That is the title of this featured essay in tomorrow's NY Times Magazine.   Written by Matt Bai (yeah, him). it is an examination of the generational divide among black politicians.  Let me offer one early quote:

"Here we are, all of a sudden, in the 60th year after Strom Thurmond bolting the Democratic Party over a simple thing, something almost unheard of — because he did not want the armed forces to be integrated," Clyburn said slowly. "Here we are 45 years after the ‘I have a dream’ speech. Forty years after the assassinations of Kennedy and King. And this party that I have been a part of for so long, this party that has been accused of taking black people for granted, is about to deliver the nomination for the nation’s highest office to an African-American. How do you describe that? All those days in jail cells, wondering if anything you were doing was even going to have an impact." He shook his head silently.

I will explore below the fold why I think you should read the article.

"A miracle in slow motion" is how I described the 2008 primary election on the phone the other day.  In a contest this long, where expectations have shifted suddenly or gradually, it's easy to forget that, but read a 2006 article looking ahead to the primaries and the feeling comes jolting back.

Here’s my biggest problem with Matt Bai’s longwinded window on the mad cow mind of presidential wannabe John W. McCain: it’s complete and utter hogwash.

Yesterday, I participate in a forum at my school at the University of Florida and I had a chance to ask Bob Graham a few questions afterwards. First, we had two knowledgeable participants: the former strategist for John Edwards, Joe Trippi, and Matt Bai, a journalist for the New York Times. The conversation centered on the role of the internet in this election cycle. Joe Trippi talked glowingly about the Dean’s revolution and was in awe at the Obama campaign.

At a stroke (as it were), Obama did two things. He established himself as a unifier capable of, as he likes to say, "disagreeing without being disagreeable." And he demonstrated his respect for the blogosphere by arguing with its members in their own space.

That is a paragraph from a piece by E. J. Dionne in today's Washington Post entitled The Battle That Clinton Didn't Expect in which he examines, and I think with a fair amount of accuracy, how Clinton misjudged the nature of the current campaign.  But he also follows Matt Bai in interpreting the direct interaction of Obama with this community.  So I wondered if people here thought the assessment is correct.

Let me explain.

Matt Bai is a somewhat controversial journalist in the progressive blogosphere.  Many bloggers disagree with the points he makes in his articles and also, IMO, are smarting over past articles where he wrote about the Dean movement and the blogosphere -- articles that were, again IMO, quite positive but not worshipful and containing some pointed (if debatable) criticisms.  Others, like me, think Bai is one of the few journalists who has spent substantial time covering the blogosphere and understands it on a deeper level.  Sure, he gets some things wrong, and is often critical.  But at least he's writing about it, and his articles are always thought provoking and help you think about the big picture regarding where is the progressive movement going and what is really happening in the American political scene.

Anyway, this interview of Matt Bai in Media Bistro is well worth reading.  I post some excerpts below, but you should read the whole thing:

Matt Bai has been blogging at NYT's "The Caucus," and he just posted a thoughtful, insightful piece about decisions the Clintons need to make in this campaign moving forward. He's not biased toward one candidate or another (as far as I've been able to tell) and the piece is not polemical. But he clearly states that the Clintons are at a crossroads: Do they continue allowing the lowest level of political campaigning in order to win at any cost, or do they care about their legacy in this party?

The most dangerous place to stand in Washington is between Chuck Schumer and a bank of television cameras.

Well, that may be, but it seems to me that the most dangerous place to be in the rest of the country is between the Clintons and an elected office.

Just this weekend, after all the recent attacks against Barack Obama involving his kindergarten essay and cocaine, the "fairy tale" of his antiwar stance, we found out that the Nevada teacher’s union with ties to the Clintons is suing to keep workers on the Vegas Strip from being able to caucus in their workplaces, since most of those workers belong to unions that have endorsed Mr. Obama.

On the New York Times politics blog today, commentator Matt Bai pens an article in which he reflects a bit, reaches mightily for a point of clarity and perspective... and promptly (and perhaps not so reluctantly) falls back into the formless goo of American political journalism propaganda.  What makes the article approach perfection is that the subject is the (neglected) seriousness of Senator Joe Biden.

