Rahm was right: Left-leaning activists' plan to attack moderate Dems was "#*%@ing retarded"

This should be Rahm's reply to critics of his calling lefty activists "retarded'

This is ridiculous:

Advocates for people with disabilities went to the White House today to talk with chief of staff Rahm Emanuel to talk about his language -- and not the expletives for which he is famous.

Emanuel again apologized for using the word "retarded" to describe an ad campaign proposed by liberal allies, a comment reported by The Wall Street Journal.

In a statement, the group -- including the leaders of the Special Olympics and the American Association of People with Disabilities -- said they accepted Emanuel's apology, and hope that more Americans understand that "the R-word is polluting our language."

The statement added: "Every day our community hears this word -- in schools and workplaces, in print and in movies, on radio and television. And every day they suffer its dehumanizing effects -- mockery, stigma, ridicule. This is a word that is incredibly damaging -- not only to the seven million people with intellectual disabilities, but also their friends, family and to all of us."

In case you missed it, this is the second apology in two days that Rahm has been forced to make by the Word Police -- egged on by Sarah Palin and a phalanx of righties eager to score points against Team Obama:

White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel apologized to the head of the Special Olympics today after the Wall Street Journal reported the fiery Chicagoan privately called a group of liberal activists "f---ing retarded."

Last August, Emanuel "showed up at a weekly strategy session featuring liberal groups and White House aides," the Journal's Peter Wallsten reported lastTuesday."Some attendees said they were planning to air ads attacking conservative Democrats who were balking at Mr. Obama's health-care overhaul. 'F—ing retarded,' Mr. Emanuel scolded the group, according to several participants. He warned them not to alienate lawmakers whose votes would be needed on health care and other top legislative items."

Rahm was right. The lefties who wanted to attack moderate Democrats in Congress about health care were fucking retarded. Oh, sorry, they were fucking idiots...imbeciles...morons. But those are all words that once upon a time were used to describe, er, those people with less developed cognitive abilities and were ruled out for such a use and replaced by, you guessed it, "retarded."

In fact, the "advocates for people with disabilities" views notwithstanding, "mental retardation" is still a diagnostic term used in American disability law. While those advocates, who regard the term as pejorative and prefer "intellectual disability" are gaining ground, the change is a very recent one. Only three years ago the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities was still called the American Association on Mental Retardation.

So Rahm may be a little behind the times, but really, is his use of so common a term so outrageous that his guilt could not be extirpated without a White House pow wow at which he groveled before people who still used that same term a few years ago? And anyway, isn't "retarded," which implies clearly that a person is slow or delayed in developing cognitive skills, better than "intellectually disabled," which implies a permanent lack of those skills?

Perhaps even more importantly, Rahm did not call any intellectually disabled people "retarded." In a private meeting at his place of work, he called some members of his own political party "retarded" for advancing a really stupid idea.

What's your opinion? Post a comment.

Howard Dean plunges dagger into the heart of ObamaCare

Howard Dean says he'll support Obama's reelection, but "not vigorously"

As of yesterday, it was not at all clear that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had managed to corral the votes of moderate Democrats needed to reach the magic number 60. Senator Ben Nelson was still holding out for clear language barring the use of any federal funds for abortions. Joe Lieberman was being counted as a yes vote in some accounts, but all Lieberman said was that if the final bill had no form of public option or Medicare expansion, he was "getting to that position to where I can say...that I'm ready to vote for health care reform." Not exactly a ringing endorsement, especially considering that Reid has yet to unveil his final bill. Blanche Lincoln's view remained elusive and several other moderates, such as Virginia's Jim Webb, have been conspicuously silent all along.

Then, suddenly, the left lashed out against the bill, with a particularly damaging attack by former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean. Dean has many fish to fry in this debate. He's doubtless been licking his wounds since being passed over by President Obama for Secretary of Health and Human Services. His hostility to Obama was unconcealed in an interview with "Morning Joe" Scarborough (see video above) in which he said he would be supporting Obama for reelection, but "not vigorously." Since that's more or less how much of the left wing of the Democratic Party feels about Obama right now, Dean is making a bold move to claim leadership on the left.

Whatever his motives, in a Washington Post op-ed today, Dean made a powerful case against the Senate bill from his perspective:

If I were a senator, I would not vote for the current health-care bill. Any measure that expands private insurers' monopoly over health care and transfers millions of taxpayer dollars to private corporations is not real health-care reform. Real reform would insert competition into insurance markets, force insurers to cut unnecessary administrative expenses and spend health-care dollars caring for people. Real reform would significantly lower costs, improve the delivery of health care and give all Americans a meaningful choice of coverage. The current Senate bill accomplishes none of these.

