This is so good
a post from Anonymous Liberal, that I want to fully associate my self with his thoughts here. He describes what we all know, but which the
dopey Dems will not understand, 'reasonable' is NOT what Karl Rove says is reasonable, unless you let it be:
What Democratic politicians fail to understand--and this is particularly ironic given the Democratic party's historical association with the labor movement--is that this is fundamentally a collective action problem. The term "reasonable" has no objective meaning, at least in the realm of politics. Whether an idea is deemed "reasonable" has little to do with the merits of the idea and everything to do with the prevailing political climate as interpreted by our national media. GOP strategists like Karl Rove long ago realized that the national media will treat any talking point that is repeated by enough people as ipso facto "reasonable," and conversely, will treat any idea that is not repeated by a sufficient number of people as "unreasonable" or "extreme," no matter what its objective merits. It's a very crude calculus and one that is easily manipulated by shrewd partisans.
. . . What Republican strategists have learned is that when a party speaks in unison, it has the power to define what is considered reasonable in the eyes of the national media, and in turn, the American public.
Democrats, however, cannot seem to internalize this idea. They approach politics as if the rules of reasonability and civil discourse are immutable or have been set by some neutral referee. When someone like Howard Dean steps over this arbitrary line, Democrats join the GOP in immediately calling "foul." When a Republican steps over the line, however, more often than not his Republican colleagues act collectively to move the line. Suddenly we find ourselves in a debate over whether outing a CIA agent is actually a good thing, or whether a law that has been on the books for three decades and repeatedly reaffirmed by this President should be violated. It doesn't matter what the consensus was five minutes ago. Talking points that would have seemed totally absurd days earlier suddenly become credible and reasonable, and for no other reason than they are being repeated by a chorus of Republican politicians, pundits, and bloggers. In this way, the definition of "reasonable" can be changed dramatically overnight.
Of course this is a corollary on Krugman's line about newspaper reporting - headline "GOP Say World Is Flat: Dems Disagree" - there is no reporting of objective truth. Since "reasonability" is subjective, imagine what happens on that question.
AL highlights the obvious of course, but highlighting the obvious is what we need to be about these days. And that is what Feingold's censure motion is doing. As AL wrote:
Senator Feingold's call for Congressional censure is an eminently reasonable response to the NSA scandal by any objective measure. Just eight years ago, Congressional Republicans impeached a president for lying about a private consensual affair in the context of a frivolous civil suit which was financed and litigated by the president's enemies. We are now faced with a president who is engaged in ongoing violations of a criminal statute intended to protect the constitutional rights of the American people. There is agreement that extends well beyond party lines that the President does not have the constitutional or statutory authority to do what he is doing. This administration has repeatedly ignored, misled, and marginalized Congress. If such facts do not warrant censure, it's hard to know what does.
