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The Third Estate
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Now Who's Getting Purged?

Monday, July 10, 2006
Remember when Peter Beinart suggested a purge of what he called the "Michael Moore" wing of the Democratic party? He argued then (and has argued since) that liberals should make the war on terror the centerpiece of modern liberalism, following in the steps of the Cold War liberals and marginalizing the pacificist elements of the party.

And sure enough a purge has begun in the party. But it looks like it's the "Moore" folks who are doing the purging. It's people like Beinart who are getting run out of the party.

I have never been what I describe as a "lefty" Democrat, the type that think wars are never jusitified, who demonize their political opponents (within or without the party), and who tend to very self-righteous about their own causes while being willfully obtuse when it comes to political realities. The kind of people who are more concerned with being right than with winning, and for whom "compromise" is a dirty word.

Now don't get me wrong - lefties are some of my closest friends. They are very important to me and to the party. They have enormous energy and idealism, and make sure that we never forget why we fight battles in the first place. They keep us all honest.

Which brings me to Joe Lieberman. I was very critical of the primary challenge to him early on, and agree with Oliver Willis that we should be devoting all this energy to defeating Republicans rather than Democrats. But I have to say that maybe the Lamont challenge is a good thing. The campaign has revealed Lieberman as a much less attractive figure than I thought. The man is a quisling who is more happy attacking his fellow Democrats than Republicans. And the beltway response to the Lamont challenge has been simply disgusting. Who do those people think they are, anyway?

The fact is that I argued with the lefties when they said that George Bush was evil and should be impeached, that the Republicans have made a calculated decision to steal elections, that the war in Iraq was based on lies, that Bush would exploit the war on terror and spy on Americans. And in each and every case, I was wrong and they were right.

The problem with the beltway Democrats is that they think they can go on playing the same old game and survive. They think that all they have to do is move to the center and wait for Republican excesses to return them to power. They think that there are reasonable people on the other side of the aisle that value bipartisanship. They think that the netroots are a bunch of crazy paranoids who don't understand political reality. And like I was every time I disagreed with the lefties over the last five years, the D.C. Democrats are wrong and the lefties are right.

It used be said that a conservative was a liberal who'd been mugged by reality. But I can say that I was a moderate who was mugged by conservatives and transformed into a liberal. I hope that Beinart and his friends at TNR and the DLC experience the same revelation I have - that we are fighting not just for the existence of the Democratic party but of the Republic itself. They are bright, well-meaning people who I would value as political allies.

But if they continue to give aid and comfort to the enemies of the Republic? Well it'll be they who gets purged.
Posted by Arbitrista @ 7:28 AM
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