Real health-care reform is supposed to eliminate discrimination based on preexisting conditions. But the legislation allows insurance companies to charge older Americans up to three times as much as younger Americans, pricing them out of coverage. The bill was supposed to give Americans choices about what kind of system they wanted to enroll in. Instead, it fines Americans if they do not sign up with an insurance company, which may take up to 30 percent of your premium dollars and spend it on CEO salaries -- in the range of $20 million a year -- and on return on equity for the company's shareholders. Few Americans will see any benefit until 2014, by which time premiums are likely to have doubled. In short, the winners in this bill are insurance companies; the American taxpayer is about to be fleeced with a bailout in a situation that dwarfs even what happened at AIG.

I'd call this is a clear attempt to plunge a dagger into the heart of any compromise Senate bill that might meet the objections of moderates like Nelson, Lieberman and Lincoln. Of course, Dean doesn't have a vote in the Senate, but his fellow Vermonter, independent Bernie Sanders, does, and Sanders says he's not going to support any bill that strips out the public option and Medicare expansion.

This left-wing rebellion goes beyond Vermont. Half the influential left blogosphere has bolted, with DailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas writing that it's 'time to kill this monstrosity coming out of the Senate." Liberal MSNBC hosts are piling on as well. Addressing Obama, Ed Schultz said on his program, "Right now, Mr. President, your base thinks you’re nothing but a sellout — a corporate sellout, out that. … The only people who like this current bill right now, Mr. President, is the insurance industry — they get a bunch of new customers.” In a windy commentary, Keith Olberman underscored Dean's arguments, called the compromise Senate bill a "cheesy counterfeit of reform," and declared that he personally would risk jail rather than accede to the individual mandate, if the bill becomes law. Meanwhile, the powerful Service Employees International Union, a major Obama backer and go-to player on health care reform, appeared to be hedging its support and applying pressure on Reid to move the bill back to the left.

If Reid does that, he loses Lieberman and Nelson, probably Lincoln and maybe other moderates. At the least, Obama's Christmas deadline is now kaput. Come January, all bets are off.

What's your take? Post a comment.

UPDATE -- Ben Nelson has affirmed that he won't settle for any compromise on abortion language but will filibuster anything less than the House-passed Stupak Amendment. He also says he has other issues with the bill and that a deadline "isn't helpful." It's looking impossible for Reid to satisfy both Nemson and his rebelling left wing.

Here's why Obama and the Democrats need to govern from the center

If they want to govern successfully, President Obama and the Democratic majorities in Congress must govern from the center and not be constantly distracted by the objections and demands of their party's left wing.

This is true for the simplest of reasons: not enough Americans are liberals to form a strong enough base of support for a sharp turn to the left.

The results of Gallup's latest survey of how Americans identify themselves ideologically, shows this breakdown:

Conservative 40%

Moderate 36%

Liberal 20%

In other words, three quarters of all Americans are not liberals. Couple this with Gallup's map of ideological identification by state (which I described in an earlier post here), and the reason for the powerful pull in American politics towards the center is clear.

This doesn't mean that the current Democratic agenda is unpopular. Far from it. Gallup's respondents may think the words liberal, moderate and conservative mean many different things, after all. A good many of the self-described moderates undoubtedly lean Democratic and are inclined to follow Democratic leaders. What's more, on some issues -- boosting the economy, regulating Wall Street, reforming health care, for example -- ordinary voters may be a lot more open to a range of solutions than their self-identifations imply.

Still, the gravitational pull of the center cannot be escaped. Pushing too far to the left -- or the right -- will inevitably result in the voters' slapping you down. I don't think there is the slightest doubt that if the Obama Administration consistently pursues the course demanded by the House Progressive Caucus, MoveOn.org, the liberal commentariat and the left-wing blogosphere, the 2010 elections will produce a huge backlash against Democrats. There is no clever political strategy that can forestall such a development. It will happen because of the nature of the electorate.

Fortunately, so far, centrist Democrats -- in particular, 15 or so moderate Democratic Senators -- have held back a foolishly leftward lurch. But the Democratic Party has been known before to shoot itself in the foot. Much depends on Obama's good sense and smart leadership. We'll see.

Any thoughts? Post a comment.

