Regarding prominent leftists

[BlindTiresias]

Does anyone have a list of leftists that the doctrinaire dems haven't thrown under the bus for slights against Obama (real or perceived)? It is getting hard to keep track of.

[MohRokTah]

1. Quite frankly, I have no respect for "prominant leftists" who do not win public office.

Another apt desctiption for them would be "unrealistic whiners".

[BlueCaliDem]

2. The perfect response to that post.

Thanks, MohRokTah.

[MohRokTah]

4. Let them run for and win office.

Then what they say will actually mean something.

Until then, they remain unrealistic whiners.

[BlindTiresias]

6. I mean

Don't you think its a little much to basically be writing off every single one like that? Lots of prominent and influential leftists have historically never held office but still done great things. I dunno, I hope you are just saying this out of anger or something.

[sabrina 1]

17. Have you run for office? Won, lost? So MLK eg, would not have had your respect?

[BlindTiresias]

3. Alright

Well at least you are honest.

[Union Scribe]

9. I think you've made your dislike

of the left in general quite clear.

[MohRokTah]

10. I do not disike the left in general, since I am a leftist.

I dislike the unrealistic left in general.

This constitutes a large portion of the so-called left because they have no realistic viewpoint on how to implement left policies.

[Union Scribe]

11. .

[MohRokTah]

12. Thank you for proving the point. eom

[Union Scribe]

13. (you didn't have one) nt

[MohRokTah]

14. And yet again, you prove the point. eom

[sabrina 1]

18. Funny, a lot of people definitely got that you don't like the 'left', which is fine, but the left

has been right about just everything over the past 15 years or so. I haven't seen you support much of anything that would be considered 'left' other than the obligatory women/gay/minority issues which is required in order to be accepted as 'left'. The Third Way which is actually Far Right, which wants to stand out by giving itself that title, also 'supports' those issues, but on everything else they are far right.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

15. Martin Luther King, Walter Reuther, and Albert Einstein never won public office.

To name just a few.

[sabrina 1]

16. So you DO respect prominent leftists like Dennis Kucinich eg? I'm not surprised btw, that you

do not respect Leftists. The question is, who do you respect? It's either Leftists, Righties or worse than both, the Third Way?

[JEB]

5. The party just keeps sidestepping rightward.

MLK never held office, so according to some here he was just a whiner. Disgusting. If that is the really the Democratic Party's position, then it's over. Probably just a handful of ignorant bully types spouting off.

[BlindTiresias]

7. yeah

I don't know what to make of it, personally.

[JEB]

8. I think a handful of Obama worshippers get their shorts in a twist

whenever someone on the expresses anything less than blissful worship.

[OilemFirchen]

19. I threw a big one under the bus,

but no one even rubbernecked:

Nat Hentoff

Hentoff was formerly a columnist for Down Beat, The Village Voice, JazzTimes, Legal Times, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, The Progressive, Editor & Publisher and Free Inquiry. He was a staff writer for The New Yorker, and his writing has also been published in the New York Times, Jewish World Review, The Atlantic, The New Republic, Commonweal and in the Italian Enciclopedia dello Spettacolo.

...

On December 31, 2008, the Village Voice, which had regularly published Hentoff's commentary and criticism for fifty years, announced that he had been laid off.[4] In February 2009, Hentoff joined the libertarian Cato Institute as a senior fellow. In January 2010, however, Hentoff returned and wrote one article for the Voice. Since February 2008 Hentoff has been a weekly contributing columnist at WorldNetDaily.com.

...

Hentoff is known as a civil libertarian, free speech activist, anti-death penalty advocate, anti-abortion advocate. He supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq and is a supporter of Israel.

...

Hentoff holds what mainstream media may describe as idiosyncratic views. He espouses generally liberal views on domestic policy and civil liberties, but in the 1980s, he began articulating more socially conservative positions—opposed to abortion, voluntary euthanasia, and the selective medical treatment of severely disabled infants. Hentoff argued that a consistent life ethic should be the viewpoint of a genuine civil libertarian, arguing that all human rights are at risk when the rights of any one group of people are diminished, that human rights are interconnected, and people deny others' human rights at their own peril. After he emerged as an opponent of abortion, several of his colleagues at The Village Voice stopped speaking to him.

Go ahead and defend him, if you choose.