A Christian Liberal is NOT an oxymoron.

Posted by XT on January 7th, 2008 in This blog

Chris Suellentrop wants everyone to know that the netroots doesn’t support Obama. His proof? Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas hate Obama. Oh yeah, there’s also a link to a ranting diary at DKos. Like those are hard to find. Or that Obama is the only target of them.

In a sense, he’s right.

He quotes Armstrong as writing:

Obama “never aligned with the existing movement that began with Dean in ‘02, swelled for Wesley Clark in ‘03, led Dean to the DNC Chair and propelled the [Paul] Hackett and [Ned] Lamont candidacies.”

Yeah, well, that describes a lot of us. I didn’t like Dean in ‘02 and I didn’t like Clark in ‘03, and I think the “victory” of Ned Lamont is both overblown and hollow (especially since the man he tried to defeat is still in office). I think Dean is a good DNC chair and am ambivalent about Paul Hackett. So does this mean I’m not part of the netroots?

Well, I’m not “aligned” with Markos or Jerome. In fact, I find DKos to be positively stultifying at times and MyDD is a great big yawn. But that’s where Suellentrop is so wrong that he isn’t even worth listening to. Because he defines the netroots as MyDD and DKos and that’s it. Chuck Currie, for example, has been a huge supporter of Obama for as long as I can remember. RealClear Politics disagrees with Suellentrop as well. Even over at DKos, you can find Obama supporters.

Now, Markos and Jerome don’t really need me to stick up for them - and I seriously doubt that either one will spend much time reading this (if any at all). They are both better situated to defend themselves than to hope I’ll do it. But if Suellentrop wants to understand why Markos doesn’t get fired up about Obama, all he has to do is read a little bit:

Clinton isn’t horrible on this front, but Obama has made a cottage industry out of attacking the dirty fucking hippies on the left, from labor unions, to Paul Krugman, to Gore and Kerry, to social security, and so on. People think I was being ticky tack with the Gore thing, and in isolation it would’ve been but a minor non-event. But it was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back for me, yet another in a pattern of attacks against Democrats and their constituencies. He is the return of Bill Clinton-style triangulating personified.

I disagree with Markos here. I think Obama is suffering from Joe Lieberman being the only Democrat willing to go on the record with anything less than purely positive to say about Democratic constituencies or policies. When I read Crashing the Gate, I read about a movement that wasn’t afraid to speak truth to power. That means, from time to time, offending your friends but depending on them to be friendly enough to come back and work out your differences. Markos and Jerome are spot-on with their attack on single-issue groups, but if the Democratic Party is just a single-issue party - just win elections, baby - then we are at risk for selling out our soul for the sake of the next election.

And I know that Markos and Jerome would fight tooth and nail to keep that from happening. If they see the danger. The glory of democracy is that the best course is never found in forcing consensus, but from the process of arguing and bringing the pieces of collective wisdom together and letting it work. This is (probably) why endorsements don’t make sense to Markos - he understands that endorsements are an attempt to short-circuit democracy in the first place.

The criticism that Markos and Jerome have for Obama is well-placed and generally fair. From what I know of both men, neither want to destroy someone just for the sake of doing so. Obama is no angel. He should not be made out to be one.

But neither are Markos and Jerome the be-all, end-all of the netroots. The netroots is not a hierarchical organization. In fact, it isn’t an organization at all. Markos and Jerome have power only because they organize their arguments well and because other people appreciate their ability to express them. As soon as Markos or Jerome says something people don’t agree with, their sites get flooded with diaries that say so. Ned Lamont didn’t get deep and broad support from the netroots because Markos and Jerome ordered it to be so. He got the support because he worked for it.

Suellentrop doesn’t understand the netroots; or that it’s biggest strength is also its greatest weakness. It is diverse and spread from coast to coast. Ned Lamont capitalized on a lot of people throughout the country who saw Joe Lieberman as a polarizing person who stood in direct opposition to their values and who was fighting against the policies they wanted to see implemented. There was enough of them to power him past Lieberman in the primary. But not enough of them lived in Connecticutt to win the general - particularly when the Republican establishment began courting Lieberman rather early in the process.

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