War? What War?
posted by Josiah Garber on September 5, 2009
in Politics, War & Peace
by Justin Raimondo, August 21, 2009
The “Netroots Nation” conference held last weekend in Pittsburgh attracted some attention, at least in the circles I move in, on account of Bill Clinton putting another uppity gay in his place: challenged by an audience member over the gays-in-the-military issue, Clinton went off on the guy by demanding to know when progressives were going to start backing up their ideology with action. “You didn’t back us up!” he whined, to general approval. And indeed the big question at this year’s annual progressive powwow was, as Slate put it,
“How do we hold Obama to his campaign promises? There was plenty of concern about Obama’s dedication to closing Guantanamo, abolishing indefinite detentions, shoring up gay rights, and implementing immigration reform. (Of course, between health care and climate change and fixing the economy, there are plenty of commitments the administration hasn’t backed away from.) So the fundamental disagreement among attendees was: Should we of the Netroots be fundamentally supportive of Obama or should we oppose him from the left?”
A panel dubbed “Transformation? Or Shock” gives us a clue as to the “progressive” answer: “There,” reports Slate, “an audience member argued that the Netroots has to back the president. She was sick of people on the left yelling at Obama, claiming that he didn’t share their interests. A panelist, Digby, writer of Hullabaloo, said it’s possible to be respectful but firm. She compared it to the story about Franklin Delano Roosevelt telling Democratic Party activists, ‘I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it.’”
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