Oligarchy

The Rolling Stone's Matt Taibi energetically skewers the Democratic National Committee (DNC), its snotty and timidly centrist spokesman Rahm Emmanuel, Republicrats and Demolicans, and the hijacking of Democratic politics by pros, hacks, and bean counters obsessed with "respectability."

Taibi homes in on Emmanuel's answer to a reporter's question regarding the importance of bloggers in Lamont's primary victory over Lieberman: "Do I think the [bloggers] and Al Sharpton alone are the future of the Democratic Party? No! Welcome in, contribute, but it's about winning in November and moving the country forward, not about a firing squad in a circle."

Yah sure! Welcome in and contribute -- especially money -- but don't think for a minute we're actually going to let you decide anything.

Taibi nails Emmanuel's condescension: "What Emmanuel appears to be saying here is that 'bloggers' -- by which he really means 'people who voted against Lieberman' -- are welcome to 'contribute,' but not welcome to actually decide elections. In other words, we'll take your votes, but we'll decide who you vote for."

But he doesn't stop there.

"The unspoken subtext of this increasingly bitter debate between the Democratic Party establishment and the supporters of people like Ned Lamont and Hillary Clinton's antiwar challenger, Jonathan Tasini, is a referendum ordinary people have unexpectedly decided to hold on the kingmaker's role of the holy trinity of the American political establishment - big business, the major political parties, and the commercial media. The irony is that it's the political establishment itself that has involuntarily raised the consciousness of its disenfranchised voters.

"The surge in support for Lamont initially came from people motivated by two simple things -- a desire to protest the war in Iraq, and physical revulsion before the wrinkled, vengeful persona of Joe Lieberman. But the party, in fighting back, attacked not on the issues but on the means of protest -- blogs, grassroots activism, Lamont's independent wealth. In doing so it threw into relief the essential parameters of the problem, which is this; the Democratic Party has been operating for two decades without the active participation of its voters."

Do yourself a favor and read the whole thing.

I'm with Taibi. Sooner or later the Democratic Party either has to stand for something other than amassing money, looking respectable (in blue suits, just like those respectable Republicans), and hating Michael Moore, or die a slow and agonizing death.