Fineman: Beltway vs. Blogosphere (A Nasty Civil War is Brewing in the Democratic Party)

Newsweek ^ | September 15, 2005 | Howard Fineman

[RWR8189]

Sept. 14, 2005 - If I am hearing Simon Rosenberg right (and he is worth listening to), a nasty civil war is brewing within the Democratic Party, and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton—the party’s presumptive 2008 nominee—needs to avoid getting caught in the middle of it.

“It’s not a fight between liberals and conservatives,” Rosenberg told me the other day. “It’s between our ‘governing class’ here and activists everywhere else.”

In other words, it’s the Beltway versus the Blogosphere.

What’s interesting is that Rosenberg is himself a Beltway creature, a preternaturally self-assured young insider with a cherubic face and a cold smile. He heads a group called the New Democratic Network and ran his own campaign for DNC chair. But the names he utters with reverence are net-based: organizers such as Eli Pariser and bloggers such as Daily Kos and Atrios.

Rosenberg rejects that notion that the bloggers represent a new “Internet Left.” It’s not an ideological rift, he says, but a “narrative” of independence versus capitulation: too many Democrats here are too yielding to George W. Bush on the war in Iraq, on tax policy, you name it. “What the blogs have developed is a narrative,” he told me the other day,” and the narrative is that the official Washington party has become like Vichy France.”

[My2Cents]

Get the popcorn.

[My2Cents]

A fight between the amoral power brokers and the nihilists.

[Jim Noble]

Now THIS is excellent news!

Where do we send the Dean '08 money?

[Just A Nobody]

...too yielding to George W. Bush on the war in Iraq, on tax policy, you name it.

Odd that he would choose those two items. Perhaps the Beltway insiders know that the vast majority of Americans agree.

[HarleyLady27]

ANYTHING that would make old thunder thighs look more of an idiot than she is, is great with me....

I'm pulling up a seat and have a cooler of beer, and a sack of popcorn and peanuts....this has got to be good....

[squirt-gun]

I hope thesee idiots turn into butter...with their running around nose to a$$hole....Just like in "little black sambo"...

By the way....Little Black Sambo is bannned in the U.s....a beautiful non=racial child's story which was banned by uninteligent, racist morons.

[Bahbah]

How funny. Hillary's desire to shut us down will have to be expanded, unless her "meetings" with these rabid dogs can co-opt them. But they are feeling pretty muscular right now, like the anti-war left in the 60's, and the clandestine support is still there. Get the popcorn indeed.

[onyx]

A fight between the amoral power brokers and the nihilists.





Precisly. Ain't it great?

[SandRat]

Get the popcorn.

I brought two Party Paks!

[okie01]

The message from the barking moonbats to their leadership:

Bark Louder!!!

[expatpat]

It's ridiculous to say it's not ideological. The politicos want to get re-elected and don't push the leftist agenda on issues where the left position is very unpopular. The bloggo leftists hate that.

[CFC__VRWC]

Fineman needs to lay off the Civil War metaphors. His use of them just confirms that he's a blithering idiot, though I'm sure he thinks he's very clever.

Then he just keeps beating himself over the head with the stupid stick with his cure for the democrat party, which is, to move even further to the left and give over the whole thing to the crazies.

[RichInOC]

[BINGBINGBINGBINGBINGBINGBING!]

"Leeeeeeeeeeeet's get ready to rumblllllllllllllllle!!!"

[Yellow Rose of Texas]

Remember the restaurant chain Sambo's, it was run out of business years ago at the same time.

[linear]

To some extent, we have the same problems with the Republicans. What the hell happened to fiscal responsibility with the transportation bill?

[Grampa Dave]

Fineman is not capable of writing or talking without lying.

This seems like a contrived story to me.

[Unam Sanctam]

Why do the Dems worship Kos? Just his saying that he didn't care about the killed Americans in Fallujah because they were "mercenary" contractors is enough to show the man does not possess a normal human decency.

[Enchante]

"the narrative is that the official Washington party has become like Vichy France.”"

It's the left-wing bloggers who bear the most resemblance to Vichy France!! I would usually jump to the forefront in bashing 'beltway' pols, but in this context the conflict is between far-left 'Rats who want the foreign policy of Vichy France and the more 'mainstream' party officials who are trying to preserve some fumes of viability. If the 'Rats continue to treat Michael Moore-on and Cindy Sheehan as 'mainstream' just because DU and DailyKos says so, then the party will eagerly slide off the cliff of electoral collapse for years to come....

[x]

Rosenberg rejects that notion that the bloggers represent a new “Internet Left.” It’s not an ideological rift, he says, but a “narrative” of independence versus capitulation: too many Democrats here are too yielding to George W. Bush on the war in Iraq, on tax policy, you name it.

An example of "framing" at work. It looks a lot like a new "Internet Left" at work, but they don't want to say that (too divisive) so it gets its own spin as representative of "independence."