thanks for everything, kos; or, ralphie boy was right

cross-posted at skippy and a veritable cornucopia of other community blogs. by now everyone should be over their initial depression of the democrats selling out to awol's war earlier this week. tho we ourselves had high hopes that the dems had grown spines ( indeed, there had been some reports of such skeletal formations spotted in the last few months), we were not at all surprised when the very people that were elected to stop the war in iraq pulled down their pants, bent over and said "thank you sir, may i have another?" the majority of americans think things are going badly in iraq; the majority of americans think we never should have gone into iraq; the majority of americans support a timetable for withdrawl from iraq. and yet, the democrats that america voted into office last fall gave up their fight to acknowledge and appease such majority views. thanks, democrats. oh, and thanks, markos, for convincing us to vote for those democrats. the brooklyn rail, reviewing crashing the gates last year, pointed out markos' platform vis-a-vis progressives: kos has repeatedly called for progressives to approach the party as a “big tent,” with room for positions that deviate from the ostensible party line on abortion, gun control, the death penalty, the environment—or the legion of “social” issues that the pundits argue have made it a pariah in many states. and so we voted for anyone who had a big "d" next to their name...whether or not he or she actually believed in, not only what we believed in, but also in what he or she actually said he or she believed in. in his quest to become the "not leader" of liberal blogs, markos banned jews, palestinians, feminists, and everybody who posts at my left wing. yes, mid-ameirca can now read the daily kos without see the "f" word in the titles of diaries. and the right-of-center can rest easy that nobody will raise the ugly spector of issues like abortion or what really happened on 9/11. but as a wiser man than we once said, "those who stand for nothing, fall for anything." sure, there are numbers of great quantity in the middle, but the fire is along the edges of american politics. bob fertik says today at democrats.com: kos the impeachment koward just kondemned one of my favorite progressive bloggers, poputonian: digby defends the iraq supplemental bill out of the house. this, on the other hand, is utter horseshit. there's little worse in progressive politics than "holier than thou" purity trolls. they are just as destructive to the progressive movement as dlc trolls. what did poputonian write to get kos so enraged? poputonian quoted david swanson's criticism of democratic house leaders for blocking a vote on the lee amendment, and swanson's criticism of moveon for aiding and abetting that vote denial through their dishonest member "poll"… so apparently if you agree with any of these points, kos believes you are a "holier than thou" purity troll who is just as destructive to the progressive movement as [a] dlc troll. it seems that those of us fought to the end for the lee amendment have touched a very sensitive nerve by objecting to the manner in which it was killed by house democratic leaders and their allies in the "progressive" movement, most conspicuously moveon. if moveon, sirota, and kos were mere spectators in that effort, their lies and vicious attacks wouldn't make much sense. could it be that some of our "progressive" allies were working with house democratic leaders in the runup to the supplemental to help them kill the lee amendment? maybe poputonian unwittingly hit the nail on the head when (s)he wrote america: still an insider's game? and markos has tried like hell to become one of those insiders in that past months. congratulations, markos. you've made it. the stephanie herseths, the jim webers, the john testers owe you a big, big debt of thanks for helping get them elected. those are the guys who voted for the stripped down iraq funding bill, right? now, we don't think markos is to blame for the dems' caving on the iraq funding bill (he is, however, obvioulsy responsible for the virginia tech massacre). but we do think that his pointed efforts to "play to the middle" at the expense of actual convictions, plus his obvious work for getting anyone elected that claimed to be a democrat, is indicative of the core problems with the entire party. the repubbblicans, for all their wrong-headedness, bigotry, selfishness and fantasy-world beliefs, at least have some beleifs. we often (and lately especially) have come to think that the only thing elected democrats believe in is getting elected. as to those who say the dems are acting just like the repubbbs, we ask:  does the name ralph nader ring a bell?