Being away to San Francisco to cover the Prop 8 Closing Arguments this week, I am just catching up on a few things. One I would like to point out is the contemptible and disingenuous op-ed Lanny Davis deposited at The Hill:

Two events last week involving elements of the Democratic Party who call themselves the “true progressives” show a danger they represent to the progressive change they say they want to effect. Together they offer President Barack Obama an opportunity for a “Sister Souljah moment” — perhaps to save the Democratic Party majority in both houses of Congress, as well as his progressive agenda in the last two years of his administration.

First was the success of Sen. Blanche Lincoln in June 8’s Arkansas Democratic primary, despite a campaign organized by these self-described progressives, along with certain labor unions.
……
The second event was a conference on that June 8 primary day, held in Washington and organized by the Campaign for America’s Future, a self-described “progressive” organization, which cheered denunciations of Obama for “retreat on Guantánamo [and] no movement on worker rights or comprehensive immigration reform,” according to The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank, and shouted down and nearly prevented liberal House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) from speaking.
……
President Obama can confirm that the Democratic Party still stands for the centrist, Clintonian combination of fiscal conservatism, cultural moderation and progressive social programs that favor the middle class over the extremely wealthy — the best chance the Democrats have to hold their majorities in both houses of Congress and to enact the progressive changes that the critics on the left say they truly want.

The holier than thou arrogance and self entitled belligerence of Davis is simply stunning. As if Obama has not scorned the progressives and netroots enough already. Davis apparently feels he is the one who gets to decide who is, and who is not, a “true Progressive” and those he deems unfit are due the “Sister Souljah” execution hit. Nice. In the process of whining about progressive activism destroying Democratic party unity, he wants to divide, marginalize and destroy a significant sector of the Democratic party. Clearly Davis’ clarity of thought has been so addled by the toxic brine of the inbred Washington Beltway elitism he cannot see he is committing the very sins he complains of. Either that or he is so cravenly duplicitous he does not care. Davis has a history of such duplicity.

Davis similarly accuses the netroots of being “long on innuendo and personal attacks and short on substance”, which is hilarious for a man lobbing unlinked, uncited and unsupported screed in such a deceptive manner. For instance Davis directly intimates that if/when Blanche Lincoln loses in the general election it will because of the netroot and labor supported primary challenge of Bill Halter in Arkansas. This bit of self serving dishonesty of course neglects the fact that if Davis and his fellow centrist corporate shills really cared about retaining the seat in the general election, they should have supported Halter who arguably was a stronger candidate in the general than Lincoln. Not to mention that, in the general, Lincoln will be the only, and unified, Democratic candidate and thus will be judged on her record by the voters of Arkansas. Apparently Mr. Davis does not approve of the democratic concept of voters being able to express their choice in a primary and thinks only the wise sages of the Washington Beltway get to say who the party choice is.

As to his specific arguments in relation to Lincoln, Davis neglects to mention that the majority of Arkansas voters supported the public option, it is just that he and his corporatist doppelganger Blanche Lincoln who did not. Mr. Davis also failed to admit the only version of “health reform” Lincoln would grudgingly vote for was one that gave her constituents expensive health insurance but little in the way of more or usable health care. Par for Davis’ disingenuous course.

The other manufactured poutrage Davis throws down from his grandiose high horse related to the CAF presser where Nancy Pelosi was heckled by a noisy group of protesters on June 8th. Davis dishonestly intimates in his op-ed that the subject hecklers were the progressive netroots and CAF members he so despises protesting over the public option.

But if Davis had possessed any intellectual integrity or journalistic professionalism, he would have researched and realized the hecklers were not the netroots/CAF crowd, but instead were a separate and limited single issue group of nursing home professionals from an unrelated association known as ADAPT who were concerned about the Community Choice Act relating to long term care provisions for the elderly. Instead, Davis relied on an emailed report from a friend who was not at the event, but sent Davis a missive after reading about the conference from an unknown source. Oh, and a terminally shallow Washington Post column by the supposed humorist Dana Milbank. What a paragon of reportage Lanny Davis is.

Davis closes out his fine whine with this sage wisdom:

President Obama can confirm that the Democratic Party still stands for the centrist, Clintonian combination of fiscal conservatism, cultural moderation and progressive social programs that favor the middle class over the extremely wealthy — the best chance the Democrats have to hold their majorities in both houses of Congress and to enact the progressive changes that the critics on the left say they truly want.

Well, yeah, I guess. Or Mr. Obama could, alternatively, pull out of his hazy downward spiral and demonstrate he is the leader of the whole party, and entire country, and not just the centrist corporatist hacks like Lanny Davis.

Go “Sister Souljah” yourself Lanny Davis, you plutocratic Beltway corporatist huckster.

[The attached video is from a December 17, 2009 encounter Jane Hamsher had with Lanny Davis on MSNBC]