And When He Sees His Reflection, He’s Fulfilled
By I see Carville is continuing his ridiculous crusade against the DNC chair who presided over a Congressional victory nobody could have plausibly foreseen a year ago. The key graf is this one:
He said he tried to meet with Dean to argue for additional spending for Democrats in the final days of the campaign, but Dean declined and gave no reason why.
Ah, yes, this is the issue. The real problem with Dean is that he wouldn’t listen to the sage advice of James Carville, just because he’s a far-past-his-sell-by-date hack with nothing worthwhile to offer and no discernible constituency, and is the kind of person who would gin up a circular firing squad on a farcially silly pretext in a period in which the Democrats should be all rights be happy and relatively unified. All one can say is, good for Dean. Indeed, Carville is beginning to remind me of the most destructive faux-populist narcissist to curse progressive politics in America in the last decade:
The Jimmy Carter presidency only saw a heightening of Nader’s schismatic tendencies. “I want access. I want to be able to see [Carter] and talk to him. I expected to be consulted,” he told The New York Times. That Carter filled his administration with former Naderites didn’t help. Less than a year after Carter put former Nader deputy Joan Claybrook in charge of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Nader denounced her, demanding she resign for implementing an air-bag regulation with “an unheard of lead time provision.” In 1980, Nader told Rolling Stone, “In the last year we’ve seen the ‘corporatization’ of Jimmy Carter. Whereas he was impotent and kind of pathetic the first year and a half, he’s now surrendered. … The two-party system, by all criteria, is bankrupt–they have nothing of any significance to offer the voters, so a lot of voters say why should they go and vote for Tweedledum and Tweedledee.” (Liberals today who anguish over Nader’s insistence that no important differences exist between the two parties should note that this belief dates back more than two decades.)
Shorter James Carville and Ralph Nader: “Me me me me me me me me me!!!!” Luckily, during the 2008 campaign they figure to be equally irrelevant…
…Roxanne: “There is serious work ahead. Countless lives are at stake. And your unfounded grandstanding is a distraction from ending our long national nightmare.”