DLC, 1985-2005?

WIth Matt joining the call (Atrios, Digby, Me) for the DLC to Sister Souljah the bankruptcy bill, it seems the left has reached consensus on this. Except that means the DLC can no longer do it. The whole point of a Sister Souljah is that it's an unexpected action that preemptively proves you or your organization independent from a too-powerful constituency. To release a grudging condemnation after political pressure, or at least moral pressure, mounts for you to do so destroys the point. That's why Marshall Whitman's charges of GOP hypocrisy (which only glancingly touch the bill) and Ed Kilgore's throwaway line of condemnation, both of which came after the fact, really don't do the trick. What would have sent the message is the New Dem Dispatch, the latest of which hit my mailbox at 2pm yesterday. But instead of addressing the bankruptcy bill, it was some boilerplate about "Generation M", and how we need to regulate the media watched by our kids. Thanks guys.

The DLC is already an embattled organization. Their favorite son (Lieberman) lost in 2004, their least favorite son (Dean) was the first winner of 2005, the resurgent liberal base can't stand them, Clinton's legacy is rapidly fading from memory, and so forth. And, amidst all this, Al From remains focused on giving party progressives an unending stream of purple nurples. That's fine, you want to publish your op-eds in the Wall Street Journal, have at it. But without at least the occasional effort to show that their loyalty to the Democratic party is more important than their disagreements with its left flank, they leave their defenders in an impossible position. And this isn't 1992, few retain respect for the DLC's raison d'etre. If, in their increasingly marginalized state, they continue to refuse to bolster their few remaining advocates, it's time to write their epitaph.