I swear to god I’m beginning to feel like The New Republic is my emotionally abusive lover. For one thing, there’s been the constant liberal-hawk stories about how we must stay the course in Iraq, culminating in a front page article last week about how utterly important it was that the US military remain to keep Iraq from imploding into warring city-states. That was it, I promised myself, that was the last straw, and I was going to stay with my Mother Jones from here on. I wouldn’t let TNR hurt me anymore.
But then yesterday it showed up in my mailbox with a bouquet of flowers and it seemed like everything was going to be so much better, because there was this whole big article about universal health care, and how the Democrats needed to return to their progressive roots rather than always think about how to play politics. And I thought to myself that it was really okay now, and I forgave TNR everything, and just last night I told some friends that I was really in love again, and it was going to be just us forever.
So what do I find today, but the bastard’s cheating on me again. Ryan Lizza has an article (free registration) knocking the crap out of Russ Feingold trying to rouse the Senate into censuring Bush:
“Feingold cares about wooing the anti-Bush donor base on the web and putting some of his ’08 rivals–Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Evan Bayh–in uncomfortable positions. Reid and Schumer care about winning the six seats it will take for Democrats to win control of the Senate. Feingold cares about making a political point with a measure that has no chance of succeeding and which, even if it did, would have no actual consequences.”
Plus the usual TNR crap about how the leftist netroots are psychos who just want an army of Dean and Feingold clones to march into Washington and sodomize all Republicans.
Y’know, we could debate all day about whether Feingold’s move was good politics or not, but I’m sick of having The New Republic keep telling me that the way to be a good little liberal is to play more and more to the center and abandon all principals en route to getting Democrats elected. I’m sick of your shit, TNR! This time I really mean it, I’m not going back to you again…
…but it used to be so nice to me.
Updated: Speaking of abusive relationships, when is Blogger going to stop sucking? I had to try three times before I got this to post successfully.