Marshall Wittman is a senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute. Unlike the DLC, which is an overtly and primarily political organization, the PPI is supposedly concerned with, well, policy. Which makes this post of his so strange. Wittman, already in the character of a Moose, moves on to enter Karl Rove's mind, penning a letter to the mole he dispatched to bring down the Democratic Party. But while mocking liberalism's many political gaffes and dovish digressions, he fails, at every point, to mention his opinions on the actual worth of the policies being advocated. Does he genuinely believe the PATRIOT Act is fine as is? If so, why? Does he believe phased withdrawal is a bad plan? If so, how long should we stay? Does he genuinely believe Democrats are wrong to want oversight of the NSA program? I've heard he dislikes the politics of it, but no oversight? What's the policy rationale there?
Wittman, as I said, works for the PPI, which promises:
Through its research, policies, and perspectives, the Institute is fashioning a new governing philosophy and an agenda for public innovation geared to the Information Age.
So either they're lying or he's derelict in duty, because Wittman's not formulating any sort of policy agenda here, merely criticizing the politics of other policy agendas. For that to be the project of the PPI's most prominent spokesperson must, I imagine, be a tad embarrassing for all the serious, dedicated policy wonks toiling away to evaluate competing options and make the tough choices. They trudge through their work while he gallops through the blogoshpere and wire stories, demanding that all policies fit a priori political conclusions, lest Rove start giggling like a schoolgirl.
