Dear Mr Sandoval, Consider Me Chastized

By Steve Hynd

Oh noes, the firebaggers have been Sandovaled! An email sent by the New Mexico state director for the Obama campaign has attacked Nobel winning economist Paul Krugman as a �fanatic�, an �idealogue� and a "political rookie" compared to the President as well as bashing the "Firebagger Lefty blogosphere" for not falling on their rhetorical swords to defend the president's spelunking tendencies.

The Obama campaign are already distancing themselves from Ray Sandoval's attack, of course, but as Chairwoman Jane at Firebagger Central explains, it's not exactly an outlier.

The California Democratic Party just refused to renew the charter of the largest caucus in the party, the Progressive Caucus, after they passed a resolution calling for a primary challenge to Obama in 2012. So this isn�t an isolated incident. It�s clear that the the Democrats want to marginalize liberals in 2012 for basically promoting the same values and saying the same things we�ve said during every presidency since time immemorial.

Meanwhile, Krugman himself writes:

some people in the Obama campaign really, really dislike people like me, who complain when the president gives in to GOP blackmail.

Well, at least they�re paying attention.

And that really is the crux of the problem isn't it? Krugman and the Firebaggers have devoted themselves to being the "professional Left" (like Ezra used to be) instead of being "professional Democrats" (like Ezra now is). Dude, that's like not realizing that a flat map of a mountain is exactly the same as that big, pointy, rocky thing over there and it's surely heresy to believe otherwise.

I now absolutely agree with John Cole that we should "hate the name that we came up with for ourselves". Obviously calling ourselves "Left" has totally distracted us from the reality that being "Dem" is what is truly important, come thick or thin and whether the Dem president is enacting any part of the Left's agenda or not. We shouldn't be pointing out "that we've basically had 9.0%+ unemployment for 2.5 years and maybe..somebody should do something." It's obviously illogical to demand the territory rather than the map our political betters say we can have. And more importantly, it's disloyal. Just ask the AFL-CIO.

 Mr Sandoval, consider this "firebagger" for one chastized!

/fingers crossed.

In another universe entirely, a new low of 26% of Americans approve of President Barack Obama�s handling of the economy. In this one, Ray Sandoval would be calling them "firebaggers", or something.