Democrats fighting Democrats - Hooray!

Centrist Democrats warn liberals - The Washington Times: Nation/Politics - April 04, 2005:
"'I can't tell the difference between the positions the DLC puts forward and Republican policy,' said Jack Blum, counsel for the liberal Americans for Democratic Action."

The Democrat Leadership Council, the folks who brought us Bill Clinton, have fired a shot across the bow of the great ship Democracy as a novel form of greeting for its new skipper, ex-governor Howard Dean. It is a measure of the uphill task confronting the DLC that they weren't able to prevent the poster boy for all they see as wrong with the party's image from ascending to the chairmanship in the first place.

There is a certain ambiguity to my feelings about all this. It would be comforting on one level to feel that the next Democratic president would not destroy the country's defences. But that also might make it harder for Republicans (I admit it, my party) to win. On the other hand, such a struggle for the heart and soul of the Democrat Party could end up driving out the anti-war element into the waiting arms of the Greens and other left-fringe fractions. This could destroy the possibility of a national Democrat victory for years to come.