manet-rising-tide-off.jpg

I don't know about everyone else, but I have quite had it with the kerfuffles that keep threatening to take our eye off the real work going into November. 

Contrary to some people's ignorant rantings, women have always had titties, so get over your nasty, smarmy insinuations and get your head out of someone else's lingerie bin.   I hadn't spent time with Jessica prior to the meeting on Tuesday, but she seems quite nice and was very sharp and doesn't deserve a bunch of faux jealous whining because she happens to have boobs.  Here's a news flash: every woman has boobs.  (Some men do as well, but that's a whole 'nother post.)  They come in all sizes.  Some women use them as props (Katherine Harris, Pamela Anderson, etc.), some women just have good posture.  But no woman should have to hunch over and be ashamed of her boobs because some other woman is perpetually walking around in claws out mode, hoping for an opportunity to use them -- especially when we are all well past the eighth grade.  That's not feminism, it's jealousy.

And all the griping about who was what color at the Clinton meeting earlier this week...well, it was done without anyone first checking with Peter Daou or anyone else on the Clinton staff.  Had such checking been done (you know, reporting...how quaint), inquiries would have revealed that a much larger number of folks had been invited -- including a number of African-American, latino, and so on and so forth bloggers -- but that they couldn't make it due to the quick nature of this first meeting being arranged.

Yes, you read that correctly. 

I've actually corresponded with Peter on this issue -- I thought checking with someone who might actually know what DID happen would be prudent before spouting my mouth off -- and it is my understanding that they hope to do a few more meetings with more bloggers in the future.  (Because, unlike some Presidents who are insular and like a sycophantic echo chamber, Bill Clinton likes to discuss issues from a number of perspectives.  So all this premature whining was just that -- premature.) 

I also know how quickly the meeting was put together, because it was an enormous scramble for me and my family to get me there -- making arrangements for our 3 year old, Mr. ReddHedd rearranging his schedule, etc. -- but we did it because it was important to me, and I felt would be important for FDL and our readers.  But it is completely understandable that everyone could not turn their schedule around on a dime -- and anyone who has spent time working or raising a family in their lifetime ought to know that. 

But all of this misses the larger picture:  liberal bloggers were invited to meet with the former President of the United States to talk about policy initiatives and the Democratic party and politics going into the November elections.  

What does that mean?  I'll let a snippet from a Guardian article speak to that:

Ever since blogs took off in America three or four years ago, the running has been made by writers and editors from the right such as Andrew Sullivan, Michelle Malkin and Glenn Reynolds, the law professor behind InstaPundit. Liberal sites were confined to the role of second cousins.

So the Clinton meeting was a much-needed pat on the back. Bill Scher, who edits the Liberal Oasis blog, thinks they are now emerging as real forces. "Right-wing blogs have been very good and very fast at putting out misinformation. What we are now learning to do is to be better than that - to put out good information faster than they do and accurately so that it cannot be rebutted."...

Now they have moved a step beyond that. "We are no longer dismissed as just ATMs for the Democrats - now people have to listen to what we say."

And THAT rising tide raises ALL the liberal blogger boats -- and those of our readers as well -- and not just the ones that happened to be in the room at this first meeting. 

In the larger scheme of things, Democratic messaging has been a sort of leaky life raft the last few years -- sometimes it floats okay, sometimes you spend all your time bailing.  Liberal blogs have become an effective means of messaging -- for the Democratic party, which needs the help getting their message across.  And also, and more importantly in my mind, for our readership, who are often folks who have trouble getting the ear of people in power, but often have a lot of incredibly valuable things to say and needs that ought to be addressed.  Blogs give all of us an opportunity to say these things and maybe, just maybe, have someone who can do something about them actually listen, by acting as a sort of megaphone for the greater sentiment of our aggregate group of readers.

How about instead of pointing our fingers at each other, we instead turn our energy toward pointing at the GOP?  Because, you know, they have really earned it.  And with an election coming up in less than two months, our energy ought to be focused on that...and not each other.

So I thought we could use some time this morning to brainstorm about how to more effectively kick the GOP out of power in the House and Senate.  And in state and local races nationwide as well.  Let's talk about things you've been doing locally to build Democratic party infrastructure (or what hasn't been working).  Let's put our considerable brainpower toward something that brings us all together, and lifts us further upward.  Pull up a chair...

(Manet's Rising Tide, oil on canvas, 1873, private collection.)