One of the most common methods for increasing blog traffic was inherited from print: pick somebody bigger than yourself and launch a withering attack. With any luck, they’ll defend themselves, driving traffic to your site and making you look more consequential than you are. Jeff Jarvis, the current Voice of the Blogosphere, is the object of such an attack by young Mr. Willis, the employee of David Brock who’s become an increasingly shrill member of the lunatic fringe of the Democratic Party since the invasion of Iraq shook his grasp on reality.
Willis’ remarks aren’t especially newsworthy to most, but I’m known to never ignore a blog-snit and therefore have to comment. Willis is typical of an element of the national Democratic Party, the Deaniacs, that resembles the pre-Arnie California Republicans more than anything else: a group that’s given up on winning elections and is therefore dedicated to losing with principles intact.
The last thing I want to do is give the Deaniac wing advice that they might actually take, but some things have to be said about the argument between men-of-principle and practical politicians: the only Democrats to win the White House in the last 50 years are people that count as moderates in today’s political calculus: JFK was a tax-cutter and vigorous warrior against totalitarianism; LBJ, Carter, and Clinton were moderate, pro-business, strong-national-defense Southerners who weren’t squeamish about committing America’s armed forces to democratic causes abroad (OK, Carter’s arguable, but he ran on such a platform the one time he was elected.)
True-blue liberal partisans may get the Democratic Party base all fired-up, but they don’t win elections. So here we have Jarvis advocating a course of action for Democrats that’s both morally sound and politically practical, and Mr. Willis viciously attacking him for it.
When I see this sort of thing I wonder if Wills’ employer David Brock really left the conservative fold, because it’s the best thing that could ever happen to the Tom DeLays of this world.
So I just shake my head and yearn for the productive dialectics of yesteryear.
UPDATE: Daily Kos doesn’t want to be left out of this scuffle, naturally.
Actually Carter’s defense policy was highly aggressive in many ways. Although everyone remembers Iran, nobody remembers that Carter actually began the defense build-up attributed to Reagan, Carter actually started the intervention in Central America, and Carter turned a blind eye towards the situation in East Timor.
The more I try to tell Democrats what to do, because I can’t resist, the less they do it. Could this be a plan?
John, Carter was the first American president to arm Saddam Hussein as well, wasn’t he?
Joe, perhaps it is – it certainly seems to be working.