Garence Franke-Ruta has good advice for MoveOn.org.
Yesterday at TAPPED, she gave the organization a talking-to about its crappy media strategy, in particular its painfully slow clarification (at this point, about six months too late) that, contrary to Karl Rove and the usual batch of carnie-barking sophists on the right, it didn't officially oppose the War in Afghanistan back in 2001 (Franke-Ruta also links to an RNC attack-memo offering more "proof" of MoveOn's alleged hippy pacifism. Once you swallow the unpleasant fact that one of the US's major political parties regularly churns out bullshit like this, you're left with the realization that these are in fact the worst quotes the RNC could come up with, and they're hardly incriminating). Moreover, even Pariser's post-911 peitition, run through an organization called 911Peace (later renamed MoveOn Peace, pace the RNC memo, though the initial petition urging restraint in Afghanistan had nothing at all to do with MoveOn), was hardly the sort of "hard-left" thing that Hugh Hewitt likes to insinuate when he uses that phrase. Mainly, 911Peace advocated a deliberately ambiguous "moderate and restrained" response to the terrorist attack, exactly the sort of thing you'd hope to hear from a mainstream left-liberal org during a violent, uncertain time and in the face of an untested, hawkish, ultra-conservative administration. And anyway, Pariser, who circulated the online petition with a fellow activist, didn't join MoveOn for another 12 months after that.
Franke-Ruta gets to the heart of the matter near the end of her posting:
"...MoveOn is, as it has long aspired to be, now a player in Washington. It should start acting like it knows it, and realizing that every opportunity it gives the Republicans to attack it -- by, for example, failing to get its own house in order -- is going to be used against Democratic elected officials over time.
...The Republican Party has three central political targets -- Howard Dean, MoveOn, and Michael Moore -- that it's actively seeking to completely discredit and make ridiculous, in order to then tie every elected Democratic official and left/liberal thinker to them (rendering them discredited, in turn). That's part of the long-term strategy, and something MoveOn is going to have to learn how to deal with effectively on an ongoing basis. It won't be easy."
Exactly. Exactly. Remember that MoveOn got its start defending a centrist Democratic president; it came into being during the Clinton impeachment in 1998, urging the nation to "censure and move on". It opposed Ralph Nader's 2000 campaign. Pariser himself is a pathetic excuse for a radical (in this interview he talks about unsuccessful efforts to convince Republican Senator Susan Collins to vote against the Iraq War Resolution. If the right wants a MoveOn radical to demagogue against, they're better sticking to Zack Exley of GWBush.org fame). And even if MoveOn has, from time to time, alligned itself for publicity campaigns with some dodgier characters on the left -- Michael Moore, Arianna Huffington -- it has hardly mapped out any ultra-left territory in its policy prescriptions. In fact, when push comes to shove, MoveOn has basically remained noncommital on all but the most blatantly obvious policy issues: Bush's various relaxations of environmental standards; the invasion of Iraq; getting John Kerry elected. The org is, and always has been, working for concensus and is clearly aware of where the mainstream of American political thought lies.
But none of that -- reality, that is -- matters if it doesn't get its media game going. Franke-Ruta replays all the greatest hits, most eggregiously the MoveOn founders' pathetic rebuttal to TNR's Peter Beinart and his stupid call last winter for the Democrats to renounce the group for being pacifist (along with Michael Moore. Beinart is now on leave from TNR turning his brilliant thoughts on these matters into a book. This is a double whammy since Beinart is simultaenously a great editor and a horrible commentator. TNR has suffered from his editorial absence while the book is likely to be as silly-ass as the original column). Nevertheless, Wes Boyd and Joan Blades spent not nearly enough of their allotted rebuttal space being outraged about Beinart's erroneous claim that they officially opposed military engagement in Afghanistan, and too much of it acting like the stereotypes Beinart made them out to be. Not surprisingly, Karl Rove and the RNC brought it all back this week.
MoveOn doesn't need to be purged. It's a valuable org that spans a wide ideological space on the left; imposes discipline on its members while at the same time providing a forum for citizen activism; and, in the McCain-Feingold era, helps close the hole left by the departure of soft money without the sort of strings that hamstrung the policy choices of the soft-money Democrats. It's allowed to make mistakes and to growl over territory, like, say, in its post-election "we bought it; we own it" lashing-out at Terry McAuliffe. But power engenders responsibility. Like Howard Dean, MoveOn now has an obligation to make things as difficult as possible for the Republicans and their radicalization strategy. That means wising up to the game.
Franke-Ruta gets to the heart of the matter near the end of her posting:
"...MoveOn is, as it has long aspired to be, now a player in Washington. It should start acting like it knows it, and realizing that every opportunity it gives the Republicans to attack it -- by, for example, failing to get its own house in order -- is going to be used against Democratic elected officials over time.
...The Republican Party has three central political targets -- Howard Dean, MoveOn, and Michael Moore -- that it's actively seeking to completely discredit and make ridiculous, in order to then tie every elected Democratic official and left/liberal thinker to them (rendering them discredited, in turn). That's part of the long-term strategy, and something MoveOn is going to have to learn how to deal with effectively on an ongoing basis. It won't be easy."
Exactly. Exactly. Remember that MoveOn got its start defending a centrist Democratic president; it came into being during the Clinton impeachment in 1998, urging the nation to "censure and move on". It opposed Ralph Nader's 2000 campaign. Pariser himself is a pathetic excuse for a radical (in this interview he talks about unsuccessful efforts to convince Republican Senator Susan Collins to vote against the Iraq War Resolution. If the right wants a MoveOn radical to demagogue against, they're better sticking to Zack Exley of GWBush.org fame). And even if MoveOn has, from time to time, alligned itself for publicity campaigns with some dodgier characters on the left -- Michael Moore, Arianna Huffington -- it has hardly mapped out any ultra-left territory in its policy prescriptions. In fact, when push comes to shove, MoveOn has basically remained noncommital on all but the most blatantly obvious policy issues: Bush's various relaxations of environmental standards; the invasion of Iraq; getting John Kerry elected. The org is, and always has been, working for concensus and is clearly aware of where the mainstream of American political thought lies.
But none of that -- reality, that is -- matters if it doesn't get its media game going. Franke-Ruta replays all the greatest hits, most eggregiously the MoveOn founders' pathetic rebuttal to TNR's Peter Beinart and his stupid call last winter for the Democrats to renounce the group for being pacifist (along with Michael Moore. Beinart is now on leave from TNR turning his brilliant thoughts on these matters into a book. This is a double whammy since Beinart is simultaenously a great editor and a horrible commentator. TNR has suffered from his editorial absence while the book is likely to be as silly-ass as the original column). Nevertheless, Wes Boyd and Joan Blades spent not nearly enough of their allotted rebuttal space being outraged about Beinart's erroneous claim that they officially opposed military engagement in Afghanistan, and too much of it acting like the stereotypes Beinart made them out to be. Not surprisingly, Karl Rove and the RNC brought it all back this week.
MoveOn doesn't need to be purged. It's a valuable org that spans a wide ideological space on the left; imposes discipline on its members while at the same time providing a forum for citizen activism; and, in the McCain-Feingold era, helps close the hole left by the departure of soft money without the sort of strings that hamstrung the policy choices of the soft-money Democrats. It's allowed to make mistakes and to growl over territory, like, say, in its post-election "we bought it; we own it" lashing-out at Terry McAuliffe. But power engenders responsibility. Like Howard Dean, MoveOn now has an obligation to make things as difficult as possible for the Republicans and their radicalization strategy. That means wising up to the game.
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