David Sirota on strategists

Catnip at Booman pointed up this piece by David Sirota on the Huffington Post. It's quite good and worth reading the whole thing.

"...the New York Times today quotes "Democratic strategists" saying that "with Roberts widely expected to win confirmation, members of their party should vote for him in order to appear open-minded and save their ammunition for the fight ahead."

Yet, it was the same Democratic strategist class that helped create the perception in the first place that Roberts is "widely expected to win confirmation." If you recall, the very first day after the Roberts nomination was announced, Democratic strategists (most likely before they even gave a cursory review of Roberts' record) pitched a front page story to the Washington Post headlined "Democrats Say Nominee Will Be Hard to Defeat." Great strategy for a party that is perceived to stand for nothing: lead the biggest debate with an admission that you don't have enough guts to even make a fight of it.

That, of course, immediately led to television reports right after Roberts was nominated blaring to the world that Democrats were going to lay down and die. As CNN, for instance, reported that night, unnamed Democrats "admit privately that, barring some sort of political cataclysm, John Roberts is going to be confirmed easily." Wolf Blitzer soon noted that "the conventional assessment here in Washington that he'll have pretty much smooth sailing up on Capitol Hill" - exactly, thanks to strategists within the Democratic Party.

Thus, to review: the strategists saying the party now needs to capitulate are the same strategists who created the pro-capitulation circumstances/conventional wisdom in the first place. Wonderful - what absolutely brilliant, self-fulfilling "strategy," especially in light of President Bush being in the weakest position he's ever been in. Perfect! Let's give these strategists a raise!"

Comments

kid oakland said…
Ah...the joys of Washington.

At the Katrina Survivors event I attended there was a speaker...referring to the levees who said something that just sticks in my mind, and might be applicable here...(and, yes, I'll write about it at some point)...she said:

We know, and they know, and they know we know.

Something is rotten in the heart of DC Dems....especially those on speaking terms with newspapers of record.

I remember Nina Totenberg and Jeffrey Rosen, immediately after the nomination was announced, sounding ecstatic about Roberts...and saying he was a "shoo in".

Of course, we the people, didn't even know who he was at that point. Do we the people have a say in the Beltway?

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