As a dog returns to his vomit, so a liberal journalist returns to his talking points.
In a November 4 Swampland blog post, Time magazine's Joe Klein laid a fair share of blame for Democrats losing the House of Representatives on "conservative" Blue Dogs and their alleged reticence to spend taxpayer dollars:
Normally, I don't have much patience for the whining on the left about the Blue Dog democrats--who were sliced in half on Tuesday, losing at least 28 of their 54 seats. When they lose, the Democrats lose control of the Congress. This year, however, I do feel that there is an argument that, to an extent, the Dogs brought this on themselves by being penny-wise, dogpound-foolish. The argument goes like this: a larger stimulus package might have helped the economy recover at a faster clip, but the Dogs opposed it on fiscal responsibility grounds. A second argument: the public really has had it with Wall Street, but the Dogs helped water down the financial regulatory bill, gutting the too-big-to-fail provisions. There is real merit to both points. If the stimulus had been bigger and the financial reform package clearer and stronger, the public would have had a different--and, I believe, more positive--sense of the President's agenda.
Keep telling yourself that, Joe.
