The "Political Capitulation Makes You Stronger" Theory

By Big Tent Democrat, Section Other Politics
Posted on Sun Sep 13, 2009 at 06:22:19 PM EST
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I just noticed that digby called me an idiot* (apparently digby was joking about my propensity to actually call people idiots (which I do with some frequency) In this case, having missed the joke, I appear to have proven myself rather an idiot. My apologies for missing the joke. It is a pretty good one now that I think about it.) for disagreeing with her in this post. Digby writes:

There are many facets to negotiation but what really matters is what you are willing to to walk away from and what people think you are willing to walk away from. Here's the real difference between health care reform and war funding: Progressives want to vote for the first and they don't want to vote for the second. The strategy all flows from that.

(Emphasis supplied.) Apparently, Digby thinks making a pledge, repeatedly and in writing, and then capitulating on the issue, does not signal that you will cave in on everything. She seems to think that because the phrase "health care reform" is more pleasing than "war on terror," then of course the Progressive Block will be taken seriously on war funding. This part of Digby's post was particularly amusing:

It won't be the same next time he comes to them for money to escalate the war, especially after talking endlessly about controlling costs on health care. They really don't want it.

Pull the other leg Digby. First of all, unlike health care reform, Obama does not need the Progressive Caucus AT ALL for war funding. Republicans will vote for it and so will a majority of the Democratic Caucus. In fact, the Progressive Caucus has no say on war funding AT ALL. So yeah, I guess Digby is probably right that most of the Progressive Caucus will vote No on war funding -- BECAUSE Obama will not need their votes.

What capitulating on health care reform DOES do is destroy any credibility the Progressive Caucus has when it purports to take a stand on an issue they DO have influence over. This should be obvious to any observer.

Digby ends her attack on me with this bizarre passage:

. . . [I]f I were a member of congress instead of an obscure blogger, I would be out there proclaiming that I will hold fast to the public option until the last Blue Dog dies. ( I assume that next week, they will be doing just that --- and we will have to help them.) But between you and me and the blogroll, I don't think they will end up voting against the bill on that basis, for all the reasons I have stated. Don't tell Rahm.

I assume this is an implicit swipe at my criticisms of Matt Yglesias and, especially, Ezra Klein. I do not understand Digby's point. I know Digby is not a blogger followed by the Media (unlike Ezra and Matt.) I know she is pretty much without influence and like me, is just spouting opinions. I did not criticize her for expressing her opinion. I disagreed with it.

I dunno, maybe this is blogger positioning for the capitulation digby is expecting (I have never been on the private e-mail lists so I do not know what the great progressive blogger strategy is these days.) But shooting at me seems pretty pointless.

Speaking for me only

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The "Political Capitulation Makes You Stronger" Theory | 38 comments (38 topical)

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Obviousy digby did not call me an idiot (5.00 / 1) (#1)
by Big Tent Democrat on Sun Sep 13, 2009 at 06:27:42 PM EST

But nether did I call her one and she decided to gin up her post by playing to the antipathy I inspire among many.

It was pretty dirty pool on her part and rather shocking for me to see.

What motivated it? Guilty conscience? I have no idea.

Yeah, very unlike her (none / 0) (#2)
by andgarden on Sun Sep 13, 2009 at 06:42:12 PM EST

She didn't even link to the specific post, which was, at best, sloppy.


Seemed intentional to me (none / 0) (#3)
by Big Tent Democrat on Sun Sep 13, 2009 at 06:44:41 PM EST

She knew she did not tell the truth about the "idiot" stuff and was covering her tracks.

Weak.


oh, come on (none / 0) (#8)
by call me Ishmael on Sun Sep 13, 2009 at 07:47:46 PM EST

so you said she must be "dreaming" and "joking" instead of calling her an idiot. I think that all this stuff about her "guilty conscience" is protesting a bit much. And if we are changing what people say why when she talks about financial reform and war funding do you drop the financial reform and only mention the war funding. Talk Left is pretty sharp with other bloggers--that is part of the liberty of the blogosphere. Why get so bent out of shape when the favor is returned?


Heh (none / 0) (#9)
by Big Tent Democrat on Sun Sep 13, 2009 at 07:52:24 PM EST

If there is one thing that can be said about me is that I do not mince my words.

If I think you are being an idiot, I used the word IDIOT.