Fate of health care bills still in hands of moderate Democrats

Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark), one of a dozen moderate Democrats whose votes are needed to pass any health care reform proposal

As I posted many times before (most recently here), the fate of the various health care bills in the House and Senate is in the hands of from eight to a dozen or so moderate Democrats in the Senate (and to a lesser extent, their counterparts in the House).

The almost daily combat covered widely in the media for months pitting reform supporters against Congressional Republicans and the conservative commentariat has obscured the real issue: what approach will secure the votes of all 60 Senate Democrats? Now that Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) has voted to report out the Senate Finance Committee bill, the number of Democrats needed may be 59 (although it's still far from clear what final bill Snowe might support). Getting to 59 is still a steep climb, considering the centrist tendencies of this lot.

As Politico reports, a final bill is a long way off:

Senate Democrats took their new found momentum for health reform into closed-door talks with White House aides Wednesday but still faced a months-old problem: centrist Democrats who aren’t sold on Obama-style reform even now.

If Democratic leadership hoped Republican Olympia Snowe’s decision to cross party lines Tuesday would inspire her fellow middle-of-the-roaders, they were mistaken.

[snip]

“There are many competing views on how best to reform health care within my caucus,” Reid acknowledged Wednesday before ducking into the first of what will be many negotiating sessions with Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, who ushered a bill through the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. “I know this isn’t going to be easy.”

And it's not going to get any easier if action slips into election year 2010, when many not-so-moderate freshman and sophomore Democrats elected in 2006 and 2008 may not want to hand their opponents a high-profile issue:

And on the House side, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer raised the prospect that the bill might slip past Christmas and into 2010 – which could be politically disastrous for President Barack Obama, who is trying to pass health reform this year to put some distance between the vote and the midterm elections.

Nonetheless, many liberal Democrats continue to bang the drum for a more expensive and government-heavy plan -- one with a "public option" -- than the one pieced together by Max Baucus to attract support from moderate Democrats and snare Olympia Snowe in the bargain. And the left wing of party is throwing a hissy fit, demanding that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid discipline his caucus and punish any moderates who won't toe the party line. It's interesting to note that a year ago, the same lefty talking heads and bloggers were praising the virtues of the Democratic Party's big tent politics, compared to the narrow ideologically-driven conservatism of the GOP. Well, welcome to the big tent, guys!

Here's my take: the public option is dead, dead, dead, and trying to resurrect it will only result in further delay in forging a consensus bill that can pass both Houses. Push it out to the Christmas break, and there will be no bill at all come January.

What's your take? Post a comment.

President Obama must begin to govern from the center, not cater to the likes of Michael Moore

Two faces of the Democratic Party: Sen. Blanche Lincoln and filmmaker Michael Moore

If folks like Michael Moore have their way in Washington and in the counsels of the Democratic Party, Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, first elected to the House of Representatives in 1992, won't be reelected again in 2010.

Moore, never one to miss a chance at publicity, especially when he's selling a movie, puffed himself up into his quite considerable full size and bloviated the other day on the future he sees for Democrats:

“To the Democrats in Congress who don’t quite get it: I want to offer a personal pledge. I – and a lot of other people – have every intention of removing you from Congress in the next election if you stand in the way of health care legislation that the people want,” Moore told supporters of women’s groups and unions gathered at the headquarters of the government watchdog group Public Citizen.

“That is not a hollow or idle threat. We will come to your district and we will work against you, first in the primary and, if we have to, in the general election.”

Lincoln is, indeed, in trouble down home -- but has no need to fear that Moore and the left wing of her party will knock her off in either a primary or a general election. Republicans will take care of that, but with a clear-cut boost from Moore and company.

As I reported in a recent post, independent political analyst Charlie Cook and many others believe that the leftward tilt of the Democratic agenda this year has already alienated a large part of "purple America" -- the independent and moderate swing voters who went decisively for Obama and the Democrats to punish the GOP for its failures. As a result, Cook now believes that Democrats will suffer substantial losses in 2010 -- possibly even control of the House -- at the hands of "an electorate growing just as disgusted with the Democratic majority as it did with the Republican one in 2006."

So, you'd think that self-anointed "progressives" like Moore, who never tire of casting themselves as the only people in America concerned about working families, the environment and so much else, would have enough sense to take it easy, lest control be returned to the GOP in two or four years.

No, they don't. Far from it, they're doing everything possible either to enact an agenda that is simply too radical for an American consensus or to wreck the Democratic Party in the process by driving moderates like Lincoln from office. Allow them to get away with this and Arkansas will be represented in the Senate by a Republican far more conservative than Lincoln (and five or six other Senate seats could change parties with similar results).

