Brian has more thoughts on the Eve Fairbanks article I linked to earlier, but I should be more explicit about what so irritated me in it. Eve writes:
But just because Pelosi has, so far, governed from the center doesn't mean she'll continue to do so. Might she decide her early moderation has become obsolete? Could her liberal heart still beat for unconditional amnesty for illegal immigrants and legalized gay marriage? On the inside, it surely does.
What's going on here is an attempt to define liberalism by its most unpopular elements. Pelosi's heart also beats for universal health care and a higher wage floor and withdrawal from Iraq and more expansive unemployment insurance and a repeal of the Bankruptcy Bill and a thousand other liberal agenda items that poll beautifully but are opposed by business interests and Republican/centrist elites. The attempt to make liberalism about gay marriage or, even more oddly, immigration policy, is to characterize the movement neither by its most urgent priorities nor its most broadly shared ideas -- it's to cherrypick the movement's least popular ideas and elevate them to definitional status. Gay marriage and a path to citizenship do not serve as a satisfactory capsule summary of the liberal agenda.
Update: Eve responds to the concerns in the last thread:
You = Bush, and Republicans / New-York-Post-"Miss-Syria" types who whine about Pelosi's extremism. The op-ed was mainly directed at this camp, as I tried to make clear in its lede, not at progressives, who were rightly unflapped by her Syria trip. It could have been written more clearly, that's for sure. But I'm not a Republican, nor interested in "porting" my universe into yours.
Eve F.
If Eve is addressing hypothetical conservatives, that makes a bit more sense.
Update 2: Read Eve in the comments here, too.
