The Time Has Come

A story, quite possibly apocryphal, but illustrative none-the-less.

During the time of the freedom-riders, organizers from the North spread out across the South, training blacks, young and old, on how to register to vote, on how to appeal for their rights and on how to deal with the inevitable blows they would receive along the way. In one particular town, a group of young blacks were trained on the tactics of civil disobedience. The training went on for months. They, being young, were itching for the chance to go out the front-lines of The Struggle and make their mark. But there's was a small town, outside the main battlegrounds of said struggle. The organizers kept telling them it wasn't time. They weren't ready yet. They would know the time when it came.

On one particular day, a black youth was arrested by the police for some infraction f the segregation codes of the day (the specific infraction is unimportant to the point of this story). The word spread throughout the youth of the town and an impromptu march formed to walk down main street to the jail and protest the youths arrest. The organizers, seeing this spontaneous demonstration, rushed out to meet it and, once again, urge its members to remain cool and wait for the right time.

"If not now? When?" Asked one of the youths at the head of the group. The organizer paused, struck by the intensity of the demand behind the question. He paused and then stepped aside.

The time had come.

This is what I am feeling tonight. I have had my problems with Obama. I have been and remain concerned that he is naive about what a message of hope can achieve against the extreme partisanship of the Republican Noise Machine. I have been and remain annoyed that Obama has been too willing to adopt right-wing talking points when countering some of his critics from the left.

But there comes a time when concern has to give way to the momentum of the moment. There comes a time when the rock has to yield to the force of the water.

Perhaps, tonight, we have seen the first sign that the time has come.

I certainly hope so.

Scandals

What tristero said:

The most significant scandal of our time is that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are still wielding power.

The Middle Ground

The flaw in the "unity" argument is that it assumes the "middle ground" is between the parties. Thus the need for bipartisanship becomes defacto.

But what if the "middle ground" is not between the parties? What if the "middle ground" is, as Krugman suggests, to the *left* of the Democratic Party? In such a case, a "unity" platform that splits the difference between Republicans and Democrats would, in fact, move the government further away from what the country wants. It is a solution in search of a problem.

This is really not about parties. It is really about moving the government so that it matches the consensus of the American people. The GOP is way out of the mainstream while the Democrats are only mildly off the mark. But both are on the same side of the balance. A "unity" platform that has at its foundational belief the need for bipartisanship between the parties is, in fact, fundamentally flawed. It is guaranteed to move the government even further away from what the people want.

We all want "the middle ground". We just disagree on where that middle ground lies.

On the virtue of not being Clinton

I think one of the hallmarks of the political naivete Paul Krugman has been talking about is the belief that "this particular Democrat" will somehow have a better time of it than any other Democrat, at least when it comes to facing the GOP and their media enablers.

Those who argue that Hillary will face more partisan opposition than would Obama are falling into the same trap that caught both Gore and Kerry. They also believed that they would have a better time of it by virtue of not having the last name of Clinton.

What they failed to realize was that having a (D) after their name was enough to make them "of the devil" in the GOP's eyes (and enough to automatically put them 50 yards behind the starting line as far as the establishment media was concerned).

Both Gore and Kerry understand this now. But they had to go through the fire before they figured it out.

I fear that Obama and his supporters will be facing a similar awakening.

(And don't think that Obama's generally favorable press now is any indication that the village media will treat him better than they would any other Democrat. The village is notoriously fickle and will turn on a golden boy at a moments notice. Hell, I can remember very early in the '92 race seeing criticism of the media for being to easy on Clinton! The media is a viper you never want to think of as your ally.)