are not the same.
Like this post:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/01/sharpening-their-shivs-by-digby-im-sure.htmlI know, it's great fun to think about Rahm and Teddy telling Bill to STFU. But everybody ought to take a deep breath and remind themselves that this is also exactly the kind of thing Democrats do to their sitting presidents, whether named Clinton or, I dare say, Obama. They run to the press with the news that they scolded them so they can make sure everyone knows they are the ones running things.(I know everybody's forgotten how that used to be because the Republicans don't constantly air dirty laundry in public for their own aggrandizement. They usually work these things out among themselves for the good of the party.)
If the Democrats win the presidency, expect many more of these little dramas. The inflated egos of powerful Democratic Senators and Congressmen require that they consistently step forward to knee-cap their president whenever possible lest anyone get the idea that he (or she) is actually in charge. They're just practicing with Bubba, kind of a reminiscence of the good old days.
Sorry, but Ted Kennedy doesn't fall under the category of "Some Democrats". Digby is conflating the real DLC back stabbing against progressives ("Some Democrats" think John Kerry is embarrassing himself with his timetable for withdrawal. "Some Democrats" are not happy that Kerry called for a filibuster of Alito) with the fact that Bill is
lying and making a fool of himself on a daily basis. Now Rahm Emanuel is a DLC type, but flippin' Ted Kennedy is not. Let's not forget that the WH had to be talked into properly funding s-chip in the late '90s. Yet for Digby it is all "undermining the progressive agenda" to have these very real fundamental disagreements which
affect people's lives.
This part made me see red:
Oh, and don't worry about congressional prerogatives. They'll rediscover them with a vengeance when there's a Democratic president. They'll investigate his or her every move, calling for special prosecutors and generally behaving like asses, at the smallest provocation by the press if it gives them a chance to pontificate grandly on Tim Russert about their own superiority. They don't have the guts to do it when the Republicans are institutionalizing torture or lying the nation into an illegal invasion of another country, because well, Republicans are mean. But they'll find plenty of things about which to get righteously indignant with the executive when its a Democrat. They'll be in hypervenitlating, bipartisan bliss with their Republican cohorts, elbowing each other to be first to the microphone denouncing the latest shocking presidential failure to dot "i"s and cross "t"s.
Pardon me, but talk about calling the kettle black!! Bill Clinton led the effort to cover up Bush crimes when he swept the BCCI report under the carpet! John Kerry DID investigate the hell out of the Reagan/Bush administrations, and Pres. Clinton did NOTHING to further those investigations by declassifying documents. Bill Clinton stood for secrecy when the CIA drugrunning story splashed into the news in 1997, with Gary Webb's series on crack cocaine in LA. Bill Clinton is the worst offender of what Digby claims she despises. Yet let's throw it all on Teddy for pointing out that Clinton is being a nasty scoundrel in service to his wife.
I'm sorry, but I am too far gone to put up with the "Dem triangulation" of Digby. I mean, apparently, she blames Democrats like Teddy for Bill Clinton's disasterous first 2 years in the WH, and subsequent loss of Congress. Wow, that couldn't be further from the truth.