while i agree completely that some of the big boys are frustratingly tone deaf and colorblind to issues of substance — markos can hardly open his mouth without having pre-inserted the foot — i do think that the criticism of stoller’s statement is a bit off base. stoller, kos, bowers : these guys are nothing more than party activists, process wonks with enough issue savvy to keep their marginally-lefty huge audience satisfied.

i get the feeling that stoller’s admiration for norquist is borne purely out of this. they’re both party activists. nader is decidedly not a party activist, and so is of marginal value to stoller and his ilk. that doesn’t necessarily translate to the notion that a nader-type ought to be marginalized in terms of the greater debate, but as he said, we all have our “priorities.” norquist helped build a political alliance which, as o-god-don’t-we-know-it, has been damned good at what it set out to do, you know, drownings and all that — not to mention a handful of supreme court justices who are eager-beaver to turn over women’s rights and establish the new order of a rightfully christian nation.

so in that sense, is a process wonk’s norquist admiration such a terrible thing, if you replace their goals with ours?

tinfoil hattie – Welcome and thank you so much for stopping by! Don’t hesitate to share your thoughts!

I can’t be bothered to read that blog anymore either.

But I’ll start reading this one!

Thanks.

*waggles a finger* But why do you always have to write these glorious, insightful things when I have (tedious, mind-numbing, time-consuming) work to do? I’m never going to get anything done!

Thanks for noticing, but it illustrates MY complaint about the “progressive” blogosphere. The links at the big boys were in the course of trying to make a connection with U.S. political parties. The issues for them were not Democracy, but the Democratic Party.