Shrillness Rules

Atrios wants us all to be 'shrill', since the whole quiet 'lambs to the slaughter' meme isn't working. Cenk (at HuffPo) seems to be catching the spirit:

When we fight back against the Republicans on an issue of colossal importance like the new Torture Bill, I often hear from people that we shouldn't do it because "we have to win" politically. To which I want to scream - No shit, Sherlock!

Really, you wanted to win? I never thought of that.

...

On the other hand, if you fight all the time, you fight hard, you fight sloppy, you fight clean, you fight with conviction - you become a fighter. And then people get scared of you! They know to not even nominate a guy like Sam Alito because he won't have a chance. You'll rip him apart in the hearings.

Yes, you might screw up a couple of things along the way, but in the end, you send the message. We are strong and we will not back down under any circumstances. We are fighters!

We will fight to protect the United States, we will fight to protect the constitution, we will fight for our laws, we will fight for our values, we will fight for you and your family, we will fight for morality and we will fight to keep you safe and America proud.

That's how you win.

...

And through all of these losses, I have been told that "we have to win." I'm going to put that down in the ironic category. As long as we don't root out this loser mentality that the Republicans will beat us up if we dare to take them on, we will never win first.

Even if the Democrats manage to take one of the Houses of Congress this election because of historic mistakes by the Republicans (and then they'll be all proud as if they earned it - this is the worst administration in history, you should be wiping the floors with them), you think they're going to stand up then?

I'm not so sure. I know there are genuine fighters on the Democratic side. I know a majority of the party voted the right way on this torture bill. I know they are infinitely better than the Republicans who don't just assent to the idea of torture and secret detentions, they relish it.

My guess is that people like Henry Waxman, John Conyers and Louise Slaughter are going to take the fight to these guys. But I am not at all sure the rest of the party will follow. I can see it now - you don't want to seem too partisan by doing hearings before the 2008 election, remember we have to win in 2008 ...