Dust-up in the Blogosphere
The truth was still putting its pants on this morning when the political blogs erupted with all manner of alarums and excursions about the Sierra Club’s endorsement of Senator Lincoln Chafee (R-Rhode Island). First off was the widely read Daily Kos, who was quick to discover Morons at the Sierra Club.
In any sea, there are islands of sanity. The refuge in this storm was Bradford Plummer in Mojoblog. Plummer points out that Chafee
“[H]ow was his 20 percent rating? That's all it takes to get an endorsement these days? Are you really that easy?”Then Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake piled on.
“I know these organizations get really excited when the GOP takes a wrecking ball to their causes because the donations come flooding in. I’m becoming exceptionally piqued that they manipulate people’s legitimate fears in order to raise cash and perpetuate themselves with little or no regard to the cause they pretend to serve.”Uh, hello? Both hot-headed bloggers relied on a mistaken report in the Providence-based turnto10.com that “the Sierra Club only gives Lincoln Chafee a 20% approval rating for his voting record.” In fact, Chafee has an estimable 90% environmental voting record from the League of Conservation Voters; the Club itself does not rate voting records.
In any sea, there are islands of sanity. The refuge in this storm was Bradford Plummer in Mojoblog. Plummer points out that Chafee
“used his perch on the environmental committee to single-handedly hold up the Bush administration's Orwellian-titled Clear Skies Act, and has helped slow Rep. Richard Pombo's attacks on the Endangered Species Act. It's not necessarily an exaggeration to say that thanks to his rather unique position, Lincoln Chaffee has been able to do more for the environment than most Democrats.”(By the way, the endorsement of Chafee was by the national Sierra Club, not the Rhode Island Chapter.)
16 Comments:
You guys just don't get it, it doesn't matter what Chaffee does, as long as the Republicans hold a majority the environment loses. There is no way to win for the environment except to win control of the committees in Congress. Is this a difficult concept for you?
I still support the general work the Sierra Club does, and the blogging dust-up is indeed demoralizing, that we liberals can't even get along to support the organizations that have time and again given us much more than we have given them.
That said, I'd like to see more from the Sierra Club explaining why they chose Chaffee over his rivals.
Chafee caucuses with this Republican congress. In this day an age, with this Rubber Stamp pack of Lemmings, the (R) next to his name is enough for anyone who supports the planet to vote for a D.
Sierra Club, you try to do good deeds. Thanks for trying.
But by endorsing Chafee you support a party that accomplishes bad deeds. Deeds counter to your existence.
Or... perhaps deeds that necessitate your future existence? No. It can't be that diabolical, it's just foolish.
and us progressives wonder why the conservatives out politics us... Does the Sierra Club not think that a MAJORITY democratic congress would do more good than one lone individual in the Republican party - a party that has shown itself to be antithetical to the environmental movement???
Naive is one word to describe this action, plain dumb is another.....
It must have been fun for you to watch Linc's failure to filibuster Alito. Otherwise why would you support him again? 40 years of environmentally destructive SCOTUS rulings! Woo-hoo!
Notes to self:
1) Do not renew Sierra Club membership.
2) Encourage friends to do the same.
3) Do not make contributions to Sierra Club or organizations that support Sierra Club.
4) Return any postage paid Sierra Club mailings with extra weight and a note that I regret their support of Chafee.
Oh, and where does the claim on dailykos.com of Chafee 20% voting record come from? - list of Chafee's roll call votes in 2004 is from SC's own website.
http://whistler.sierraclub.org/votewatch/votesByLegislator.do?yr=2004&lid=S0781
SC has made a major mistake by supporting Chafee.
Wow. I was really horrified by what I saw on the blogs today. Misinformation -- with no correction -- on the Daily Kos site. Sheer nastiness on Firedoglake, and random linking -- with no analysis or fact-checking -- from Eschaton. I expected better from the left, and instead, got Rush Limbaugh-style hysteria and bile.
The Sierra Club is not -- and was never supposed to be -- an arm of a particular party. The environment is not a single-party issue and never should be. The Club cannot possibly carry on vital work at the state and local level -- the only level currently open to real environmental initiatives -- if it's seen as the tool of a single party.
How can the Club ever work with Republicans to get them to support environmental issues if they think the "R" after their name automatically crosses them off the endorsement list?
Markos of Daily Kos has -- on more than one occasion -- endorsed god-awful, anti-environment, anti-progressive Democrats because they would make the one crucial leadership vote he wants to see as a Democratic activist. And yet, when the Sierra Club takes a stand, based on their most important issue -- the environment -- he doesn't address the issue as a calculation, he falls back on erroneous and inaccurate statistics. Aarrrrgggghhh! I'm irritated by the unfairness of it.
