What an incredibly stupid thing to propose in a year in which the Dem nominee for President is having problems attracting "Blue Dog" type Democrats (you know, the folks "clinging" to "God and guns"). Threatening to "boot" such folks from the Democrat Party is sure to win them over to Sen. Obama's cause.I would interpret Greenwald's piece in a different context. The Salon.com blogger is not a political analyst looking at how best to maintain a Democrat majority in Congress. Greenwald's principles overrule his party loyalty. His chief concern lately has been the evisceration of civil rights by an unaccountable warfare state. I know of no blogger more diligent in shining a light on the grave harm of warrantless eavesdropping powers than Glenn Greenwald. And he's is miffed because Democrats, even when they controlled the Congress, and including Senator Obama, have given in to President Bush's requests for additional wartime spying powers.
From his article:
Greenwald knows that usurpation and tyranny from Democrats is just as bad as usurpation and tyranny from Republicans. The American Conservative's Daniel Larison, responding to Greenwald here, provides this bit of wisdom:As foolish as it is, this intense aversion to jeopardizing any Democratic incumbents might be considered rational if doing so carried the risk of restoring Republican control of Congress. But there is no such risk, and there will be none for the foreseeable future. No matter what happens, the Democrats, by all accounts, are going to control both houses of Congress after the 2008 election. Their margin in the House, which is currently 31 seats, will, by even the most conservative estimates, increase to at least 50 seats. No advertising campaign or activist group could possibly swing control of Congress to the Republicans this year, and -- given the Brezhnev-era-like reelection rates for incumbents in America -- it is extremely unlikely that the House will be controlled by anyone other than Steny Hoyer, Rahm Emanuel and Nancy Pelosi for years to come.
The critical question, then, is not who will control Congress. The Democrats will. That is a given. The vital question is what they will do with that control --specifically, will they continue to maintain and increase their own power by accommodating the right, or will they be more responsive, accountable and attentive to the political values of their base?
Something that the defenders of party loyalty seem never to be able to grasp is that loyalty is a mutual obligation. It is not only something that supporters are supposed to give to their party, but it is something that party leaders owe to the people who put them and keep them in their positions.