Wednesday, October 28, 2009

I'M sure with Andrew Sullivan on this one: Where were the tea-partiers when they could have done some good; that is, during the eight years the right wing was in power? A quotation:

My point is that this (netroots activism) is a practical way to push for real change, especially since the Obama campaign explicitly embraced this model of citizen input. Ditto the protests for ending the military ban or repealing DOMA. These are tangible goals, already supported by the Democratic leadership, in which base pressure can work — to force the Dems to do what they have promised to do when they can actually deliver. And the activists can claim some measure of integrity: they're willing to tackle a president they supported. How many conservatives were tackling Bush in his first year even as his betrayal of core conservative values was evident from 2001 onwards. Or his second year? (There were, I think, two of us in Washington. And Bartlett and I were excommunicated for disloyalty).

My worry about the tea-partiers is not that just they are Johnny-Come-Latelies (even though most are). It is not that they are partisans (some of them clearly aren't). It is that they are motivated by an amorphous distrust and loathing of of government that never seems to get translated into actual policies (and that is itself more populist than conservative). And they are pushing the GOP leadership to take talk-radio abstract positions, rather than tangible proposals. They are deeply unserious.

Deeply unserious is being kind. (I do wonder if the local tea-partiers got talent fees from Newscorp.)