Why Are Democratic Leaders at War With 'the Left'?

Posted by David Sirota, Open Left at 3:03 PM on November 18, 2008.

Seems to me that House and Senate leaders have declared an all-out war on "the Left." In fact, "seems" is the wrong word. It doesn't "seem" like that. They are actually saying it explicitly. Here's this excerpt from the Washington Post (h/t FDL):

Asked what it would mean if Lieberman kept his chairmanship, one Senate Democratic aide said bluntly: "The left has been foiled again. They can rant and rage but they still do not put the fear into folks to actually change their votes."

Here's the Hill newspaper today:

Democratic leader says party won't turn left

By Mike Soraghan

As the House prepares to elect its leaders, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is challenging the idea that the expanded Democratic majority and its leaders will make a hard left turn.

To show that these aren't errant, uncommon statements, make sure to read Glenn Greenwald's review of how this hatred for "the Left" now reaches all the way to the top of the new Obama administration through Rahm Emanuel.

It's pretty odd that only two weeks after a landslide election that saw a huge ideological progressive mandate, Democratic congressional leaders think it's a great public message to declare jihad on progressives.

I don't know, call me crazy, but I think 67 million people voted for Democrats because they want Democrats to reject Bush's ideological conservatism and solve problems - not spend their time making paranoid, quasi-McCarthy-ist speeches deriding "the Left."

If we wanted that, wouldn't we have elected John McCain and Sarah Palin?

Tagged as: democrats, progressives, leaders, the left