Come to think of it, that's what Moore and company really want, isn't it? Even more polarization -- a deep divide between an aggressive left and an equally aggressive right -- because they enjoy the thrills of fierce political combat. It works wonders in pumping up their self-righteousness and feeding their sense of superiority.

The rest of us just want a competent, reasonable practical-minded government presided over by principled but sensible people who can disagree but still find ways to work together.

President Obama can make this happen -- if he plants his own feet firmly in the center and insists that his party join him there.

What do you think? Post a comment.

Radical leftist "Truther" Van Jones resigns top White House job in dead of night on Labor Day weekend

Well, at least the White House knows how to bury an awful story for the President. Van Jones, the screwball left-wing radical inexplicably hired into a high-level, policy-making post in the White House has resigned, according to this AP story filed at 12:34 am, Sunday, September 6th.

The revelations about Jones' very recent and never repudiated leftist radicalism, as I blogged about here, were getting worse. The latest was the most repulsive. Jones was a key participatant in what truly can only be called an anti-American rally held on September 13, 2001 in Jones hometown, Oakland, California, where it seems every radical kook in the Bay Area took turns in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 denouncing the "growing climate of racism, nationalism and anti-Arab bigotry" in the U.S. This was no pacifist get together, but as the sponsoring organization put it, made up of "supporters of Palestine...police brutality activists, anarchists and socialists," among others, who "stood together against the threat of more US violence[!]."

Jones clearly played a major role in this over-the-top America-bashing exercise. Here's what the sponsors said about Jones' role:

"The bombs the government drops in Iraq [presumably referring to the First Gulf War] are the bombs that blew up in New York City," said Van Jones, director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, who also warned against forthcoming violence by the Bush Administration [emphasis added]. "The US cannot bomb its way out of this one."

This is raw stuff -- what you'd expect from a "radical Marxist-Leninist," as Jones once described himself, but not from a high official of a Democratic Administration.

Jones is gone, and good riddance. What remains, though, is the question of how and whyt such an extremist could snare himself a big-time slot in the White House. The President owes it to his country, his party and himself to find out who was responsible for overlooking Jones' manifest unsuitability and chastise him, her or them.

And let me say this again: liberals must step up and demand answers, too, rather than pretend that Jones is the victim of "racism" or a "witch hunt." Democrats won't keep the trust of the American people and the power that goes with it if they ignore extremism of the left.

What's your take? Post a comment.

President Obama must fire radical leftist "Truther" Van Jones -- now!

As President Obama grapples with growing uneasiness with and opposition to his policies from the broad center of American politics -- independents and moderate Democrats and Republicans -- the last thing he needs is one Van Jones in a high, policy-making position in the White House.

Jones is the so-called "green jobs czar," the guy who's supposed to guide policies aimed at boosting the U.S. economy in ways that also enhance the environment -- a delicate balance requiring someone with sound judgement and political skill.

But Jones, it turns out, is a guy who as recently as a decade ago was a leader of radical leftists and a founder of an expressly "revolutionary Marxist-Leninist" California group. Even more disturbing (if that's possible), Jones helped organize a January 2002 protest against the U.S. reponse to the 9/11 attacks, along with a host of leftist cranks at a time when 99.9 percent of Americans across the political spectrum were united in determination to retaliate against al Qaeda. Lest you think he changed his mind about this extremist stance, in 2004, Jones signed a "Truther" statement -- declaring 9/11 to be an inside job (you know, a vast Bush-CIA-Pentagon-Jewish conspiracy).

It is beyond comprehension how this obvious left-wing extremist got his big, cushy White House job in the first place. But he should be out the door fast. Obama has no chance -- repeat, no chance -- of retaining the support of the vital center if he places or tolerates radicals in important, policy-making posts.

While he's at it, Obama should find out who let this happen -- Rahm Emmanuel? David Axelrod? Valerie Jarrett? -- and treat that person to a stern trip to the wood shed.

This whole business is reminiscent of how some liberals have refused for decades to acknowledge that Paul Robeson was, in fact, a Communist with a capital "C," even though Robeson made no attempt to hide his CPUSA membership and affection for the USSR. It's inconvenient to do so, but liberals must stand up

Any thoughts? Post a comment.

