Keith Olbermann and Air America Are Useless

By Renn Vara

I am a proud progressive. Let me say that again, I AM A PROUD PROGRESSIVE! Can I now move past the bonafidies and say a few words about the angry left?

Education, the poor, the middle class, foreign affairs, infrastructure, jobs, equal pay, living wages, environment, big oil, you name it, we’ve lost it. Our Party, our Democratic and progressive leaders have failed us badly. Not only failed us but done us damage.

And what do we do? We blame the victors. Republicans and George Bush have fulfilled their promises to their constituency. They’ve done what they said they would do. But what about our leaders? They have failed to be the strong and fearless opposition. And they’ve failed to use the great skills of Democratic leaders past; charm, wit, humor and lucent arguments. Instead they scream, call people names, judge the middle class and rich, and in general come off like arrogant intellectual elitists. That’s why the Republicans have been able to do what they’ve done for the past twenty plus years.

Our current progressive leaders are mean, petty, selfish, and un-funny. What happened to the model leadership from the past? Pat Schroeder. Morris Udall. Tip O’Neil. Barbara Mikulski. And one of our current best Barney Frank. They were/are fun, playful, full of wit and wisdom and knew/know how to effectively argue the progressive case and win. Our current batch of leaders including Speaker Nancy Pelosi can’t argue anything effectively. Quite to the contrary, they just piss us off and give the opposition a lot to work with. Note the daily conversation between Hannity and Colmes on Fox. Alan Colmes is not only ineffective, he confirms the right’s belief that when the two arguments face each other, the left can’t stand up to their “logic.” That is more damaging than 10 George Bushes. Alan, for the sake of our Democratic causes, please quit now. And for that matter, you too Keith Olbermann and the entire lineup on Air America.  Useless all.  Thank you.

What’s happened and why don’t we hold them accountable? We’ve got to get past the age old ‘them vs us’ war and focus on demanding more from our leaders. Stop blaming Republicans for winning and focus on our leaders for losing for the last 20 years. Now back to work.