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| Elite Colombian soldiers guilty A court in Colombia finds seven members of an elite anti-kidnapping squad guilty of killing a civilian and claiming he was a left-wing guerrilla. bbc.co.uk |
Taliban blamed for killing woman A woman accused of murdering her mother-in-law has been killed by Taliban in the eastern Afghan province of Ghazni, local officials say. bbc.co.uk |
Cuba dissident gets top EU award Cuban dissident Guillermo Farinas, who was on hunger strike earlier this year, gets the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize for human rights. bbc.co.uk |
Boot the Blue Dogs? | Michael Tomasky I've been meaning to mention Ari Berman and his new book, Herding Donkeys, about the recent tussles within the Democratic Party (think mostly 2006-era feuds between Howard Dean and Rahm Emanuel, but updated nicely into the Obama era), which you can buy here.Berman had a big op-ed in the Times yesterday (on a Sunday; primo real-estate!) called "Boot the Blue Dogs," in which he endorses the view that the Democrats should intentionally down-size (aside from the unintentional down-sizing they'll get next week) and let some of the Blue Dogs lose and just let those districts go Republican.He quotes a Democratic activist in North Carolina with respect to Heath Shuler, one such Blue Dog. And after her comes Howard Dean, who in 2006 was a big proponent of the view that Democrats had to expand into purple areas with ideologically less liberal candidates:Margaret Johnson, a former party chairwoman in Polk County, N.C., helped elect Representative Shuler but now believes the party would be better off without him. "I'd rather have a real Republican than a fake Democrat," she said. "A real Republican motivates us to work. A fake Democrat de-motivates us."Ms. Johnson is right: Democrats would be in better shape, and would accomplish more, with a smaller and more ideologically cohesive caucus. It's a sentiment that even Mr. Dean now echoes. "Having a big, open-tent Democratic Party is great, but not at the cost of getting nothing done," he said. Since the passage of health care reform, few major bills have passed the Senate. Although the Democrats have a 59-vote majority, party leaders can barely find the votes for something as benign as extending unemployment benefits.Hmmm. I take Johnson's point, I guess, but it's kind of hard to imagine this yielding more progressive outcomes in Congress, especially if the GOP takes the majority next week. But even if the Democrats hold on, I don't really see how a Democratic Party with, say, a 222-213 margin in the House in the House is going to be able to pass any slew of liberal legislation. There are only about 180 or 190 districts in the country (out of 435) that are basically safe Democratic seats. Every Democrat elected beyond that 180 or 190 will be from a district where she feels she has to hedge some bets. Those people won't reliably vote for liberal legislation. So I don't picture it adding up.And then there's the Senate, of course, where matters are even more fraught. Personally, I think some of this is solved with the right leadership. Nancy Pelosi has been a really effective speaker in some ways; she's very smart politically and better at her job, I think, than Harry Reid has been. And I hate bowing to this kind of reality, but the fact is, a woman from San Francisco in this day and age and climate etc. is just probably not the best choice for a House Democratic leader. The Democrats need someone who can speak to voters in districts like Shuler's, in western Tennessee. I don't know if that's Steny Hoyer, the Marylander who seems likely to succeed Pelosi if the Democrats lose the House. But he is more in line with traditional House party leaders, which is to say, he'd be more of a compromise between factions, which I guess has its good and bad points. Pelosi got in there because she'd earned it, and as a history-maker. The first woman. I don't believe in Pelosi-bashing, but I do think the Democrats should probably change leaders if they lose the majority.But giving up on Blue Dogs strikes me as wrong, frustrating as they can be sometimes. The alternative for Margaret Johnson to Heath Shuler is that the seat stay in GOP hands, and the Democrats there run candidates who can't win that district, which seem certainly less appealing to me than Shuler.US midterm elections 2010DemocratsMichael Tomaskyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
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