As someone who is involved with negotiations for a living, I'm pretty familiar with all that goes into it -- all the compromises, the deals, and the limitations.
So, it's become more and more frustrating to see much of the commentary coming from the left over the last couple of years.
The latest freak-out, of course, is over tax cuts: the GOP is betting that the Dems don't want to blow up the economy, and is betting the Dems think they'll be blamed if taxes go up. Both bets, in this media environment, are good ones. But to hear many on the left tell it, if Dems don't hold the line on this, the left will give up on Democrats en masse (the latest of such "tests" the left has thrown up).
I've frequented blog communities on the left for years. But it's sure becoming difficult to spend time on many of them, where attacking Obama and the Democrats has become the new black. It's a sure-fire ticket to the "recommended diary list" on Daily Kos, and a great way to increase readership in many places.
In my opinion, this is simply the latest example of the left cutting off its nose to spite its face. Instead of addressing the real problem (the media and political zeitgeist in which we find ourselves) and holding the line elsewhere, liberals would instead prefer to attack Democrats for not having solved all the world's problems, and anyone who defends them as sell-outs.
Liberals simply have to start thinking long-term. And no, we don't have to sell out our principles to do it. This is a matter of strategy and patience, not ideology. Someday, liberals will get that -- and on that day, we'll start winning.
