No, Dave, you're not entitled to your own facts.
Kari Chisholm
Thank God that David Reinhard is on his way out. I don't mind that the Oregonian has a conservative columnist; in fact, I hope they replace him with a good one. Perhaps one that recognizes that he's entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
Reinhard, on Sunday:
Zero is the number of positions Merkley has taken that are at odds with the Democratic Party. In Salem. And in this Senate race. Zero, zilch, nil, nada.
It seems that Reinhard hasn't been reading the paper he works for. After all, Jeff Merkley has taken plenty of positions that are odds with leaders in his party, and even with the majority in his party.
As Todd Beeton at MyDD noted, about the Smith/Merkley debate last week.
When asked about bucking his party, Merkley responded that he was against the war, against the bailout and against retroactive immunity for telecom companies. It's an interesting answer because basically what he's saying is "you know all those Democrats who caved on those fundamentally non-progressive votes... I won't cave. I'm not that guy."
Seriously, Dave. I know the bailout vote was a whole twelve days ago. But you do remember that a majority of Democrats in the U.S. Senate voted for it, right? Right?
Reinhard took the buyout offer on October 6, but had seven days to change his mind. Today's the day. Good night and good luck.
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connect with blueoregon
1:38 p.m.
Oct 13, '08
[Full disclosure: My firm built Jeff Merkley's website, but I speak only for myself.]
Oct 13, '08
I said pretty much the same thing in a post to his column last night on-line.
What a partisan hack, didn't he even watch the debate last week? Good riddance.
2:45 p.m.
Oct 13, '08
Actually, a majority of Democrats were against the war in Iraq.
Although the leadership of the party was certainly more than willing to give George Bush the authority to kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqis without any clear evidence of a threat to the United States, even after the vote to authorize military force, more than three quarters of all Americans -- not just Democrats -- wanted UN inspectors to find hard evidence of WMDs before going to war.
In Congress, about 60% of Democrats voted against the Iraq AUMF. That's a majority of the party, although the figure in the Senate was only 40%. If Merkley had been in the Senate in 2002 and he had voted against the AUMF, he would have been voting against the majority of Senate Democrats, he would have been voting against the Democratic leadership like Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, John Kerry, etc., and he would have been voting against the overall majorities in both the House and Senate.
But he would have been voting with the majority of his fellow Democrats in Congress. It's a shame that his answer at the debate perpetuated the idea that the Democrats were in the tank with the Republicans on the Iraq war. Certainly that was the case with far too many Democrats, but it wasn't the majority view.
No amount of cross-pollination with the Republicans is ever going to salve a twisted soul like Reinhard. I'm not so impressed with a Democrat who crosses over in the interests of bipartisanship as I am with someone who can persuade people that their position -- whatever it may be -- is the better option.
Oct 13, '08
Reinhard must have forgotten Merkley's brave stance against his fellow Dems with his support for public charter schools.
3:14 p.m.
Oct 13, '08
I'm not so impressed with a Democrat who crosses over in the interests of bipartisanship as I am with someone who can persuade people that their position -- whatever it may be -- is the better option.
I agree, Darrel. In fact, I had a rather lengthy exposition in my original draft questioning the very premise that the way we should judge people is on how often they vote in contradiction with their own stated ideology -- but pitched in favor keeping the post simple.
Gordon Smith, in my view, would be a much more honorable man if he'd say out loud that yes, dammit, he thinks George Bush has been right 90% of the time and he's proud to have voted with him. Instead, he's a weasel, who pretends that his 10% anti-Bush vote is really something like 50%. Weasel.
3:55 p.m.
Oct 13, '08
Kari, we may have had our disagreements on political tactics (or qua John McCain, is it "strategies"?) but I think we can heartily agree on the weaseliness of Gordon Smith.
Oct 13, '08
Dave took the buyout offer a long, long time ago.
Oct 13, '08
Reinhard wasn't thought-provoking at all. He merely delivered the paleoconservative talking points.
I was shocked to learn that he'd received a PhD in history. Too bad he didn't apply any of that rigorous scholarship to his columns.
Only Rich Lowry and Jeff Jacoby would be on par with the sophmoric rhetoric of Reinhard.
Good riddance indeed!
4:41 p.m.
Oct 13, '08
Newt Gingrich has a Ph.D. in History too, on colonial education policy in the Belgian Congo, no less -- wonder if his advisors knew he was looking for models for the U.S.?
4:58 p.m.
Oct 13, '08
I was also surprised to learn that he has a PhD in history. He has never used historical data and references of any noticeable depth that could have uplifted the quality of his columns.
Oct 13, '08