As for "financial reform," what, you think the Progressive Block will do what exactly? According to Digby, the Progressive Block "supports" "financial reform" like they support "health care reform" so they will capitulate on that too, on principle of course. Seems like neither you nor Digby actually thought the damn thing through.

As for being "bent out of shape," well yes, when people take liberties with the facts, I get bent out of shape. I imagine Digby and YOU would too.

But hey, taking a shot at me NEVER happens right?

Too effing funny some of you are.


Yes, (none / 0) (#12)
by call me Ishmael on Sun Sep 13, 2009 at 08:10:24 PM EST

I forgot that you are perfect and never make any errors and always use precisely the correct language unlike mere. I do wonder though why if you recognize that people take shots at you you are getting so bent out of shape.

What Digby said was that if the progressive bloc thinks that they can get enough out of health care reform to support it at this point they should--and if they don't they won't. Same as with financial reform although here it seems that there is even less to gain from signing on to the Obama plan. And I don't see where Digby said they would capitulate "on principle."

I am not sure what facts you think everyone but you is getting wrong. Oh, and by the way I think that a fair reading of her reference to being a member of congress rather than an obscure blogger was referring to herself not a dig at you. Of course since you can tell whether either Digby or I "have thought the damn thing through" it is a sign that I have forgotten that you are both clairvoyant and omniscient. My deepest apologies for doubting your transcendental accuracy and wisdom.


Apparently (none / 0) (#14)
by Big Tent Democrat on Sun Sep 13, 2009 at 08:13:45 PM EST

My error was in missing digby's joke on the matter.

See her update on the issue which puts both of us in the wrong. You for thinking she thought I called her an idiot. Me for thinking she was willfully disingenuous in her post.

I apologized to her in my update. You can do your apology to me right here in response.


I just read your comment thoroughly (none / 0) (#15)
by Big Tent Democrat on Sun Sep 13, 2009 at 08:15:07 PM EST

I must admit I do not have the foggiest notion what you mean to say.

Could you try that again?


I saw that (none / 0) (#23)
by call me Ishmael on Sun Sep 13, 2009 at 08:31:34 PM EST

she had apologized as well. My point was that I thought you were overreacting and continuing to overreact by taking out a position that you were completely correct and she was misrepresenting things. I took your response to my comment to be a simple escalation of your previous criticism. I responded again because it seemed to me that in fact to make some of the claims you were making you would need to claim to understand what we were thinking better than we did. So I responded in kind.

The irony is that on the substantive point I agree with you and not with her. But I thought that you were not engaging with the issue so much as ridiculing someone who was disagreeing with you.


: Interestingly (none / 0) (#24)
by Big Tent Democrat on Sun Sep 13, 2009 at 08:35:56 PM EST

I thought that it was digby who did this - "you were not engaging with the issue so much as ridiculing someone who was disagreeing with you."
Clearly she was not engaged in ridicule, as she makes clear, but I did not think her substantive response strong at all. I still feel that.
Apparently, you do too. Though the "financial reform" part of your previous comment still has me befuddled.

Digby says it was inadvertent (none / 0) (#18)
by Big Tent Democrat on Sun Sep 13, 2009 at 08:19:12 PM EST

That ends that point for me.

She says it. I believe it.


Digby goes on and on and... (5.00 / 2) (#4)
by NealB on Sun Sep 13, 2009 at 07:11:34 PM EST

on. Life is just too short to actually read Digby. (some of her co-bloggers, thankfully write more concisely, so I continue to check it out every day). Her blogging strategy seems to be to wear the reader out.

God love her, of course. I trust she's got a point, but who's got the time to get to it?

Lefty blogs have gotten to suck since election night. 35% apologies for Obama's unforgivable failures. Still (and idiotically) 45% railing against the idiocy of Republicans (I assume because that's what Rahmie's telling them to do). 20% wash your hands.

Half of the lefty bloggers now clearly see themselves to be future purveyors of conventional wisdom and long desperately for the paychecks that go with those promotions. A third are lost in deep and shameless analysis of their previous support either to justify against justification their fervid support of Obama over the past two years or because they're so disconnected from the reality they purport to espouse they're lost in space. A few have shrunk themselves to twitter-like posts to hang in there because they built up huge followings when they actually had something to say and they've got to post something to keep the ad revenue coming in.

