This isn't intended as a dig, rather a call to arms. When is the grassroots finally going to step up and take back your party? These guys are freaking creeps that must be stopped.


Published on Friday, December 3, 2004 by the New York Press
No More Moore: The DLC Joins the Witch-Hunt
by Matt Taibbi


We've got to repudiate, you know, the most strident and insulting anti-American voices out there sometimes on our party's left... We can't have our party identified by Michael Moore and Hollywood as our cultural values.
— Al From, CEO, Democratic Leadership Council

You know, let's let Hollywood and the Cannes Film Festival fawn all over Michael Moore. We ought to make it pretty clear that he sure doesn't speak for us when it comes to standing up for our country.
— Will Marshall, President of the Progressive Policy Institute, the think-tank of the DLC

THE FIRST THING I thought when reading these passages—both taken from a "soul-searching" roundtable held by the Democratic Leadership Council—was this: Who the hell is Will Marshall?

I couldn't remember seeing his name at the top of anybody's ballot. I didn't remember which, if any, elections he had ever won. I was a little mystified, in fact, by the nature of his popular support—who he meant, exactly, when he used the word "we" to talk about whom Michael Moore does and does not speak for.

According to the last data I could find, Moore recently made a movie that was seen by tens of millions of people around the world and has grossed nearly $120 million in the U.S. alone. Furthermore, it was, according to exit polls, a much better demographic success than the actual Democratic party. A Harris poll conducted in July found that 89 percent of Democrats agreed with Fahrenheit 9/11, along with 70 percent of independents. That means Moore outperformed John Kerry among independents by about 19 points, if we are to go just by the data presented by bum-licking power-worshipper Ron Brownstein of the Los Angeles Times at the DLC roundtable.

Moore's revenues come from millions of ordinary people paying 10 bucks a pop to see his film. In contrast, only about 200 people a year visit the DLC at the box office—only they pay thousands of dollars per ticket, and they all have names you'd recognize: Eli Lilly, Coca-Cola, Union Carbide, Occidental Petroleum, BP and so on.

Like Moore, Marshall is a media figure. He is one of the chief contributors to Blueprint magazine, the flagship publication of the DLC. Despite the fact that subscriptions to this magazine are included free with membership in the DLC, its annual circulation still lags slightly behind the gate for Fahrenheit 9/11, with about 20,000 readers per year.

An unfair dig, you say: Blueprint is a trade magazine. Seen in that light, it indeed appears a much better market performer, with only about six times fewer readers than the industry bible for horror makeup artists, Fangoria.

While it is not exactly clear who else Marshall is talking about in this quote, it is fairly clear that he means that Michael Moore does not speak for him personally. Which makes sense, of course.

In addition to his duties as the president of the PPI, Marshall kept himself busy in the last few years. Among other things, he served on the board of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, an organization co-chaired by Joe Lieberman and John McCain whose aim was to build bipartisan support for the invasion of Iraq.

Marshall also signed, at the outset of the war, a letter issued by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) expressing support for the invasion. Marshall signed a similar letter sent to President Bush put out by the conservative Social Democrats/USA group on Feb. 25, 2003, just before the invasion. The SD/USA letter urged Bush to commit to "maintaining substantial U.S. military forces in Iraq for as long as may be required to ensure a stable, representative regime is in place and functioning."

One of just a handful of Marshall's co-signatories on that letter was Bruce Jackson, who also happens to be the head of the PNAC (whose letter Marshall also signed) and the founder of the aforementioned Committee for the Liberation of Iraq. Jackson is not only a neo-con of high rank and one of the chief pom-pom wavers for the war effort. He was also a vice president in the weapons division of Lockheed-Martin between 1993 and 2002—meaning that he was one of the implied targets of Bowling for Columbine, which came out in Jackson's last year with the company.

Clearly, Marshall was thinking about the good of the Democratic Party, and not the integrity of his grimy little network of missile-humping cronies, when he and Al From made the curious—and curiously conspicuous—decision to denounce Moore, Hollywood and France at the DLC meeting in early November.

There were a number of things that were strange about the release of this obviously coordinated series of sound bites from the DLC heavies.

For one thing, people like Al From, Donna Brazile and DLC president Bruce Reed—event speakers who are all high-level political heavyweights whose instinct for spontaneity died with their souls 100 years ago, and would never say anything without first calculating its potential impact—would seem to gain very little by mentioning Moore's name at all in the conference.

To say openly in front of a roomful of reporters that the party has to disavow Michael Moore is to remind a roomful of reporters that the Democratic party is still currently linked to Michael Moore. This would be like George Bush Sr. using the word "wimp" in public, or John Kerry using the word "effete" or "snob." No alert political operative would recommend it, under normal circumstances.

Furthermore, as both Marshall and From surely know, there was no effort whatsoever even this time around by the Democratic Party to associate itself with Michael Moore. Excepting the brief and mostly unrequited love affair between Moore and Wes Clark, most of the party candidates recoiled from the fat director as from a diseased thing throughout the entire campaign season. They've already kept him at arm's length—why talk about the need to do it again? Why bring him up at all?

Well, that's easy. It's one thing to avoid public appearances with a Michael Moore, and to accept his support only tacitly. But it's another thing entirely to openly denounce him as anti-American, which is what Al From did last week.

