Donkey Poseurs

In his comments about a previous SLANTblog post, “Is Miller Going High Road, or Low?” Conaway Haskins, of South of the James, suggests some Democrats seem "programmed to lose," even "afraid to win."

Well, I agree with him.

It seems to me this attitude began to have sway in the donkey party when many lefty Dems in the 80s had no real answer for Reagan’s success in building the big tent the Republicans have used ever since. They were baffled. Instead of confronting the Reagan-thinking directly on the issues of the day, they preferred to strike a pose that said -- "We were correct about Vietnam and Civil Rights, we’ll always be correct, no matter the issue. One day you’ll see that’s so. We’ll wait..."

They are still waiting.

Still wrapped up in striking backward-looking poses. Still living in the Glory Days when their causes were cool. Still quibbling over syntax and purity, still losing elections.

Now some of them are foaming at the mouth over what a thoughtful man, James Webb, may have said over 30 years ago about the subject of women serving in combat zones. Never mind how much has changed since then, to them Webb can never be a "real Democrat" if, as a young man, he believed something that is now out of style.

You know what, dear reader, most of the men that I know of the liberal persuasion, who are also combat veterans of Webb’s generation, still think women shouldn’t be in combat zones. (By the way, most worry about how young men will act under fire in a co-ed foxhole, rather than whether or not women can fight.) Sorry, but it's true and I've asked lots of them about this. Are the purists going to drum them out of the party too, as being anti-feminists?

Are we really going to say that a group of 50-some-years-old men, with firsthand experience in all-out combat, should be branded as "less-than-real Democrats," because on one issue they might have a generational prejudice? Then again, is it a silly prejudice, or a belief that was forged in a crucible?

Those are fair questions?

Honest people can debate them without calling their opponents barbarians or fools, and attempting to ostracize them. A political party that can’t hold together while such differences are settled by time is going nowhere fast.

Those Miller partisans attempting to brand Webb as unworthy in this particular way are perfectly willing to lose to George Allen in November as long as they can say they struck the right, or is it left? pose, again. Winning and governing isn't what they are about. What they are about is something to ponder, too. Can you dig it?