Steve Benen who took over when the awful Kevin Drum left Washington Monthly continues prodigiously to provide substance without beating it to death. Glen Greenwald at salon.com, of course, is great. And present writers like Jeralyn and Armando here.

But, sheez, what a disaster otherwise the lefty blogosphere has become since Obama's election.

Add Bob Somerby and Anglachel (none / 0) (#6)
by oldpro on Sun Sep 13, 2009 at 07:34:06 PM EST

to the list, please, although you may not appreciate either for style or length! Still...they are solid.


I skim on RSS (none / 0) (#7)
by andgarden on Sun Sep 13, 2009 at 07:44:07 PM EST

If I actually tried to read everything she and Greenwald write, I wouldn't have any time to get real work done!


lol (none / 0) (#10)
by Maryb2004 on Sun Sep 13, 2009 at 07:56:54 PM EST

this is so true: Life is just too short to actually read Digby.

Every few months I put her back on my RSS and try to skim her but I always find after a few weeks that I'm marking her as read without reading. So I take her off during my regular monthly attempts to make my reading list more manageable.

Which says more about my attention span (and the lack of spare time in my life) than it does about the worth of what she says.


Bloggers who write novels (none / 0) (#11)
by andgarden on Sun Sep 13, 2009 at 08:02:47 PM EST

are quickly scrolled by me. Open Left has gone in that direction recently.


Truly I think (5.00 / 2) (#13)
by Maryb2004 on Sun Sep 13, 2009 at 08:10:51 PM EST

it was law school that ruined me. If someone writes something long and they don't tell me in the first paragraph or so where they are going with it - my eyes glaze over and I find it hard to finish. Be warned, it is happening to you. :)

oh, and when I clicked that link I was irritated that she didn't call Armando an idiot in the first paragraph - because that meant I had to plow through the whole thing. Only to find I was sent to that link under false pretenses. :)


: Ach (none / 0) (#17)
by andgarden on Sun Sep 13, 2009 at 08:16:24 PM EST

I've already plenty of interminably long cases.

IMO (none / 0) (#16)
by Ga6thDem on Sun Sep 13, 2009 at 08:16:00 PM EST

Open Left has been unreadable since the beginning. From the awful apologia and cluelessness of Bowers to novellas, does anybody read it anymore?


Lots of people read it (none / 0) (#19)
by Big Tent Democrat on Sun Sep 13, 2009 at 08:21:06 PM EST

Sometimes it's good. Sometimes not so good.

Like every blog.

I actually have a problem with Lux blogging there myself. He seems to be in a natural conflict position imo.

But hey, it's there blog.

Full disclosure - Sirota is a friend of mine and I have met Bowers.


their (none / 0) (#20)
by Big Tent Democrat on Sun Sep 13, 2009 at 08:21:24 PM EST

Bowers (none / 0) (#21)
by Ga6thDem on Sun Sep 13, 2009 at 08:26:08 PM EST

just really gets under my skin or rather his writing does. I certainly don't know him personally. He has a sort of creative class condescending tone to everything he writes.

Just my opinion.


: Allergy to crit theory. (none / 0) (#25)
by Faust on Sun Sep 13, 2009 at 09:12:09 PM EST

And Sirota (none / 0) (#22)
by Ga6thDem on Sun Sep 13, 2009 at 08:27:36 PM EST

at least he's consistent which makes him better than the others who write there imo.


Your mistake (none / 0) (#26)
by jerry on Sun Sep 13, 2009 at 10:03:28 PM EST

She is 100x better than her cobloggers. It would be better for you to read her once a week than to read her cobloggers at all and not read her.


No, I've read 10,000 digby posts... (none / 0) (#30)
by NealB on Sun Sep 13, 2009 at 10:31:56 PM EST

...don't get me wrong. I admire her commitment. But a thousand or so words into some of her posts I occasionally realize that I'm being taken for a ride I didn't want to go on.

You know what I mean.


Well, it's up to you, but you did (none / 0) (#32)
by jerry on Sun Sep 13, 2009 at 10:37:02 PM EST

remind me of this old song:

"And if I haver yeah I know I'm gonna be I'm gonna be the man who's havering to you. But I would read 500 posts, and I would read 500 more to be the man who read 10,000 posts to fall down on my floor."

I still don't know what havering is though.


: havering (none / 0) (#37)
by weltec2 on Mon Sep 14, 2009 at 02:47:07 AM EST

means blathering on and on about nothing.

