Legal Commentary

Fight For Policies, Not The Pols

By Big Tent Democrat

Writing about the America's Future Now! conference going on in DC this week, David Dayen writes:

Surly is about the best word to describe this conference in Washington after the first day. Speaker after speaker excoriated the trajectory from the political sphere as too accommodating, too solicitous, and not enough. [. . .] Attendees expressed that they can no longer – if they ever could have – expect this Administration to do the right thing, and that they must be pushed aggressively from the outside. “Uncomfortable” was a word I heard a lot. “When you treat Chris Dodd and Barney Frank like they’re your buddies, you’re doing it wrong,” said Rob Johnson, economist with the Roosevelt Institute. “You have to get under their skin. They are part of that resilient structure in DC.”

Dayen complains that no real "solutions" have been offered. Perhaps so. But in my view it is important that this message - that pols are pols and do what they do - be absorbed and accepted. If this conference is spreading that message, it is doing a good thing. Yes, 'then what?' is an obvious question. But the first step to solving a problem is recognizing that it exists.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on June 08, 2010 (boomark / email).