What From, Marshall and the other DLC speakers were doing last week was not just ruminating out loud about the need to shy away from certain demonized liberal icons. They were, instead, announcing their willingness to embrace the other side's tactic—I hate to lean on this overused word, but it is a McCarthyite tactic—of branding certain individuals as traitors and anti-Americans. What they were doing was sending up a trial balloon, to see if anyone noticed this chilling affirmative shift in strategy and tactics.

Well, I noticed. I also noticed that unless something is done about it, this unelected bund of corporate pawns is once again going to end up writing the party platform and arranging things to make sure that no antiwar candidate is allowed to compete for votes in the primaries. It will push one of its own—probably Harold Ickes, or Brazile—in next year's election for the chairman of the Democratic Party. And when that person wins, the tens of millions of Democrats who opposed the war will have to get used to people like Will Marshall referring to them as "we" in front of roomfuls of reporters—Marshall, who this year wrote, in Blueprint, an article entitled "Stay and Win in Iraq" that offered the following view of the progress of the war:

"Coalition forces still face daily attacks but the body count tilts massively in their favor."

Uh-huh. And Michael Moore and Hollywood are the problem with the Democratic Party.

© 2004 New York Press

This is a common theme in politics: subversion of the party ideals by bureaucratic opportunists and ambitious used car salesmen. Also see: Tony Bliar's New Labour.

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Yes, that's exactly what has been going on with the Dems. These corporate shills have hijacked the party over the last two decades, and all you have to do is examine the results; the Dems lost the Congress, then the White House two times in a row by running bland centrist visionless automatons. Yet the DLC has the bald-faced audacity to proclaim loudly that the party keeps losing because it's not sufficiently bland, centrist and visionless--WTF???

Z,
I agree the party has nominated bland candidates. But centrists?! Kerry's record is as far left as can be measured by any current standards. If you want to go further left, what is the goal? Absolute socialism? Inquiring minds want to know.

They lost because the majority of the country isn't Leftist liberals any more.

Keep pushing the DNC to go Further left.....please......I want more republicans in office than are right now.

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"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche

There are "extremist" at, or near, the top of both sides and their existence merely mutually fuels their existence and power positions. It's the ability of those segments to deliver votes and money that keep them there.

Just take an objective run through the party platform, or more appropriately, through the vote tallies of Congress. I don't think you'll find even a hint of Leftist, let alone Liberal policy promulgation anywhere. It's fine to get all huffed up on partisan rhetoric during the election if you must, but I'm trying to maintain a discussion about the nuts n' bolts intersection between principles and policies. The Dems used to stand for some long-held principles that have all been put out to pasture by the goons at the DLC and a calcified party hierarchy.

I'm not a Dem, but I do see the need for citizens who count on that particular party to "represent" their interests and values to take a good hard clear-eyed look at your "emperor"--do you honestly like his attire?

Do you know how hard it is for me to stay out of these political threads? Anyway, we DID try and the masses folded. His name was Howard Dean. Take a look at what he did in his home state. I believe, with all my heart, that had he been President we would be stronger than ever as a nation AND as a people. The facts speak for themselves when you look at them.

He owed not ONE group a single thing... and that's just for starters.

I'll stay out of here now.

; Pete

Yes, we in the "grass roots" DID try, but I think more properly his name was Wesley Clark. A fiscal conservative, social liberal, and a retired General and military expert, he was and is exactly what the US needs right now! We mounted a huge effort in Oklahoma and he did win our primary. I spoke with a member of his immediate family right before the primary, and sensed that something had gone wrong, nationally ---- as if some expected support had failed to materialize. Whether this is right or wrong, his campaign just died after Oklahoma, and he withdrew shortly thereafter.

Oklahoma is a Republican stronghold, though strangely many of our Republicans are registered as Democrats.(?) Clark had a lot of support from this group, who later switched to Bush after Clark withdrew. I can't help but believe that Clark would generated the same sort of cross-overs nation wide, had he been nominated.

One of the strange things all Michael Moore bashers should note. Mr. Moore was one of the earliest Clark supporters! Now, how much of a "leftist looney" can Moore REALLY be if his first pick for President was a General?

Thanks,
Richard

Kerry's biggest error was in not picking Clark as a running mate. Edwards turned out to be ineffective and wrong for the times. The biggest problem with the ticket was Kerry himslef - he just was not a man who inspired anyone. Believe it or not I think the Democrat's best nominee would have been a Republican, John McCain. McCain may regret he did not take a shot at it.

You guys are talking about mere candidates. The article is about the meta-politics behind the scenes within the party. A candidate does not make the party. A nice home paint job frequently hides rot and structural damage, and it's no different for an organization -- see Clinton.

The prime question for those who self-identify as Democrats is to ask themselves if they know much about the administrative folks that make the trains run on time. These folks also decide where those trains stop and who gets left behind...or just run over. The hapless voter just rubber stamps 'their' choices. If you've never heard of the DLC, then you really owe it to yourself and the nation to bone up, cuz they're running the show...and the party straight into the ground.

Old 2000-era link still relevant today: http://www.progressive.org/nich1000.htm

Other people have mentioned that.

...sigh.

May I ask a question without being accused of being a troll?



Why does everyone assume that the DNC's majority "group" is made up of people with a Globalist European Liberal mindset? That is the drift I get from the Soros/Hollywood/Moore/Schumer/Finestein group, anyway.

I always thought except for the vocal-yet-dont-vote protesting youth groups, the DNC majority group was the easily-manipulated/gullible-yet-core-valued Ma & Pa Democrat.

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...try re-phrasing with more value neutral terms.