Newshoggers Archive: Not A Chip Off The Old Block

Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.

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Monday, February 15, 2010

Not A Chip Off The Old Block

Commentary By Ron Beasley

The headline reads: Bayh to retire in huge blow to Dems. I say not so much! I say good riddance to the Senator from WellPoint.

His wife, Susan Bayh, sits on the board of WellPoint(WLP Quote) in her hometown of Indianapolis. Over the last six years, Susan Bayh has received at least $2 million in compensation from WellPoint alone for serving on its board.

Call it a purge if you want but who needs the Republican's favorite Democrat.

Evan Bayh learned early that liberalism and ambition don't always mix in a red state like Indiana.

It
was 30 years ago that Bayh, then a 24-year-old law school student,
helped run the re-election campaign of his father, Senator Birch Bayh.
An unrepentant liberal with national aspirations (he'd run for
president in 1976), the elder Bayh was targeted by a then-emerging
network of "New Right" activists and fundraisers, who pilloried him as
a big spender and slammed his support for abortion rights, gay rights
and school busing.

As expedient as it might have
been, Birch Bayh refused to back down from his principles in that
campaign, an honorable stand that hastened his demise. On Election Day,
he was defeated -- handily. By Dan Quayle. At 52, his political career
was over.

His son, it seems, was taking notes.

Evan
Bayh inherited all of his father's drive for national office but none
of his progressive backbone. From his father's defeat, he seemed to
draw a lesson: You can dream big dreams if you're a Democrat from
Indiana -- you just can't be proud to be a Democrat. And that has been
the defining principle (to the extent there's been one) in Evan Bayh's
quarter-century political career, which began with a successful 1986
campaign for secretary of state in Indiana and which now may be ending,
with his stunning decision to exit the Senate after two terms.

Does it mean the Democrat's majority in the Senate is more at risk? You betcha! Does it really matter? Not really! What good does it do to have the majority if the Republican's favorite Democrat can block any legislation that is even slightly progressive. Birch Bayh had principles, his son Evan has only ambition - an Ayn Rand Democrat.

So, as The Moderate Voice's David Adesnik says Bayh-Bayh Evan, we're not going to miss you.

Update:

Bayh is leaving because of "lefty" bloggers?

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