9/16/2005 02:59:00 PM|||kim|||
He was doing so well. The Bull Moose that is. I don't think any of us had the illusion that he was going to start posting on Daily Kos, but still, we sensed potential.
It appears old habits are hard to break. From today's Moosecast:
The order issue is not merely addressing crime - it is far broader. It also includes the maintenance of civil order through social and racial justice. It involves the efficient delivery of government services. It requires stemming fiscal incontinence and restoring stable gas prices. And at the moment, America is lacking a "daddy party" to maintain order. John Dickerson writes in an important piece in Slate,
"Democrats don't need to rile up their base any more. They need suburban voters, and for suburban voters, Katrina isn't so much about race, it's about homeland security-about what would happen if someone bombs their mall. Some Democrats understand this already. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and Sen. Clinton have both tried to pitch sensible reconstruction plans for the Gulf while also talking about the glaring problems exposed in the country's homeland security.
"If Democrats are going to seize their moment, though, they are going to have to settle the debate between those palsied by their hatred of Bush and the swing-vote-seeking centrists. The Clinton and Reid arguments have to silence or at least moderate the Dean ones. They have to show, as one Democratic strategist put it, "that we can be the daddy party."
The Moose asks the donkey - "Who's your daddy?"
Who's my daddy, indeed. For anyone who's curious, yes, the definition of "important piece" is one that says the same thing as the author.
Since this speaks to the material in Don't Think of an Elephant directly, let's take a look at this from Lakoff's viewpoint. Lakoff distinguishes right-wing and progressives based on family as a metaphor. Well, it's more than metaphor, but that's not important right now. He uses the notion of a family with a dominant father figure to explain right-wing ideology, a more nurturing, communal family to explain the left.
The result of this is that the right tend to favor policies that favor the individual, or at least the individuals with means, while the left favors policies that benefit society as a whole.
We owe the framing of Republicans as the "daddy" party, Democrats as the "mommy" party to David Brooks. Why does the Bull Moose use the framing of a conservative pundit? Because a.) it serves to make his point, and b.) Mr. Wittman isn't exactly a liberal. From what I've seen, Mr. Wittman is repulsed by the corruption, ineptness, and power-drunkenness of the Bushies, yet can't really embrace the notion of common good that sets the left apart from the right. He's a conservative, one that seeks to remake the Democratic Party as a conservative institution.
In the Salon piece Dickerson argues that the Deans of the world need to shut up, and let the hawks take charge. And why? Because Joe and Jill Q Sixpack believe the hawks will protect them. As if the pro-war senators could heal the neglected infrastructure of cities like New Orleans by dropping bombs on them. Don't you know the only problem with the levees was lack of self-discipline?
Both Mr. Wittman and Mr. Dickerson ignore the incrasingly popular revolt against the war in Iraq. If they acknowledge it at all, it's as a good war badly run. In doing so they miss a valuable lesson: Society abhors the notion that their leaders would deceive them. And we're catching on that's just what happened in the build-up to Iraq.
What we got here folks, is a betrayal of trust.|||112690408841960127|||Marshall, Marshall, Marshall Save Template Changes.