I was about to quote Glenn (“The Tough and Strong Democrats”), VL, but you’ve forestalled me, really:

A failure of leadership and a failure of the led. That Blue Dog Democrats represented 30 of the Dems’ 41 House yea votes suggests that our deal with the DINOs is as valuable as a Confederate dollar.

Failure especially of Reid and Pelosi, who weren’t out creating the political cover that the Little Blue Puppies so obviously needed.

Atrios has a typically level-headed response:

These people just don’t deserve our support, so we’ll focus on supporting the ones who do.

I can see what you’re saying, and where it goes… Boils down to supporting Dodd, because alone among the Democratic candidates, he gets this, and going after the Little Blue Puppies with the usual tools…

But… Jesus. I’m tired, ya know? And I can only imagine what those who have given so much more than I have feel.

No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.

Sad how misplaced any triumphalism after the midterm elections was. Miles to go before we sleep.

Diversion?
Pacification?

… a success so compromised as to be a failure.

At least they did for a long while. Now we’re starting to hear the subject come back up for air—some decertifications here and results of hacking studies there—but the groundswell that was building just went poof. Democrats could win, therefore that proves the machines are honest…right? You know this, um, how?

Because it was allowed to operate honestly (we’ll assume) one time does not mean this will always be the case. There was way too much triumphalism and mockery of “Karl’s math” and shit, when nothing had really changed at all.

Which is to say nothing whatever about the less-than-useful results the alleged change of power has accomplished so far. Now excuse me, I have to go sent another rude letter to Rep. John Tanner (TN-BlueBallDog).

… and he was basically singing “Ding, Dong the Witch Is Dead” about the Repubs. I’m a Red Sox fan, so I don’t do triumphalism.

Perhaps this election will be decisive. But we won’t know until and unless the Constitution is restored and the troops are home.

You aren’t throwing Edwards in with Dodd? Why not?

It’s hard to not get stuck in a categorical Up Or Down vote on a large group of people, but it’s a mistake IMNSHO.

There are different levels of disgust.

One of the rhetorical traps is to equate any criticism of the Democratic Party with the the Nader line that “there is no difference” between the two parties.

Even a registered Green Party, voted for Nader twice type of person like myself realizes there is a difference: as a generalization the GOP’ers are criminally incompetent authoritarian maniacs, the Dems are craven spineless self-interested corporate opportunists.

Sure, in the FISA vote, the Blue Dogs were the obvious culprits. But the responsibility also lies heavily with the Dem leadership for not, well, showing any f-ing leadership. How is it that Repugs vote in lock step as a united block and the Dems don’t, especially when it really counts?

The way I’m starting to think of it, the only value of the current Democratic Party is it’s functional ability to displace Republicans in government.

So, we should get out and vote for Democrats (when there is no viable Green alternative), but at the same time never refrain from criticising the Dems, and never stop working to change the frames (overton window) for fear that it might hurt a Democrat’s election chances.

It’s a two pronged attack. On the electoral track, displace the GOP out of office. On the ideological/media track, simultaneously work to move public opinion to the left (to justice and reality) so that politicians will have to work within our frames.

I agree with all of your points, except one.

The “there is no difference” meme — which is one that Nader famously endorsed in 2000 and which he tacitly or otherwise endorsed recently by hauling in with World Can’t Wait — is not brought up here through rhetorical hocus-pocus. In comments threads throughout blogtopia (no, I didn’t coin that phrase), criticism of the Dems over the FISA vote and need to restore Constitutionality has regularly been met with a fair amount of that talk. My mission in these posts and comments is to do exactly as you describe — to ensure that there’s a difference between properly criticizing Democratic failings and adopting the defeatist “no difference” position.

I think we’re finally on the same page on all this. Sorry it took me so long. But as I catch up on this story—I’m out of the country, being surveilled—as I said elsewhere, of the two great (shorthand) explanations for everything, Conspiracy and Fuckup, it’s hard to believe that even the Beltway Dems could be this fucked up. Reid and Pelois had to have known what was in that legislation.

So, it looks to me more like the Widdling Blue Puppies were giving cover to Reid and Pelosi, rather than (my first thought) Reid and Pelosi not giving cover to them.

Risen’s article also touches, at the end, at what is surely a driver for all this (at the end, of course). the telcos:

The law also gave the administration greater power to force telecommunications companies to cooperate with such spying operations. The companies can now be compelled to cooperate by orders from the attorney general and the director of national intelligence.

Democratic Congressional aides said Sunday that some telecommunications company officials had told Congressional leaders that they were unhappy with that provision in the bill and might challenge the new law in court. The aides said the telecommunications companies had told lawmakers that they would rather have a court-approved warrant ordering them to comply.

In fact, pressure from the telecommunications companies on the Bush administration has apparently played a major hidden role in the political battle over the surveillance issue over the past few months.

Splendid.

Leaving the surveillance OK with Gonzales is, to me, the tipoff the Dem leadership was in the know. Not possible for them to have ignored this. They want the power in 2008…

NOTE Let’s also put an end to this foolish circular firing squad metaphor. The smart ones are going to duck. Dodd already has. But not Hillary, Edwards, or Obama. Fire away!

No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.

… of Occam’s razor to me.

The symbol for much of the Democratic Party should be the deer in the headlights.

I think they were given an endoscopic sneak-peek into Chertoff’s gut, and they were sufficiently freaked out to roll over like good little Rodrique dogs.

Maybe my conspiracydar’s on the fritz, but methinks the lameness shoe still fits.

Leaving the surveillance OK with Gonzales is, to me, the tipoff the Dem leadership was in the know. Not possible for them to have ignored this. They want the power in 2008…

I’m feeling stupid here. How is handing over the reins to Gonzales about the Dems wanting power in 2008? I’m not following the logic.

“A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” - Margaret Mead

We’re finding out just how badly it fucks the constitutional design up to have bad people in positions of power, enough of them, and all working to the same bad ends. How much worse then—Constitutional-restorationally speaking— is the situation going to be when it’s a Democratic president, and a Democratically nominated and confirmed Attorney General, with that same excessive, unbalanced, unreviewable power that was just given to Gonzales?

Gandalf had some things to say about what exessive power does to even a well-intentioned person. That Democratic president is going to have a hell of a time saying “Take this power away from my Attorney General, who would of course only use it for Good but shouldn’t be using it at all.”

Because it will have been in place for a couple of years by that time, and you must know that some incident will have occurred which will be Loudly and Publicly Thwarted, a la the tv show “24”, because of something eavesdropped on via Gonzales go-ahead.

Hell, this “event” will probably have been staged before Congress comes back at the end of August. Not that I’m getting paranoia on top of massive depression at the moment or anything.

I was temporarily lost in a reverie of thinking the Dems had the interests of the nation at heart. I am pretty frackin naive sometimes.

“A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” - Margaret Mead