Insiders Disease

Interesting post at MyDD about something called "Insider's disease."

My thesis about Barack Obama is that he suffers from what I'll call 'insider's disease'. Obama is a progressive, he does understand the massive constitutional crisis we're in right now and does want to get beyond the entrenched interests that are weighing down our country. At the same time, he doesn't believe that the American people will support him if he stands up for these beliefs, so he says different things to different people. There is no better illustration of this than his endorsement of Lieberman. Take these two statements. One is in front of the Connecticut Democratic Party. The other was on Al Franken's show (the podcast is available here):
Statement one:

"I am absolutely certain Connecticut is going to have the good sense to send Joe Lieberman back to the U.S. Senate so he can continue to serve on our behalf," he said.

Statement two:

"We should work on a bi-partisan basis. Joe Lieberman and uh, the rest of the Republican Party." The crowd went "oooh" and Franken said "I- I got the joke..."

Either Barack Obama believes that sending a Republican to the Senate is a good idea, or he's being inconsistent on purpose for political reasons because he doesn't think that his progressive principles are politically useful. Unfortunately, if we don't win elections using progressive methods, we cannot govern in a progressive manner. Senator Lieberman helped scuttle Clinton's health care plan in 1993-1994 - endorsing him now isn't going to help the cause of universal health care, for instance.

Obviously insider's disease affects both sides. For Republicans its things like a simple tax policy, less government spending, immigration reform, etc.

A little remission got us two decent judges in the Supreme Court, Roberts and Alito. But other things?
Two Senate races come to mind, Toomey vs Specter and Laffey vs Chafee.

Insider's disease all the way.

Politics Posted by AlexC at March 31, 2006 12:37 PM