I never finished my farewell from Netroots posts. I''ve been both really busy and having a great deal of difficulty writing for some reason. But I did want to share a couple of impressions, as well as acknowledge the wonderful time spent with Deborah and Stephen and Cogblog friend Minstrel Boy-- a good time was had by all (Other than the convivial time at Chez Cogblog, the highlight of my trip was the pub trivia contest at which I joined up with a motley crew dubbed "The Dirty Fucking Local Bloggers" which included author, "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" panelist, and all around man about town Charles Pierce -- a very funny guy.)
- It was interesting to feel the difference in the proceedings between last year and this year. Last year, of course, was all about the election -- it gave everything a manic and focused energy that was palpable throughout. Now that "our side" has won and is tackling the messy issues of governance, the feeling is quite a bit different -- I think it would be fairly described as a combination of sober determination mingled with frustration and more than a bit of anxiety. Unlike our right wing counterparts, we are an unruly lot who do not fall easily into line. Thus, the critiques of Obama (and even more so the Democratic Congressional leadership) are sometimes blistering and, perhaps, even a bit unfair. (The wingers, on the other hand, fell slavishly in line behind Bush, regardless of what he did, until the point where they found him to be deadweight and managed the neat act of writing him out of "conservative" politics.) The overall impression that I had was of people ready to do battle, but having their energy sapped by uncertain and lackluster political leadership.
- Speaking of which -- Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen is pretty much a mendacious idiot. But there is more than a kernel of truth to this column. If he is going to succeed on health care, Obama needs to step us his passion level by several notches. He needs to be more visceral and less professorial. I know he has these skills in his repertoire, but they have been severely lacking as of late. Obama needs to name the villains in the piece, i.e. insurance company executives and right wing Republicans, and he needs to make use of the abundant anecdotes available to make the case for how broken the health care system truly is. There is no law that liberals have to be bloodless in making their case -- trotting out the many gut wrenching cases caused by the present health care system is not only fair, but essential.
- And speaking again of WaPo, their seemingly daily effort to make me scream reached a kind of apotheosis this week when they published a piece by Howard Kurtz wondering why it is that all of the great MSM journamalism hasn't killed zombie lies about health care, which Fred Hiatt then complemented by turning over his Op-Ed page to policy giant Michael Steele, who set new records for lies in one column. Hiatt's strategy of turning his page over to the likes of Steele, Palin, Bolton, and Wolfowitz, to go with regulars Krauthammer, Will, Gerson, Samuelson, Broder, and torture apologist David Ignatius, makes me think he is selling his Post stock short.
