page, it nonetheless hurts any efforts toward party unity when you call other members of the party "self-important fools." In doing so, Kos is guilty of the very same sin he accuses the DLC of committing. I understand that Kos was angry. And certainly some people involved in this larger fight, (perhaps even Kos himself), view this conflict as a zero-sum game for control of the party. The consequent effects of such a game on the DLC's versus Kos' financial well-being are probably also enough to get everyone's blood boiling. Adding to the complications is the fact that we bloggers are the new kid on the block and the extent of our clout and influence is still a matter of some disagreement. But this can't be the right approach and it's certainly not the only one. What we need is an effort to find a truce, or at least some level of mutual respect and trust so that we start working together to "expand the pie," as the economists say, rather than simply argue over who gets the biggest piece. The better response from Kos would have been to say to the DLC, "how are we supposed to work together and build unity when you're impeding that goal and our party every time you do this. You MUST stop." And leave it at that. It's hard to restrain oneself, especially with the DLC's repeated missteps, but no one said unity was going to be easy.
I would add that, to the extent we in the blogosphere are the new bloc of power in the party, we need to act like professionals, confident that we belong at the table, and we will be treated as such. This will only expand our influence, particularly given the fund-rasing and issue-specific advocacy capabilities we have already demonstrated. We have powers and capacities that these other folks like the DLC want and need; they will be better served by making nice with us. But the first step is that they have to trust us.
Perhaps a bold gesture, an olive branch of sorts, might work to ease the conflict and get both sides talking constructively about the best way to work together. A kind of global agreement to terms of cooperation, which would allow us to avoid these smaller squabbles once we articulate some broader, mutual terms of cooperation that we can point to and focus on building. I assume these types of conversations probably happen one way or another in private. But a public commitment to a constructive, cooperative atmosphere and set of specific conditions for that cooperation would do much more to foster the unity that we are supposed to be trying to build. So how `bout it Kossacks? Is there anyone who wants to try to draft a peace agreement between the DLC and the lefty blogosphere, or at least DKos? I will throw out a few suggestions for specific items that should be included and then we can brainstorm together to arrive at a final product that could actual serve as a useful tool in easing these tensions and building party unity.
In order to form a more perfect party, we the Democrats, hereby agree to avoid squabbles and in-fighting and work together to strengthen ourselves in our opposition to the Republican government and its many deficiencies.
Art. I. We will not criticize each other in the press.
Art. II. All disputes and differences of opinion between us will be reduced to the specific policy positions that are relevant to any particular issue being discussed in appearances on broadcasts or in print articles/on-line posts.
Art III. And at no time will any individual or group advocate the "purging" of any other groups of Democrats, for to do so at this stage when unity is our best weapon would be utter folly.
Art. IV To the extent that certain individual figures and elected officials in the party seem to be so disloyal and/or problematic as to warrant criticism and discussion of the merits of their purging--for short hand we can refer to these figures as Zell Miller Democrats--we agree to discuss the best means by which we can address the situation and aim to work toward a common tack in confronting such individuals.
Art. V. We shall hereby affirm the big tent of the Democratic Party and acknowledge the valuable contributions that we all can and do make to the effort to gain electoral supremacy.
Art. VI. We hereby agree to work together to construct a comprehensive list of the policies and proposals we can all support, and will strive to move those policies and proposals to the forefront of the national political dialogue by any means necessary.
Art. VII. We will work together to coordinate basic messaging and language to bring a coherent voice to the policies we agree to promote together.
Art. VIII. We hereby forgive each other for any and all statements that we have made in the past which may have caused ill will, and vow not to carry that ill will any further into the present or future.
This is clearly a work in need of much progress. I don't expect that I can just fax a copy over to Al From's desk and he'll sign off. But maybe we start talking to Josh Marshall, who seems to have the ear of Kilgore and Wittman. Kilgore seems to check this site pretty regularly. Then if we get those two on-board with the idea at least, who knows where it could go. At a minimum, we could start a larger conversation about how and where we can cooperate, rather than these repeated fights over every little issue that denigrate into insults.