"Public option" is dead, dead, dead -- but left-leaning Dems refuse to bury it ( so far)

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) makes the case for the already dead "public option"

After weeks of watching public opposition to health care reform proposals increase and President Obama's approval ratings drop, the Administration apparently reached the conclusion that siding with the more sweeping House leadership version of reform, with its so-called "public option," had zero chance of making it through the Senate. Rather than see the opportunity to get both Houses to agree on something slip away amidst an increasingly negative public debate, the White House "signaled" furiously over the weekend that it was willing to drop the public option and consider coops instead as a counter to private insurers.

Not surprisingly, the left commentariat erupted in a combination of crushing disappointment and flat-out fury that Obama would sell out the One True Reform. And leaders of the House liberal bloc warned the Administration that some 60 members would never, never, ever vote for a bill that did not include a public option, thus making passage of any such bill impossible.

Won't anyone tell these guys that the public option is as dead Julius Caesar and all they can accomplish by opposing Obama on compromising with the Senate moderates and House Blue Dogs is to kill any reform bill? Well, I will.

It's dead because Obama and Health Secretary Sebelius said they could live without it. They may have backtracked a bit today to appease the outcry from the left for the moment and give Administration operatives time to smooth things over with unions and other key allies. But the deed it done. Obama can no longer go to the moderate Democrats -- Max Baucus, Byron Dorgan, Kent Conrad, Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln, Ben Nelson and others -- not to mention the few moderate Republicans -- conspicuously Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe whose votes might be decisive -- and say, we must have a public option. The moderates have been saying for weeks that the public option is a non-starter, and now Obama has said, OK, I can do without it. That genie is, as they say, out of the bottle.

The left-leaning blogosphere won't let go of this easily. Already, they have seized on a comment by Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz) to the effect that the proposed co-ops are a Trojan Horse for a public plan to complain that compromising with the Republicans on health care gets you nowhere because the GOP will not ultimately support any plan. Maybe so, but the stumbling block is not Kyl and the GOP Congressional leadership. It's the moderate Democrats who simply will not vote for a bill they consider to be too radical for their states and constituents. And it's the moderate Republicans whose votes may be needed to head off a filibuster.

So the self-styled "progressives" in the House are threatening to cripple Obama's Presidency before its first year is by submarining his premier proposal if it doesn't come up to their standards, and Howard Dean is sitting up there in Vermont making vague threats of primaries against Democrats who don't support a public option. I say, hooey. The House members will cave as soon as Rhambo swings into action to squeeze them for their votes. And successful primaries run by liberals against sitting Democratic Senators in less-than-liberal states like Montana and Arkansas? Good luck with that.

Some health care reform bill will pass before the year is out (unless the left goes totally bonkers and screws Obama), but it will be less sweeping -- more moderate -- than what's been prematurely labled "ObamaCare," and that's all to the good. The health care system is huge, complex and not altogether well understood. The potential for bad unintended consequences is enormous. What's more, a great many people like the much-distained status quo, at least where their health insurance is concerned.

As I posted some time ago, it will be better for everyone if reform is done piece meal. If this year's bill encourages greater portability, eliminates the pre-existing conditions dodge, expands eligibity for Medicaid, especially to provide insurance for the unemployed, and sets up a co-op to compete with private companies, that will be a lot to digest for a couple of years.

If people like Rep. Weiner (see the video above) think this is the only chance to pass a more comprehensive set of changes, they must have very little faith in the likelihood that voters will return Democrats to power. Of course, the irony is that if Weiner had his way, they probably wouldn't!

What's your opinion? Post a comment.

Left-leaning groups launch attack on moderate Democrats over health care

David Brooks thinks the Democratic Party has launched itself on a "suicide march." I wouldn't go that far, but it's surely true that the left wing of the party has always been a tad suicidal -- more now than ever -- and seems always ready to pull the Democratic Party as a whole down if it can't get its way.

I've blogged about this before here and here. If more proof is needed, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a MoveOn.org spin off, and DemocracyForAmerica, which calls itself "the nations' largest progressive political action community," are running TV ads attacking Democratic Senator Max Baucus of Montana, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee and is probably the key guy on the Hill who can frame a health care bill that might just pass the Senate.

No matter to the self-styled progressives who claim that Baucus is out of step with "the 76% of Americans who support President Obama's public health insurance option." The groups cite a month-old poll at a time when public support for any health care reform has been dropping like a rock as the massive costs and not altogether pleasing trade offs have become obvious to people. In any case, Baucus has never said he does or doesn't support a public option; he's just trying to get a bill that enough Senators will support to pass it.

