Annoyingly sloppy, David.

Look, there's one thing that the blogosphere can and should do well: provide the details. It's really great that David put up this anti-Clinton screed (and if it's not, it's a bad attempt not to be) at a site that allows comments; at least we get the chance in the comments to remind him that it's important to put his money where his mouth is. But now is the time when Hard Data is really necessary, and really useful, and he doesn't give us any.

Unlike a lot of people, I tend to enjoy much of David's work. As I said in the comments, I can understand, ahem, "both sides" of the argument. On the one hand, I don't believe that many Establishment Villagers can or want to do what it takes to solve the real, pressing problems this country is facing. Many "permanent Villagers" really are too concerned with Insider Baseballism and the pecking order in the Beltway to work hard for the policy change we desperately need. On the other hand, I think that there are *some* experienced, decent, actually liberal or progressive former Clintonians, and just because they worked for the last Democratic president doesn't mean they shouldn't work for the newest one.

Data is good. Facts are good. It's not that fucking hard to make a list, and back it up with links. As they used to say in journalism skoolz: Who? What? Where? When? Why? It would've been really great if David had answered any of those questions, rather than just making a throwaway claim about his evelope backsides, or whatever. You really should've tried harder, D. You're not living up to the High Standards of the Blogosphere, but instead acting like the very Village Insiders you claim to dislike.

David has taken a lot of flak from people on the Left and Right, for many things, but I really have to give him credit for his elegant writing. The only thing I'd have added to this essay is that what he's saying about Obama is equally true for the other front runners, and they all have to be reminded of what leadership really means. Hint: placating the rich and only using the gentlest of language are not qualities of real leaders:

"I Want to Believe" - that was what the X-Files poster hanging in my best friend's bedroom in high school blared out. An updated, political version of this poster would have the same words over a photograph of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama (D).
I've written a lot about Obama, including a major piece for The Nation magazine last year. In my time studying his career, it became obvious that this is a person who wants to do the right thing and has genuinely strong convictions. But he also seems to believe that the reason our country has such challenges is because all sides of every issue have not come together in unity (I've gone back and forth wondering whether this is a sincere belief or merely a justification for overly cautious behavior, but I'm not a psychoanalyst, so I have no idea).

The problem with this outlook is that it fundamentally misunderstands why we are at this moment in history.

My boy David has been all over it, and you know it's bad when he, Kevin and I are all on the same page:

This is great news. Sirota to work for Lamont:

Clearly, this is an uphill fight - but then, uphill fights are the kind of campaigns I have always worked on. Why? Because trying to change the status quo is always an uphill fight. In 1998, people told me not to work for Joe Hoeffel because they said he couldn't win a Republican congressional seat in Pennsylvania - but we won. In 2004, people told me I was crazy for working for political outsider Brian Schweitzer because they said he could never win a statewide race in as Republican a state as Montana. Now, Schweitzer is the widely popular governor of Big Sky country. People said Ned Lamont couldn't win a primary against an 18-year incumbent who grossly outspent him with a massive warchest of corporate cash - but he won. Even after Ned's crushing primary victory, elite cynics in Washington and the national Republican Party apparatus that is supporting Joe Lieberman still say Ned can't win the general election. And once again, we're going to prove them wrong.