Grave Choices Ahead for the Netroots
11:30 PM Aug 21, 2005
I'm afraid Friday's post indulged a too-flip conclusion that's worth re-examining.
As
is the case with our coterie of progressive philanthropists, it will
not do to let the frisson of resistance stand in for an assessment of
the terrain.
The
netroots has the luxury of opposition status, and opposition to a
particularly grotesque junta to boot, which leaves in its wake plenty
of blog-fodder and the mirthsome pleasures of watching the right
blogosphere defend the First World's very worst chief executive. That's
a fine party favor, but it won't long remain tenable to
withhold a firm stand on Iraq, and that issue could fracture the
Democratic party as easily as -- perhaps more easily than -- the
Republican.
The
Mess O' Potamia is, in the parlance, worse than a crime, it is a
blunder. Plenty of Democrats see reform of the obviously
incompetent
management at the top as a more palatable solution than withdrawal ...
and much of the netroots, though overwhelmingly in favor of withdrawal,
is also explicitly committed to Democrats
irrespective of ideology and viciously castigates any threat to vote
against any Democratic nominee. The 2008 presidential
frontrunner, Hillary Clinton, supports escalating the American military presence in Iraq. And there's a lot of hedging on the matter among nonprofits in the Democratic sphere.
Granted,
there's plenty of left blogosphere flack for the DLC, Joe Biden and
other collaborationist Democrats, but it comes with a distinct flavor
of politics stopping at the water's edge. The model of being the
shock troops for the remains of the blue party won't hold up to
this issue, not if the more hawkish of the 2008 nominees is the Democrat. So
there's the test, for the netroots and the grassroots alike: pull
troops out of Iraq, and give no politician quarter who stands in the
way. It took Nixon to get out of Vietnam. If we're not
careful, it'll take Hagel to get out of Iraq.
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