If political capitulation makes you (5.00 / 2) (#5)
by MO Blue on Sun Sep 13, 2009 at 07:23:28 PM EST

stronger, the Dems should have been able to get HCR drafted and signed within a month. After all, they have been engaged in serious strength building exercises since 2006.

What a total misread of bread and butter Democrats (5.00 / 1) (#28)
by masslib on Sun Sep 13, 2009 at 10:23:29 PM EST

on Digby's part. She doesn't seem to know health care is the signature issue of the Party. Perhaps that is why she always makes the ridiculous assertion that LBJ settled for "half a loaf" when he gave public insurance to our elderly population, and equates Obama's expansion of the private health insurance market as some sort of Medicare-style "half loaf". She doesn't get that most of the public is getting squeezed by the rising costs of health care even if they are insured and need real relief, which can be garnered one of two ways, huge massive regulations(impossible in the US), or public insurance. Even David Brooks recognizes Obama is just expanding the status quo. She seems to think bread and butter voters are more concerned with war funding than the direct hit their wallets take with rising health care costs. Not that war funding isn't important, but when you live paycheck to paycheck, most prioritize pocketbook issues.

You can really see the divide that showed up in the primary raising it's head in the health care debate among members of the Democratic Party.

Clealry, though, on the politics you are right. (5.00 / 1) (#29)
by masslib on Sun Sep 13, 2009 at 10:31:40 PM EST

Their votes are simply not needed on war funding, so unless she's arguing for political theater in the future in exchange for passing a bad bill today, she's off the mark, to say the least.

It was pretty dirty pool on her part,... (none / 0) (#27)
by jerry on Sun Sep 13, 2009 at 10:07:58 PM EST

"It was pretty dirty pool on her part and rather shocking for me to see."

Since you freely admit to calling others idiots, I don't understand why you would write the first clause, and I am surprised you would be shocked at the notion someone (may have) called you an idiot.

I agree with you some of the time, and disagree with you at other times, and respect you for some of your analytical abilities much of the time, but you often go to 11 on the gratuitous name calling.

(I'm also not sure how your propensity to dismiss others as idiots (and much worse) works with your self-claimed title of "Big Tent", although perhaps you mean that mostly as a joke.)

I do not change the facts (none / 0) (#31)
by Big Tent Democrat on Sun Sep 13, 2009 at 10:34:38 PM EST

I thought Digby had.

You seem not to have understood any of what was discussed in my post.

Indeed, yours reads like the typical reaction of one who dislikes me. I'm used to it by it now. If memory serves, not the first time for you.


I guess we could go around in this circle (none / 0) (#33)
by jerry on Sun Sep 13, 2009 at 10:38:57 PM EST

because I'm not sure you understood what I just wrote about, not the first time for you, if my memory serves.

Just what sort of Big Tent are you advocating again?


: Again (none / 0) (#36)
by Big Tent Democrat on Sun Sep 13, 2009 at 11:00:53 PM EST

I've been down this road before with you.
If you have ever read me on Ben Nelson, Gene Taylor and Joe Lieberman, which I have written about many times, you would not ask me that question.
But you are deep in your antipathy and reason is not one of your strong suits when I am involved.
It's a waste pf time really.
Let's stop wasting it, shall we?

I didn't say I disliked you, of course (none / 0) (#34)
by jerry on Sun Sep 13, 2009 at 10:41:17 PM EST

I said you go to 11 on gratuitous name calling.

I do understand that you see disagreement and find ways to interpret it as dislike and other personal issues that you can dismiss.

Oh well.


: I said it (none / 0) (#35)
by Big Tent Democrat on Sun Sep 13, 2009 at 10:58:59 PM EST

Having read you on me before.

War funding will probably get even more (none / 0) (#38)
by ruffian on Mon Sep 14, 2009 at 06:42:42 AM EST

votes under Obama than it did under Bush.

That's gonna make a lot of heads explode, but it is a consequence of nominating someone with no defense credibility. He's not gonna back the military leaders down when they ask for more troops or other expansion of the wars. All that will happen is that he will make the wars more acceptable to his fan base and give Dems cover for voting for funding.

This IMHO is the most tangible consequence of the primaries. Dem voters would not have tolerated expansion of the wars if Hillary had tried it, even supposing for the sake of argument that she would have.