Stop Me Before I Vote Again

Sorry if this offends anybody: but really, how gay is that? I mean this in the most unprejudicial and literal way. Ancient Judea as imagined in the weight room of your friendly local YMCA. If this is what good Christian laddies are seeing in Sunday school, no wonder so many of 'em end up kicking over the traces -- God bless 'em.

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Shown at left is the trademark caravel of The New Republic (or as Alex Cockburn once called it, The Bananas Republic). I don't think I ever noticed before that the rather top-heavy little ship is running before the wind, which is, all in all, a rather good emblem for the mag.

A recent piece at TNR's web site, by Jonathan Chait, started off on a promising note:

A few weeks ago, Senator Dianne Feinstein announced that she and other Senate Democrats harbored reservations about President Obama's plans to overhaul the health care system. This came atop previous comments to the effect that she didn't believe in sweeping reform ("I am a bit of an incrementalist"), that the cost of reform might be prohibitive....

The reaction from the left was swift and, by the standards of such things, furious. Which is to say, not very furious. Union president Gerald McEntee complained in a press release, "Senator Feinstein's comments today take the discussion of health care reform in the wrong direction." The wrong direction! Take that, Feinstein!

And if finding herself on the business end of a polite but disappointed press release didn't put the fear of God in California's senior Senator, the liberal group Health Care for America Now piled on with a petition stating, "[W]e need a senator who is championing, not naysaying, the need for reform. We're hoping Sen. Feinstein becomes a 'champion' for the people of California and stand [sic] up for President Obama's health reform."

Somehow this display of left-wing muscle failed to intimidate Feinstein....

Nice, huh? Unfortunately, it's all downhill from there. Chait inevitably ends up advocating our favorite exercise in futility, the dreaded Primary Challenge. After several paragraphs of teasing higher wonkery about Arlen Specter and Charles Grassley -- Joe Lieberman and Ned Lamont are, alas, not mentioned -- we get to the money shot:

The sweet spot is a challenger strong enough to scare your popular centrist incumbent, but not quite strong enough to actually knock him off..... The Democrats would ideally have some challengers lined up who canThe sweet spot is a challenger strong enough to scare your popular centrist incumbent, but not quite strong enough to actually knock him off..... The Democrats would ideally have some challengers lined up who can frighten the likes of Evan Bayh and Mary Landrieu into taking some small risks for their party's agenda, without actually defeating them.

As I find myself asking so often -- where do you start? Does Chait really believe that Bayh and Landrieu are frustrating "their party's agenda"? Are they not in fact implementing their party's agenda -- much to the relief of Barack Obama and Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, who after the debacle can go to the Chaits of the world and roll their eyes expressively and say, hey, we tried, but those damn hicks Bayh and Landrieu stabbed us in the back.

Y'know, sixty seats isn't enough. We need 70. Or 80. Or 90.

You'll be getting a mailing soon from the DSCC. Please be generous.