MISCELLANY….Matt Y. tries to break through the lefty blogosphere cocoon:
I keep encountering people whose view of the [Democratic primary] race seems to be shaped by the assumption that it’s not possible that good-faith disagreements exist about national security issues among Democrats. That, in essence, all Democrats have very lefty ideas about this stuff and all deviations from an ideal plane of leftiness are explained by political cowardice. I’m not really sure what evidence anyone would find convincing on this score, but perhaps part of the value of having an inside-the-beltway corrupt Villager on your list of blogs-I-read is that I can tell you that in my experience this is false. There are lots of strongly partisan Democrats who very much think Bush has taken the country in the wrong direction but who vigorously disagree among themselves about what national security policy ought to look like.
This is absolutely true. The bulk of the Democratic Party — not to mention the bulk of the country — is simply not as uniformly noninterventionist as the lefty blogosphere often seems to think it is. I think the blogosphere has probably had some impact in moving this debate in a good direction, but it’s still only moved a few inches.
Relatedly, Matt also offers up a list of issues he wishes Democrats would address. It mostly looks like a bunch of landmines to me, though. Overall, it’s a list of issues that I’ll bet most Democrats want to avoid at all costs.
UPDATE: Here’s another list that’s mostly landmines. And a friend emails to comment about Dems being afraid to talk about guns.
Sheesh. At least all this stuff is being posted on Friday afternoon when no one is reading.
