Great, thoughtful post - thanks.
Emphasizing any so-called "divide" between the ideological and pragmatic is idiotic. Nearly every substantial political movement needs both to succeed. Passing civil rights legislation in the Senate required the efforts and talents of BOTH heroic ideologues like Paul Douglas, Herbert Lehman, etc AND the pragmatic genius of Lyndon Johnson (MLK was both, of course, which was his singular genius w.r.t. those issues). The success of abolitionism required BOTH Wendell Phillips' idealism AND Abraham Lincoln's pragmatism (see Hofstadter, The American Political Tradition - fantastic book).
The question, then, is this: why are our current Dem pragmaticians so god-damned awful at what they do? Who was the brain surgeon who advised/allowed John Kerry to begin his Alito filibuster push from Davos? Why did Al Gore have clown makeup on during his third debate with W? Etc etc - easy to come up with 20 more examples of this incompetence. LBJ would laugh his ass off at these fools, right before slitting their professional throats.
Sometimes you have to do things from wherever you happen to be, eh?
The real question of the media is - why did they just perpetuate the silly meme and not bother mentioning who else was attending the conference? You know, like a few Senate republicans?
Of course the media is simplistic and sometimes biased, and it's the job of the ideologues to help change that. But the essential pragmatic element means dealing in the context of what is, not what should be. Get a different Senator to "begin" the push. Or fly Kerry back to DC for a day. Or even fly him to London for some BS reason. Just do anything other than what was done.
And that's just one example that illustrates a much larger point that would survive even if the Kerry/Davos decision wasn't a screw-up (which, in my opinion, it unquestionably was).
You could maybe expand on that. Exactly what "business" compelled Kerry to attend Davos? Personal? National? What?
If filibustering Alito was so important why did he have to go to Davos in the first place? And then cut his trip short just when the action was starting? Whether or not a couple of Republicans were there or not is immaterial. Kerry chose to launch a filibuster, an action where you can only participate if you are actually on the floor of the Senate, from Davos. When called on the absurdedness he bails on Davos and comes home.
Come on. Kerry thought he could get a cheap score by pandering on dKos and never thought the whole thing would blow up in his face. If he was serious about Alito he would have spent the last week working the Refs back home and not jetting off the Switzerland.
Gee, unlike dubya, some people can keep more than one thought in their heads at one time. It's a frickin' World Economic Forum. John Kerry is the ranking member of what Senate subcommittee?
Let's see who else attended:
Either filibustering Alito is so imporatant that we do something almost unprecedented in US history or rubbing shoulders with Wolfowitz, Zoellick and Portman is critical. That Kerry chose to fly to Davos and then subsequently chose to fly home right in the heart of the Conference shows that he is not serious about either.
Man the defensiveness on this issue makes you want to wrap yourself in tinfoil.
Who needs tinfoil hats when we have the likes of you recycling republican talking points, memes, and frames?
Very savvy point. I think what frustrates so many of us with the Democratic Party right now (and let's be clear, this is the kind of passion that develops between family members ... there's no doubt they are our party and we'll only attain political power when they do) is that they're so bleeping incompetent when it comes to basic, practical, nuts and bolts politics. I believe this is because for so long the party didn't really need its A game to maintain majorities in Congress, and the worst that could happen presidentially is some moderate, genteel Republican like Eisenhower could serve for a couple terms. That all changed with Reagan and Gingrich and then DeLay. The old (consultant) guard within the party can't learn new tricks. They're still trying to win by arranging and re-arranging issues and interest groups, and above all staying safe. And unlike the Repub establishment, they have no sense of sticking together, or party loyalty, that comes from decades in the minority. They're in it for themselves, and will gladly flame Democratic candidates and give them C minus work if it means they keep getting more business.
The new generation sees this very clearly. They DO have a sense of an embattled minority doing whatever it takes, including taking risks, to win. It's still missing Reagan's doctrine of "do no harm to Democrats" (my primary complaint with the netroots) but we'll get there too. This is a generational change happening before out eyes, born of the Republican evolutions of 1980 and 1994. And it is happening. It just takes a little time.
I largely agree, and would only add that it DID take the Dems' A-game to kick the Repubs' asses in the 50's and 60's. Said A-game was provided by LBJ, who as both Senator and President understood how to simply get stuff done in Congress better than anyone in history; and by the JFK team which managed (1) to avoid any significant political blowback from one of the most embarrassing foreign policy screw-ups in history (the Bay of Pigs) and (2) NOT to have the candidate with the debate make-up issue.
