I'm a proud Democrat, active in local and statewide politics, and read DailyKos several times a day. I start off with this statement because I only tend to write a diary entry when I disagree with the majority on the board, because frankly there's only so many "yeah, what he said!" articles one can find interesting. These me-too diaries are also not particularly useful -- DailyKos has been accused of, often justifiably, being an echo-chamber for the left, resulting in a complete lack of understanding alternate points of view. Tunnel-vision doesn't win elections -- you can never, ever, ever win over another person if you refuse to grant the possibility that an intelligent, well-read individual could hold an opposing view to your own. Some of the most brilliant, highly educated people I've ever known have been hardcore right-wing conservatives, and the constant tendency of so many in my party (especially on this board) to arrogantly and flippantly dismiss these individuals as "idiots" demeans us more than it demeans them.
My recent frustration is over the reaction to the New York Times / L.A. Times reporting of the highly classified financial surveilance program. As far as I can tell from everything I've read and heard so far, this was a legal, congressionally approved program with enormous oversight in place, requiring extensive documentation on any search, very specific limits, and independent auditing across the board. And, it was working, leading to the uncovering of several al Qaeda operatives, the Bali nightclub bomber, and the conspirators behind the London 7-7 bombings. Without any evidence or even conjecture that the program was being abused, or that innocent people were being targetted, or that there was anything even remotely untoward about the program at all, the papers released the classified information, information which severely compromised the program and therefore could only help our enemies, during wartime.
Now, if the Democratic party was always in support of making everything classified de-classified, then we wouldn't have a problem. But scroll through some of the DailyKos articles and diary entries concerning the Valerie Plame affair. You will find hundreds and hundreds of impassioned calls of "treaon" -- hell, it seems nearly every Kos poster used the word "treason" to describe the Plame outing at one point or another, including, I think, me. Revealing classified information in wartime, it was unanamously argued by all of us, was a traitorous action worthy of explicit condemnation. We all repeatedly said that these actions could unforgivably result in the deaths of innocent people. We urged criminal prosecution against those involved. And we were right to do so. It is, then, an inexcusible hypocrisy if we do not oppose those on "our side" doing the same thing. Just like we don't get to call the Republicans "corrupt" without also condemning Jefferson for having $90,000 in bribes in his freezer, we don't get to accuse Republicans of "treason" if its okay to out classified information if it might make Bush look bad.
We cannot start with the assumption that everything Bush does, says, or believes is by definition wrong. As they say, even a broken clock is right twice a day. Suppose Bush makes the argument that if 2+2=4, and 2x2=4, and 4+4=8, then 4x4=8. He is wrong on his conclusion, but that doesn't invalidate the accuracy of the first three assumptions. It does us no good to say that 2+2 must NOT equal 4 because Bush said it does. There is a very dangerous, knee-jerk reaction to everything this President says that is unmatched in my lifetime to any leader I can recall. And it's hurting our party, because when the President is right on an issue, we come out in opposition to it in a way we never would if a Democrat had said the exact same thing. We need to remember that Bush is often wrong because his arguments are flawed -- the arguments aren't flawed because Bush supports them. I believe Bush is absolutely right to be angry with the Times for compromising our national security for no apparent reason other than spite. And, unless everything we said about Plame was a lie, we should be angry with the Times, too.