BTW, one case where Clinton improved on the status quo by taking the "best compromise he could get" was on the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy.  Gosh, how is that one viewed in the netroots?

It's Bologna to claim we might have had it, if only HRC had been nicer to the right wing in Congress.  They certainly were nice to her.  

Rather, it was the fact that no one in Congress "owned" the plan -- and no one was willing to expend political capital to get it passed.

***

But to your larger point of the once progressive blogosphere suddenly embracing people and ideas that were anathema to them a year ago...

this is always to be expected --- for instance, everyone here was praising Rahm for criticizing Teddy Kennedy very recently -- and Rahm is [well, a word I cant use on this blog].

But I think we're looking at more than just the average "s/he agrees with me on this, so I won't notice that her/his opinions are consistently worthless at best" phenomenon.  Rather, we are seeing the wholesale capitulation of intellectual integrity.

We did see this in quite recent memory.  Right after 9-11.  Everyone, Democrats and Republicans, appears to have lost any critical thinking skills they possessed for a period of time in the wake of 9-11....and the mindset that came out of 9-11 is responsible for most of the A list bloggers supporting the invasion.

As part of their "working" vacation, they held meetings with poobahs in the healthcare sector, such as hospital admins., insurance execs., health educators, etc.  There was said to be a deal & some make-nice, kissy-face photo-ops under an outdoor pavilion with the Grand Tetons as a backdrop.  Kewl.

The American Medical Assoc. went immediately to work, ginned up a $1 million fund, distributed the getus to appropriate representatives & senators & killed the project--in committee.

However, it proves to me that the cardinal driving force was getting rid of Hillary, and now that they've done it, they can actually look at their own candidates and supporters and maybe see some of what we were seeing.

I'd like to make it clear that I'm not comparing Obama to Bush in terms of character or policies; I'm only comparing campaign strategies.  But because the campaign is more about believing in Obama's power to be transformative than around any single set of policy goals, it's left some people nervous about what's to come especially when coupled with the 'bipartisan unity' message.  We heard that message a lot from Bush, too and it never meant anything good for Dems.  

It probably doesn't make that much difference in the long term.

the primary reason sen. clinton's efforts on health care reform failed 15 years ago had nothing to do with not "making nice with conservatives", and everything to do with riling up the health insurance industry against it. who do you think paid for those infamous "harry & louise" commercials? hint: it wasn't republicans in congress.

history gets conveniently disappeared, where the obama campaign is concerned.

as i noted in a post on another thread, no, sen. obama can't do better. whether it's intellectual laziness, or he just doesn't care is irrelevant. the fact is, during his entire public career, he's displayed an amazing capacity for doing nothing much other than self-promotion.

that's fine if you're madonna (except you do have to cut a record every so often), not so much as the president.