Crazy time.

I dunno what's gotten into the liberal blogosphere lately. First Kos smears the DCCC. Then Atrios calls for the head of Steny Hoyer. Now Chris Bowers at MyDD seems to be pushing for a purge of the entire Blue Dog sub-caucus.

What is it about minority status these guys like so much?

Bowers defines the Democratic 'party line' on the basis of ten issues in the House of Representative. Now, fact is, I'm a liberal Democrat and likely to agree with Bowers and disagree with the Blue Dogs on most every one of them. It's also a fact, though, that with a Democratic majority none of the legislation in question would have ever made it to the floor in anything like the form that drew Blue Dog votes. You want to bring the Blue Dogs closer to the line Bowers has drawn? There's a simple (if not easy) way to get it done. Elect a Democratic majority.

Don't expect to get it done, though, by trashing the House Democrats, any of the House Democrats, publicly every time they stray from 'progressive' orthodoxy, though. I heart the hell out of my own personal Congressman, one of the most faithful members of the Progressive Caucus, but I'm fairly certain that there are lots of places that would never elect him to Congress. Take AL-5, for instance, home of Bud Cramer.

By Bowers' measure, Cramer is the worst of a bad lot, going a mere one for ten on the Bowers scale of Party fealty. Sounds pretty awful, doesn't it? But 'Bama ain't about to send us a Jim McDermott or a Dennis Kucinich anytime soon. While Bowers doesn't look so good when measured by Bowers' abbreviated (and, I would argue, seriously flawed) list, he racked up a 75% rating from the arch-liberal Americans for Democratic Action in the last Congress. Not perfect, certainly, but not nothing, either.

Regardless of how you might feel about the prospects for success (yes, I lean toward optimism on the subject. Not precisely 'reality based,' perhaps, but it gets me through the day) job one for Democrats interested in national politics is recapturing Congressional majorities in '06. Folks like Kos, Atrios and Bowers can be critical to that success, or they can just be critics.

Which side are you on?