It was not about the word "betray"...it was about control of the message. [View All]

[madfloridian]

First and most obvious..about the Democrats who voted to "reprimand" an activist group. It reminds us they are not willing to let that emphemeral group called "The Left" have too much say in party stuff. And there were enough of the more conservative Democrats to get that vote against MoveOn passed...even though issues about ending the war are getting nowhere.

Actively opposing The Left

Here is their view in a nutshell:

In June 2006, PPI president Marshall opined in the Democratic Strategist that Democrats needed to “raid the red zone” and win over Republican voters. “Security will continue to dominate national politics for the foreseeable future. It is axiomatic that the American people are not likely to give power to a party they do not trust to defend their values and keep them safe,” Marshall wrote. “Democrats therefore must close the national security confidence gap that has dogged them since the era of Vietnam prote.

All kinds of layers to this issue. Everyone wants to control someone, and you have to peel away the layers. The message sent by yesterday's vote was originally from the Republican right wing sent to us via our Senate Democrats. I really think our party fails to see that they are being manipulated so easily by the right. Maybe they think they are being congenial by bringing such a thing up for a vote.

I don't think they realize they were outclassed by the right wing manipulators. They don't understand that to those on the right it is not a game...it is a set of programs developed through the years as they took hold of and added to the noise machine. They know how to control the message, and they taught our Democrats a hard lesson yesterday.

"Controlled controversy" is used to deliberately cause outrage

Yet Blackwell's foundation, the Leadership Institute, is not a Republican organization. It's a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) charity, drawing the overwhelming majority of its $9.1 million annual budget from tax-deductible donations. Despite its legally required "neutrality," the institute is one of the best investments the conservative movement has ever made. Its walls are plastered with framed headshots of former students -- hundreds of state and local legislators sprinkled with smiling members of the U.S. Congress, and even the perky faces of two recently crowned Miss Americas. Thirty-five years ago, Blackwell dispatched a particularly promising 17-year-old pupil named Karl Rove to run a youth campaign in Illinois; Jeff Gannon, a far less impressive student, attended the Leadership Institute's Broadcast Journalism School.

Courtesy Salon Graphics

It is tied to their Campus Leadership Program which truly specializes in ugly stunts like Catch an Immigrant Day.

...."The Leadership Institute teaches the same principle. Controlled controversy -- making your point in a manner so bombastic that your opponents blow their cool -- is a Blackwell specialty. Before the 2004 Republican Convention, the conservative elder personally went to a drugstore and bought little pink heart stickers, bandages and purple nail polish. At home, he made the "Purple Heart Band-Aids" that he later distributed in Madison Square Garden to mock John Kerry's war wounds.

Jane Hamsher added more at Fire Dog Lake yesterday. It was not just about MoveOn. It was not just reprimanding that group. It was a reprimand of us as well.

Just like the FISA bill, it was all a charade. And then today, they join with the Republicans in their little moment of mock outrage over MoveOn so we all just don’t talk about how badly the war is going. The Democrats have the majority, and THIS is what they let happen?

..."It’s not just MoveOn that is having their wrists slapped, it’s all of us. All of us who stood together and had the temerity to fight their precious comrade in comity, Joe Lieberman. Those of us who want to push them into doing something on Iraq, which they really don’t want to do. It is now the “Sense of the Senate” that the “uncivil” left are not entitled to free speech, especially if we’re trying to exercise it to make their lives difficult.

Bipartisan Warm and Fuzzy Condemnation of MoveOn

It was all wrapped up in levels of control, from the right to the center to the left.