Harry

Jo Miller read my mind about Harry Reid. I did watch the Democratic response, which, had I not recognized Harry and read the caption on the screen, would have been largely indistinguishable to me from the Republican platform Reid is purportedly rebutting. That is to say, the opening anecdote about Harry's humble upbringing and his family's hardscrabble approach to life (how did he put it, "we never asked for any favors" or something like that?) and their firm, if unspoken values... The bile rises.

Please, mother of god, do not let this be the Democrat's "strategy" (or is that "strategery") for 2008. There are plenty of genuine values in the Democratic platform; there's really no need to pilfer the Republicans' values. But could we just stop talking about family values and religious values??!! Let's talk about populist values and Constitutional values. Why is this not obvious???

I know I've read too much Habermas, but I need to say here that the whole idea of a citizen (rather than just a guy) is that of a person who puts aside their private interests to become a rights-bearing member of the public. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing for the Democrats to think about framing their ideas in terms of values, but for heaven's sake, stop trying to make private choices into public values, and start talking about the god damned Constitution and Bill of Rights. Is there some sort of mass lobotomy movement going on that I don't know about?