Mr. Biden’s supporters will tell you that this is all the media’s fault for not covering him more — much the same argument you hear from Bill Richardson and Christopher Dodd’s supporters, too. This has some validity, but personally, I think Mr. Biden is less a victim of the media itself than of the distinct political culture that we in the media have wrought.

Matt Bai's ode to Bill Clinton in the Sunday New York Times Magazine recalled The Economist's review of Matt Bai's most recent book wherein The Economist stated that people like Kos have no historical knowledge - that Kos and Kossites were fully born from the forehead of Zeus, or whatever, in 1992 or 1996 or 2000, take your pick, and we really don't understand how the United States arrived into the post-Reagan world.  Therefore our analyses and thoughts and observations are invalid as compared to serious journalists who know history and have logged in decades of experience.  The thoughtful and well grounded pieces I read on DailyKos belie this cheap shot; in addition, our community is very quick to correct itself (having been on the receiving end of good, but not necessarily "nice", corrections and edits myself).  Compared to the MSM, we are quite serious in trying to get it right, including the history and the context.  

I got my NY Times this morning and I saw this on the front cover of the magazine section

Clintonism
a. It's a poltical philosophy that steered the Democratic Party back to the center, brought about pragmatic policies and on votes.
b. It's a corruption of liberalism and a cynical approach to politics that led to George W. Bush;
c. It's the real issue for Democrats deciding who will be their nominee.
by Matt Bai

http://www.nytimes.com/...

After reading Matt Bai's new book, The Argument: Billionaires, Bloggers, and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics, and hearing him speak at Tufts University, his alma mater, I cant help but consider not only the validity of Bai's own argument (that one does not exist), and the implications if he's correct.

What does it mean if we as Democrats are argument-less?  If we are adrift without any sort of direction?  Assuming Bai gets at least part of it right, and there isn't enough vision or forward-looking thinkers in the party, what is next?

I'm going to try to articulate a set of values that are unique to the Democratic Party, that relate specifically to us and differentiate progressives from conservatives.  It won't be true for everyone, but it's my very preliminary start to this supremely important discussion.  To clarify, this is less like "healthcare for all" and more like "government-provided healthcare for everyone regardless of ability to pay".  Please feel free to add, criticize, and review.  I'll be here to discuss for a little while at least.

Ok, that was my intentionally inflammatory headline. I'm a political and blogging neophyte, but already familiar with the use of invective and exaggeration to further my cause.

In fact, like the Giuliani campaign and the $9.11 fundraiser, I didn't even approve that headline. Probably some left-wing blogger thought it up in between hanging out with OBL. I can only hope to avoid a strongly-worded letter from Congressional Bai fans.

In fact, truth be told, I like the way Matt engages with those who disagree with him. For example, me.  I don't agree with everything Matt says, but I feel like he's open-minded and fair about criticisms and that he shows me things I haven't seen before on my own.

This diary is my answer to the question (or accusation) posed by Matt Bai that we Dems lack "The Big Idea", and quite nicely laid to rest by mcjoan tonight in her diary here entitled:
An Incomplete Argument
http://www.dailykos.com/...
I would like to expound where she left off.

..."But let's start with the central premise of Matt's book: the Democrats lack "the big idea," and as far as the blogosphere is concerned, are more concerned with strategies and tactics--with winning--than with developing a philosophy for governing. From my perspective that's an incomplete premise to begin with, and Matt's evidence to support it is too narrow".

(Matt Bai's The Argument: Billionaires, Bloggers, and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics has already been reviewed here by MissLaura, and the author had a great liveblogging session and interview with SusanG. It's also been the subject of this week's Book Club at TPMCafe, and I was pleased to be invited to be one of its reviewers there--the only pure blogger included, along with some of my favorite writers, including Garance Franke-Ruta, Nathan Newman, Ed Kilgore, Mark Schmitt, and Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger.  In the middle of it all, and prominent in the comments, is the author himself. Kudos to Matt for sticking around for the discussion and the argument. Here's my contribution, added to MissLaura's and Susan's in hopes that those who are interested might follow the links over to TPMCafe, and to spark some more discussion about this whole enterprise of blogging. I encourage you to head over to TPMCafe for the whole read. There aren't too many fireworks, but there's some great discussion.)

