26/01: What's Wrong with the Democratic Party. A brief note in a continuing discussion.
Category: Politics
Posted by: A Waco Farmer
Friday morning on C-SPAN's Washington Journal:
Steve Scully moderated a discussion between Marcy Wheeler and Byron York in studio, both of whom are covering the I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby perjury trial related to the Valerie Plame-Joe Wilson controversy.
York is a correspondent for National Review covering the courtroom action, not surprisingly, in a way overtly friendly to the administration in general and Scooter Libby in particular.
Wheeler is a prolific and increasingly popular personality on the left-wing blogosphere. She sometimes blogs as "emptywheel" (you may read a sample of her reportage here via Daily Kos).
She is author of Anatomy of a Deceit, the product of her investigation of the Plame affair, which is due to be released during the next few days. You may buy it here from Common Language, "a Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Feminist bookstore," and the self-described "sole remaining GLBT/Feminist store in the State of Michigan." The site urges "support of us... [which] will help us survive and ensure that the NEXT book by Marcy Wheeler will have a place to be sold."
Wheeler earned her PhD from the University of Michigan in 1995 (although I was unable to discern in which discipline she attained her degree). On the net, she is often described as a consultant in Ann Arbor. According to her extremely sketchy unofficial bios, she has been a Democratic Party official in Michigan and was a staffer for Howard Dean in 2004.
Two moments in the conversation struck me:
1. Identifying himself as a citizen of "fly-over country," a caller wondered if Wheeler, in the event that Libby won acquittal, would then spend as much time and effort helping him to clear his name as she had asserting his perfidy.
She refused to admit any possibility of Libby's innocence, but, perhaps more telling, she took offense at the assumption that she was not from "fly-over country." The caller had mentioned "Katie Couric and the Washington establishment." Wheeler insisted she was from Michigan--not Washington.
Evidently, she did not understand that an academic from Ann Arbor was as foreign to this Heartlander as Katie Couric. In the mind of Red-State America, Wheeler is part of the Washington establishment.
2. At the conclusion of the segment, Scully asked the two guests to identify their favorite president. York, an Alabama native who doesn't seem quick to advertise that fact, picked Abraham Lincoln.
Wheeler seemed nonplussed by the question. "My favorite president?" she twice repeated. "I don't have a favorite American president," she finally said in a dismissive and disgusted tone. "My favorite president is the first woman president. My favorite president is the first African American president."
Evidently, all those white guys had been the agents of patriarchy and racial oppression and unworthy of her admiration. I can only infer that she impatiently awaits the revolution. Power to the people.
For background: What's Wrong With the Democratic Party: Part I.
Steve Scully moderated a discussion between Marcy Wheeler and Byron York in studio, both of whom are covering the I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby perjury trial related to the Valerie Plame-Joe Wilson controversy.
York is a correspondent for National Review covering the courtroom action, not surprisingly, in a way overtly friendly to the administration in general and Scooter Libby in particular.
Wheeler is a prolific and increasingly popular personality on the left-wing blogosphere. She sometimes blogs as "emptywheel" (you may read a sample of her reportage here via Daily Kos).
She is author of Anatomy of a Deceit, the product of her investigation of the Plame affair, which is due to be released during the next few days. You may buy it here from Common Language, "a Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Feminist bookstore," and the self-described "sole remaining GLBT/Feminist store in the State of Michigan." The site urges "support of us... [which] will help us survive and ensure that the NEXT book by Marcy Wheeler will have a place to be sold."
Wheeler earned her PhD from the University of Michigan in 1995 (although I was unable to discern in which discipline she attained her degree). On the net, she is often described as a consultant in Ann Arbor. According to her extremely sketchy unofficial bios, she has been a Democratic Party official in Michigan and was a staffer for Howard Dean in 2004.
Two moments in the conversation struck me:
1. Identifying himself as a citizen of "fly-over country," a caller wondered if Wheeler, in the event that Libby won acquittal, would then spend as much time and effort helping him to clear his name as she had asserting his perfidy.
She refused to admit any possibility of Libby's innocence, but, perhaps more telling, she took offense at the assumption that she was not from "fly-over country." The caller had mentioned "Katie Couric and the Washington establishment." Wheeler insisted she was from Michigan--not Washington.
Evidently, she did not understand that an academic from Ann Arbor was as foreign to this Heartlander as Katie Couric. In the mind of Red-State America, Wheeler is part of the Washington establishment.
2. At the conclusion of the segment, Scully asked the two guests to identify their favorite president. York, an Alabama native who doesn't seem quick to advertise that fact, picked Abraham Lincoln.
Wheeler seemed nonplussed by the question. "My favorite president?" she twice repeated. "I don't have a favorite American president," she finally said in a dismissive and disgusted tone. "My favorite president is the first woman president. My favorite president is the first African American president."
Evidently, all those white guys had been the agents of patriarchy and racial oppression and unworthy of her admiration. I can only infer that she impatiently awaits the revolution. Power to the people.
For background: What's Wrong With the Democratic Party: Part I.
