Legal Commentary

Compelling: What Are Progressives Fighting For?

By Big Tent Democrat

Markos bizarrely calls this post, which disparages progressive pressure on Democrats, "compelling." Coming from Markos, it really makes no sense, given his constant (and mostly correct) haranguing of Democratic pols for the last 7 years. More importantly, the post is not only not compelling, it makes no sense. I wrote about it yesterday:

[Arch social conservative Richard] Viguerie and people like him were in fact shunted aside [when Reagan chose Sandra Day O'Connor for the Supreme Court] because Reagan wanted to nominate the first woman to the Supreme Court. [. . . Steve Benen] says the moral of the story is "that perceptions can change over time." That is silly. Some folks seem incapable of getting out of focusing on the pol, not the issue. Vigeurie was commenting on one event - the nomination of O'Connor. I am sure if he wanted to, Benen could find many instances of Viguerie praising Reagan at the same time (tax cuts anyone?). It is not all of one thing or another. Here's the real moral of the story in my opinion - who did Reagan nominate for the Supreme Court after O'Connor? Antonin Scalia. For those who decry pressure on their hero pols, the lessons of Richard Viguerie's complaints about Reagan's nomination of Sandra Day O'Connor are that they worked. Viguerie got what he wanted the next time.

Richard Viguerie understood what too many do not want to these days - pols are pols and do what they do. Your loyalty should lie with the issues you care about, not the pols.

((My emphasis.) What's really weird about Markos' shout out for that post is he's busy gearing up pressure on Obama to nominate Elizabeth Warren to the new consumer finance agency. If he really thought it was compelling, he'd stop that immediately.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on July 27, 2010 (boomark / email).