It's impossible to know if either too much activism, or too much acid led to Tom Hayden's multiple flashbacks in his most recent blog entry at Huffington's Post. He flashes back to a lost election and his own Vietnam-era anti-war sentiment, obviously not widely appreciated in today's society judging by recent peace demonstration turn out numbers. But he does effectively deliver another swipe at Hillary Clinton from the Left Coast.
Sen. Hillary Clinton, the seemingly invincible front-runner, is not likely to emerge from Iowa and New Hampshire unscathed. Her hardline support of the Iraq War is not only out of touch with Democratic voters, but appears to many as chronic opportunism. Unless the war suddenly ends, her credibility will suffer severely in the primaries.
As for flashing back to the most recent Presidential election, apparently he's still high enough from the Sixties to actually proclaim John Kerry a formidable candidate.
Feingold has the option of taking his case to the country in the presidential primaries, where his positions will be strongly supported in the early primaries.
Will Kerry, a much more formidable candidate, take the same course? No one can be certain, but the primary winds are blowing in the direction of peace and progressive politics.
His big mistake there is confusing a deterioration in support for the Iraq War with some victory for Progressive politics, which it is not. Progressives aren't causing a wind shift. True, many may be dissatisfied with the war's progress, but that doesn't mean they are all going to run out and buy love beads in run up to the next election. Witness the tone of the country in light of the current immigration flap.
Hillary, a shrew political operator, certainly more so than Hayden, knows that. While Progressives may eventually be her enemy, she also knows it's a minority viewpoint in the Democrat Party as a whole. Progressivism is nothing but code for Liberalism and the shunning of the word Liberal, even by Liberals themselves, says more about its future, than Hayden.
This is why the "Kerry factor" becomes important. As the former nominee, Kerry commands media and public attention. As an anti-war voice, he is in sharp contrast with the silence of the lambs. As a potential presidential contender, he is a credible foil to the centrist hawks and challenges the party leaderhip (sic) to make up its mind.
Lost in Hayden's musing is the fact that Kerry voted for the war, apart from supporting it. And while he is free to, at times, almost traitorously complain about its military application, he still can't run away from his all too many conflicting statements when under closer scrutiny by the public eye. One look at Kerry calling American soldiers terrorists for breaking into the homes of Iraqis, threatening women and children and violating the Muslim religion, which Kerry was stupid enough to say on a network broadcast, and he is toast, once again.
Hayden's progressive aka anti-war nonsense might play well in Hollywood and New York, but it isn't a theme for the coming Presidential election, what with Immigration and the now real threat from Iran certain to dominate the headlines of tomorrow, if not today.
Ultimately, what Hayden reveals is not so much that the Far Left is suffering from some form of communal flashback, they are more consistently mired in the past, all the while pronouncing themselves progressive. Nothing could be further from the truth.
They are a left-over from a too decadent decade, the Sixties, which America survived and has mostly chose to put behind it. If Progressives want to be progressive, they'd do well to start advocating something actually progressive for a change, instead of pounding the same old tin drums and tambourines with which they amused themselves so well almost forty years ago.
The times they are a changing, certainly. That's not so for most so-called Progressives. What you always wind up with them is more of the same old America, wrong no matter what tune not too many people seem interested in hearing anymore.


"Hillary, a shrew political operator . . ."
Pappa Freud would chuckle. I know I did.
Posted by: Sluggo | Sunday, April 09, 2006 at 11:44 AM
lol Just saw that - ha ha I think I'll leave the typo for comic relief. ; )
Posted by: Dan | Sunday, April 09, 2006 at 12:15 PM
Let us all light a candle to Karl Rove and pray that Kerry actually decides to run in the primaries...
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