One week ago Carl Pope wrote:
"A Morally Bankrupt Bankruptcy Law
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
El Paso, TX -- Last year, Congress made it harder for ordinary families that have been financially devastated by health problems to declare bankruptcy. But Congress also made it easier for multinational polluters that create some of that devastation to get out of cleaning up their mess. A special investigative report by the Sierra Club shows that one company, the American Smelting and Refining Company (Asarco), may be able to legally shift $500 million to $1 billion in cleanup responsibilities to taxpayers by reorganizing under the federal Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Code.
. . .
But unless we can create a real outcry about this kind of fake corporate bankruptcy, we can be fairly certain that Asarco won't be the last toxic polluter to shirk its responsibilities through the Chapter 11 loophole."
Carl Pope didn't write that the 2005 bankruptcy bill was a bad bill or that it could be improved, he called it "morally bankrupt". That's pretty straightforward. A week later he endorses someone who voted for the "morally bankrupt" bill, Sen. Lincoln Chafee.
25 Senators opposed it - all Democrats.
This isn't about scorecards or endorsing Chafee in the primary against Laffey. It's about not even considering Sheldon Whitehouse or Matt Brown as an option - options that might vote more like Jack Reed, who opposed the "morally bankrupt" bill.
It's OK to be pragmatic in your advocacy. It's not OK to be pragmatic if your judgement is demonstrably poor. Is it good judgement to reward the "morally bankrupt"?
Moot-
when kos suggests people vote for "anti-environment," conservative democrats, it's because IN THAT DISTRICT, a progressive would get trounced.
It would be nice if liberal ideology was more loved, if progressive candidates just had to go up on the stump and read a policy whitepaper and crowds would swoon, but Moot, newsflash, we don't live in that country.
Some regions are more receptive than others to liberalism.
In Rhode Island -- especially Providence and Newport are extraordinarily liberal, influential towns -- there is no need for a state like that to line up with Tom Delay on Roll Call votes. NO NEED.
Look, when I lived in Tennessee, I voted for Democrats who were much too conservative for my personal taste. But I don't live in a personal world, I live in a collective called society. I had to think outside of my personal world and consider the effects that my actions had on the world... world.
Sierra Club and NARAL should do the same. To do otherwise is flatly unrealistic.
prospect parkie
It would indeed be nice if liberal ideology was more loved, and it would be be great if Democrats took control of the Senate and the House this November. But what if they don't?
The Club has to work with the Congress it has, not the Congress
we might all wish for. Throwing proven allies overboard and alienating half the voting public is the truly unrealistic choice.
I agree with moot.
Kos is quickly becoming the Michelle Malkin of the Dem side of the aisle - all smash-mouth partisan hackery with no concern for common-sense, facts, or propriety. He has a big megaphone, but little sense of the responsibility that is required to wield such a tool.
His post regarding the SC is precisely the kind of stuff that Media Matters goes after when it comes from someone from the Right.
I stopped visiting DK when Kos came out of the closet last year as a misogynist. With this latest insanity, he has shown that he is willing to throw every and any progressive value over the rail in order to achieve his partisan goals and increase his own standing as a power player in the Dem party.
Kos is bad for progressives, and, ultimately, bad for the Dem party.
I'm a die-hard progressive, but let's face it: Chafee stuck his neck out to defend environmental issues in a politically hostile environment. If the Club doesn't endorse a republican who bravely stands up for the environment, then the Club endorsement woudl just be a rubber stamp and would totally lose its validity.
The reason the Sierra Club is so important is that it represents a large environmental constitiency, and so it needs to do the right thing on its issues. The Sierra Club is not a wing of any political party. Maybe Daily Kos needs some daily coffe: the Sierra Club is being way more strategic than the progressive blogosophere.
Over to Dave Roberts at Grist.
I applaud the Sierra Club's endorsement of Chaffee. If you believe that the SC should be strictly a democrat supporting organization and won't renew your membership, then good ... we don't need blind partisanship. It hurts more than it helps.
Despite the propaganda from the liberal press, the democrats are unlikely to gain control of either chamber of congress in November. While the republicans are in disarray, the democrats are in worse shape and not in a good position to take advantage of republican problems.
You'll probably see a repeat of '04 ... the press had all but crowned Kerry as the next presidet but Bush picked up more votes and a higher percentage of the vote than he had in 2000.
The democrats will probably pick up a few seats but not enough to gain control.
So if you blindly support the democrats and they fail to gain control ... then you risk being shut out completely by the majority party.
Just out of curiousity, how many people are upset at Ted Kennedy for opposing a windmill farm?
The Sierra Club is an arrogant, corrupt, self-serving bureaucracy that is rotten to the core. Their largest donors are all “anonymous”. Gee, do you think that just might be because the Sierra Club has been bought off? "Sierra Club Compass"? What a joke! It's the Sierra Club leadership that got lost! To understand where we are, just follow the money...or the stench of corruption.
I've been a long time supporter and contributor to the Sierra Club. As of today, that just stopped.
The decision to support Chaffee was wrong. But your inability to listen to your constitutents and critically reconsider what you've done, well that's just inexcusable.
I won't just be stopping my support of the Sierra Club. I'll be actively encouraging my friends to stop their support as well.
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