The Argument is an entertaining, often insightful, and in some instances highly illuminating examination of the state of the outsider in Democratic politics today. Particularly interesting for me, since this was all new to my eyes, is his examination of the Democracy Alliance, and where all that money is, and isn't going. But this blogger is going to focus on the part she knows best. And, regarding the blogs, I found Matt's book frustratingly incomplete in two critical areas regarding the blogosphere: its narrow focus on the activist component of the blogs, leaving out the wonkosphere, and that most critical element that gave rise to the blogosphere and drove its massive and meteoric success--the failure of traditional media in our political discourse.

But let's start with the central premise of Matt's book: the Democrats lack "the big idea," and as far as the blogosphere is concerned, are more concerned with strategies and tactics--with winning--than with developing a philosophy for governing. From my perspective that's an incomplete premise to begin with, and Matt's evidence to support it is too narrow.

Just about every lefty blogger I know came to online activism because of their core belief in a traditionally liberal governing philosophy. It's best summed up by Matt Stoller in response to Jonathon Chait's thoughtful look at the blogs in TNR from a few months ago.

Basically, we're a group of people who feel very betrayed by the leadership of our country, our media, and our party. We care about ideas because bad ideas implemented tend to kill lots of innocent people, and we don't like that. We are liberal because we believe in liberal ideas, and by and large, we've been proven correct. The Iraq war was a terrible idea. Bush has been a horrible President.  Running on Iraq in 2006 was a good idea. Stopping Social Security privatization was possible and necessary. A 50 state strategy made sense because a wave election was foreseeable. Don't trust the telecom companies with the internet. Let's figure out this global warming thing.

We don't necessarily distinguish between politics and policy, or activism and journalism, and we don't pretend that there is an above the fray and an 'in the muck'. Most of all, we respect ideas because ideas, when implemented, have immense power. Ideas matter. Conservative ideas have affected us personally, whether it was growing up in a suburb or having no health care insurance. And to the extent that you create ideas or appropriate ideas and organize around them, you can build a new society. That's what the right did, which is why we respect the right.

That's our starting point. It's not articulated in every post, but it's the foundation of every post, the foundation of why we are doing what we are doing. It informs every action we take, every word we write. That goes for the entire left blogosphere. Which brings me to what Matt's perspective on the blogs is missing: there are a multiplicity of sites, many of which are doing some pretty heavy lifting on the ideas side of the debate. His singular focus on Markos and Jerome, admitted tacticians who consider themselves firmly in the activist camp, leaves out some of the seminal work done in the wonkosphere--work that informs our activism.

Has anyone else heard of this? Maybe my search talents are not up to par but I could not find any DKos posts on this thing, and can only find a handful of references to it around the net and in the recently published The Argument by Matt Bai. I am not a fan of Bai, he comes across in his own book as a cocky jerk, but this Money Matrix sounds fascinating.

It is supposedly a map showing the flow of money connecting all the dots in what we know as the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. See below for more details.....

Love it or hate it, view it favorably or unfavorably, Matt Bai’s The Argument: Billionaires, Bloggers, and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics has sparked a lively discussion in political circles about the future of the Democratic Party and the new forces participating in the shaping of it. A new sub-genre may even be spawned: critique of the critiques.

Bai joins us here today to take questions, talk about politics and discuss the Democratic Party. I got things rolling with an interview to start us off; commenters should feel free to chime in and move the discussion along.

Matt Bai's love letter to Giuliani in the Sunday NY Times Magazine is making me retch.

I have to say, I'm a bit disillusioned. I've been following Matt Bai's writing career ever since he started with the New York Times magazine several years ago. I'm disappointed with the latest turn his career has taken: the publication of his most recent book, The Argument. If you don't want to give Bai royalties--and I suggest that you probably don't--start by reading the reviews of his book by Kakutani:

http://www.nytimes.com/...

and Gillespie:

http://www.nytimes.com/...