I wouldn’t be too worried about Glenn. He’s a good writer but he has a tendency to blow
a lot of hot air. He thinks Democratic control automatically means “progressive agenda”
but that’s not always been the case. Me thinks he doesn’t study his history too well. If
the left did what Glenn wanted the Dems would be back in the minority again and without
too many liberal or “moderate” Republicans around these days they would be utterly
impotent. He doesn’t want to face two facts: 1). There is no majority for a “progressive
agenda” in the country and 2). American political parties are not ideological blocs like
in parlimentarty systems. They are an amalgamation of different interest. Always have
been, always will be. Republicans are paying the price for killing off their liberal
wing. Does Greenwald wish to be equally sadistic? Sorry, Schumer and Emanuel are too
smart for that.

Greenwald’s piece is a case study in the poor priorities of the American Left. 

If Bob Conley were to be elected, he would immediately be the most anti-war, anti-empire, anti-corporate U.S. Senator in recent memory.  But to some leftists this isn’t suitable because Conley is an observant Catholic, who actually opposes abortion and gay marriage as a matter of principle.

That this scam still works is amazing.  To be fair there is a growing segment of the left that is sensible about these things.  Folks like Alexander Cockburn, John V. Walsh, Joshua Frank, Kirkpatrick Sale, Jeff Taylor (author of the excellent book on the collapse of the Democrats “Where Did The Party Go?) and others have the good sense to make alliances with authentic conservatives and libertarians in the interest of achieving common goals.  Still, they remain a minority, and they don’t have the power and access that other ideological, identity politics obsessed, lefties have. 

Greenwald’s bread and butter is supposedly civil liberties.  Conley is infinitely better on Constitutional protections than his liberal Democratic challenger Michael Cone was, and miles ahead of Lindsey Graham in that department.  Would Glenn throw Conley under the bus in the name of “progress”?

Antle seems to forget the lefty neo-con embrace by the right. Seems to me the right is more left than the left.

Childers winning his seat in Mississippi as a result of asserting “We’re spending our money in Iraq......when we should be spending it at home” gets to the heart of the matter. The GOP has lost it’s moorings because it lost it’s head economically. When it courted the Dixiecrats on the basis of their cultural conservatism, it acquired a bloc that professes antipathy to government while being first in line for a handout at at the trough.

The only benefit of having a Democrat in power now stems from the fact that they actually profess to like government, seek to use it productively and managed to leave the current charalatans a budget surplus. Our current GOP wants to “drag the government to the bathtub and drown it”, as Norquist asserts but grows government at a startling clip and has built a staggering deficit that defeats any advances in tax cuts.

It is all about spending and efficient means and it is readily apparent that the GOP has failed to learn their lesson because it thinks Federalism is demagoguery and increased government rather than the historic definition of a Federal Government within proscribed limits deferring the majority of governance to the States. When and if the GOP ever rediscovers this chaste and economical thinking, it might have a chance at recovering the battlefield advantage. The party was granted a tremendous prize when it found itself with both the Office of the Executive and a majority in Congress. It blew it and 9/11, though horrific and still a challenge, is no excuse.

Anti-war is just part of the bigger tent of Anti-spending and aversion to Statism.

Glenn is a good writer, and I probably agree with about 60% of what he writes (since he usually sticks to civil liberties), but every once and awhile his left bias comes rearing its head.  I remember one piece a few weeks ago that made it seem like all we need for our civil liberties to be secured in this country is....an entire SCOTUS full of Souter clones.

Bob Conley may be the endorsed nominee of the Democratic Party against Lindsey Graham, but they’re not doing sh*t. They fell head-over-heals for Inez Tenenbaum against Jim DeMint in 2004. They even poured the love on Jon Tester in 2006. Zogby showed Obama with a 1-point lead over McCain in South Carolina: http://www.zogby.com/50state/index.cfm. Schumer supports other Right Democrats, but not Conley.
I’m guessing it doesn’t have anything to do with ideology, promised votes, or hardright Trojan-horse-ism. It has to do with the washed-up, bombastic, Libertarian Party activist, notorious tax “protestor”, convicted felon(?), 60-something guy who Conley has volunteering as his “campaign manager”. Not to mention that he slicks back his hair, wears tinted glasses, and looks, dresses and smiles like a ‘70s porn star. Oh yeah, and in his blog bio, he says his interests include “women and sex”. Well, I actually wasn’t guessing about the DNC. Preston Elliott at the DSCC said they just didn’t trust the campaign to “spend donations wisely”. Me either. First time I met the current campaign manager (not Dan Castell), I half-expected him to tell me about a great company that I could make tens of thousands of dollars with by selling knives to all of my best friends.
Too bad Bob just isn’t getting it together.

The actual impact of a “Dixicrat” resurgence-and most Southern Democratic congressmen and senators did not join in the 1948 Dixiecrat revolt-- will be absolutely minimum at best.  Liberal Democrats will still dominate the leadership positions in Congress and will simply control the process to make sure conservative initiatives rarely, if ever, reach the floor.  The reason the old conservative southern Democrats had power is that they dominated the committee system.  Virignian Howard W. Smith, chairman of the House Rules Committee in the 50s and 60s, kept an untold number of bad bills from reaching the floor with the help of fellow conservative Democrat William Colmar of Mississippi and the Republicans on the committee.  These Democrats tended to hold their seats indefinitely, building up seniority and becoming chairman of the various committees. 
Nowadays, even if a conservative Democrat managed the longevity of one of the old “Dixiecrats,” because of the “reforms” of 1974, they would simply would not be allowed to become chairman of House committees.

The Dixiecrats, with a few notable exceptions, supported every insane military adventure and were infamous pork barrel spenders. Their social conservatism was mostly hot air
for their Bible-Belt contstituencies.

I don’t have as much of a problem with pork barrel spending, which cost millions--and how many people are really willing to give up federal funding for interstate highways--with social programs, which the conservative southern Democrats did not support, which cost trillions.  The social conservative issues were not the problem in the 40s and 50s--the heyday of the Congressional Conservative Coalition--that they are today.