And did the two groups even pause to wonder whether in relatively conservative Montana -- which now has two Democratic Senators, thanks to the very moderate stances that the left is attacking --their ads really will undermine Baucus with his voters? Frankly, I think it will help him at home to be attacked by these guys.

Montana's junior Senator, Jon Tester, was one of the moderates elected in 2006 who handed control of the Senate to the Democratic Party. Tester has been keeping a relatively low profile on health care reform, and like many other moderates, appears to be keeping his -- and the Senate's -- options open. For the moment, then, Tester is not a target of the left. But seven other Democratic Senators may find themselves in the cross hairs, including such usual suspects as Evan Bayh and Joe Lieberman but also, somewhat surprisingly, John Kerry!

Let me not mince words: this is crazy, does not make smart, sustainable health care reform any more likely, and weakens the Democratic Party's ability to hold power in Washington long enough to change much of anything.

Moderate Democrats in the Senate and the House are reflecting their constituents' unease with sweeping expensive proposals that might be pushed through with foolish haste and a myriad of unintended consequences. These members of Congress likely represent the center of gravity of American opinion on this issue. They should be listened to -- not attacked.

What's your opinion? Post a comment.

The new enemy? Left takes aim at moderate Democrats

New target of the Left: Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, strong, early Obama backer

Blogging at Open Left, self-styled "progressive" blogger Chris Bowers takes aim at the new enemy of the Left, moderate (and not so moderate) Democrats:

We have spent so long living under a government that was dominated by the right-wing of the Republican Party, that we are still having a difficult time coping with the new political reality. The right-wing is no longer the problem. The so-called "moderates" in Congress are.

From watering down the size of the stimulus, to weakening the climate change bill, to seriously threatening the public option, to blocking EFCA, cramdown and full voting rights for D.C., moderates have consistently blocked the truly transformative aspects of the Democratic agenda. Despite this, the full force of progressive media attacks remain focused on the right-wing, rather than upon these so-called moderates.

Warming to his thesis, Bowers claims that the cap and trade bill that just passed the House in a squeaker vote after a host of compromises to tack together enough votes was less than "transformative," not because of right-wing Republicans, who probably would have opposed any such bill, but the Democrats who pressed for the compromises before signing on. Somewhat strangely, since she is not a member of the House, Bowers singles out Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill based on her publicly stated relief that the bill won't wreck the mining industry in her state.

He concludes, "These so-called moderates are the real barrier to the progressive change that the country needs right now. As such, we should be directing our fire at them, rather that at the right-wing."

I can't speak for McCaskill, a key, early, strong supporter of Barack Obama when he badly needed that support against Hillary, but being a "so-called moderate" Democrat myself, I want to say that I'm delighted to see my fellow moderates in both Houses busy "watering down" some of the more risky, fanciful or plain destructive impulses of the Administration and the Congressional leadership.

Bowers is far from alone on the Left in ramping up the invective against Democrats who aren't down for the whole so-called "progressive" agenda. This goes back at least to mid-March when brickbats were hurled at Evan Bayh after he announced the formation of a loose-knit caucus of 15 moderate Senate Democrats (including McCaskill). MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, among others, took to calling the 15 and the 49 members of the House Democrats' Blue Dog Coalition "Conservadems." Various leftie blogs like like firedoglake, digby and Crooks and Liars took up the cry. Some excoriated the moderates as "anti-Obama."

That was -- and is -- nonsense, of course. All these new targets of the Left support Obama, and he supports and needs them. When some final health care bill -- inevitably a compromise, because compromise is what democratic government is all about -- makes it across the finish line, it will get there with the support of the moderates or not at all.

There will come a time in the next year or so when the Left will turn on Obama, too. That's already begun to happen on foreign affairs and national security issues. Salon's influential blogger, Glenn Greenwald, is already lambasting Obama almost daily for what he views as Obama's wholesale adoption of George W. Bush's counter-terrorism policies. Then, there is the matter of the Afghan war -- now clearly "Obama's war." While the bulk of the Democratic Party -- not just the moderates -- understand and support Obama's war policy, it's only a matter of time before the Left goes all out in anti-war mode, this time against Obama.

Obama is doing as much as he can to keep the Left on his side -- but the truth is that nothing short of lock-step commitment to the "progressive" agenda, as defined by a small core of activists, academics and journalists, will satisfy them. Like their right-wing counterparts, the Left sees only good and evil. Stray a bit from the "good" and you'll find yourself written off as evil.

Any thoughts about this? Post a comment.