Useful Idiots
Here's another example of one of those allegedly liberal pundits who have been so tough on George W. Bush:
He proposed that the system be made solvent by reducing benefits on a sliding scale, according to income. This utterly responsible and progressive proposition was greeted by phony bleats of outrage from leading Democrats, who proved once again that they are more interested in the demagogic exploitation of the issue than they are in the impact of baby boom retirement on their grandchildren
Joe Klein, as I have written before, is invested in the idea that private accounts are one of those issues he and Bill Clinton cooked up when they were holed up in a bull session in the late 80's together, creating the fabulous image of what the handsome and virile New Democrat would be like. Sadly when he looked at Clinton, he seems to have thought he was looking at himself.
I have long held that the biggest problem for Democrats is not the so-called "Vichy Congressman," who at least has to answer to consitutents and has pressures that are not always apparent, but the goddmaned liberal punditocrisy that consistently writes trash like the quote above. Why, in Gods' name, does any established mainstream writer have to brown nose and genuflect to the degree these liberal beltway pundits do? Common street whores don't sell themselves so completely and maintain at least a modicum of pride.
This is the public image of liberalism, with its mealy-mouthed, enabling, sycophantic forelock tugging and constant expressions of obeisance to a GOP esatablishment that holds them in contempt. These are what the country thinks liberals are and why so many hate us so much. They think that, like Richard Cohen and Joe Klein, liberals are all a bunch of cowardly little ass kissers who don't believe in anything, don't fight for anything and don't care about anything. These are the people who are killing us.
Update: And that goes for Democratic consultants, who as Atrios points out, are still partying like it's 1994. The New Dems are now old. I know this because I am one. All the lefties put their marxist toys away a long time and nobody's arguing anymore about whether we should have "free" markets. What we are arguing about is whether we should all be whores for big business, slaves to the theocrats, or some lukewarm version of both. Most of us learned from the past few losing elections that we cannot win by appealing to the middle with warmed over DLC talking points. It may have been fresh back in 1992, but today it has all the spontaneity of a Seinfeld re-run. The dream is over boys.
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