So says Katrina van den Heuvel:
Why are so many liberal bloggers up in arms about Virginia Governor Timothy Kaine being picked to give the Democrat’s reply to Bush’s State of the Union? There’s been fury in the blogosphere about everything from Kaine’s looks, style, obscurity, his open talk about his faith and his inexperience in national security.
Liberal writer Ezra Klein (no Brad Pitt, last time I checked him out) vented that Kaine is “a squat, squinty, pug-nosed fellow.” Even the invariably smart and strategic Arianna (Huffington) weighed in: “What the hell are they thinking?” She accused Democrats of picking “someone whose only claim to fame is that he carried a red state” when they need to make the case that “the GOP is not the party that can best keep us safe.”
Hehe. Hey Katrina? Know who your Representative is yet?
Ezra responds, and Jeralynn has his back.
Reason #434543 the Democrats are the minority party- they can’t figure out how to do their infighting privately.
Jim Allen
Re: “Reason #434543 the Democrats are the minority party- they can’t figure out how to do their infighting privately.”
That’s right, John — we’d be the majority party if only we’d learn to goosestep to the party line, like the Republicans do. I mean, how many people does it take to actually come up with the party’s ideas? And what good does open dialogue do? Gee, if only we had our own Karl Rove to tell us what to think…
Mr Furious
Last I saw a picture of Ezra, he kinda looked like Matt LeBlanc (Joey from Friends). Not exactly an eyesore…
Jason in MO
I always thought Republicans prided themselves on their ability to openly discuss their differences (Big Tent) and that ideological purity was the problem with Democrats. At least that is what I thought I heard listening to Rush the other day.
For example Democrats are the party of all Daily Kos diarists, Cindy Sheehan, Chairman Mao and Pol Pot, an ideological monolith whose chief spokesman is Dan Rather.
Steve
Maybe one of our resident female commentors wants to weigh in on the topic of Ezra’s looks.
DougJ
I hate Katrina van den Heuvel. Just another inside the beltway jack ass if you ask me. I don’t care how “liberal” her magazine is (I’ve never read it).
Tim F.
Is Ezra the Philip Seymour Hoffman guy or the guy with devil eyes?
Steve
Ezra is apparently on the front left (our left). Atrios is the gentleman next to him, if you want to see the Angry Left personified.
Stormy70
Not attractive, sorry. He’s no Naveen.
Richard Bottoms
Damn right. Our master plan for world domination moves ever forward.
Next we’re going make our chief rival in the world the holder of a huge part of our debt and become the single largest importer of their goods while letting our own manufacturing base rot away.
Hell, let them all work at Starbucks. That would never happen under Republicans buddy.
We are Diabolical.
Dodd
Why would any of them give a fig about the opinion of someone who thinks Arianna Huffington is “invariably smart”?!?
DougJ
Dodd, you’ll have to do better than that if you want us to read your blog. At least Al Maviva’s posts are 500 hundred words each. No one reads them, but it does get our attention.
VidaLoca
Geez, now they’re arguing about looks? It can’t be about looks, the alternative to Kaine whose name I heard tossed around was Murtha…
Maybe it’s about credibility?
Pooh
John, as far as the whole “behind closed doors” thing, have you not seen the Sturm und Drang re: Majority leader? (see for example QandO’s series of post’s. Let’s just say there a not fan’s of Blunt.)
Steve
The comment about Tim Kaine’s looks was just an offhanded comment in a much longer post by Ezra, which basically argued that although the Dems are eager to show off the fact that they can win in a red state, etc., Kaine is not a compelling or charismatic speaker and they really could do better.
Pooh
He’s got another good post up now, talking about how pikcing Kaine is an example of fighting the last war. And he suggests Eliot Spitzer as a better choice.
jaime
Umm…John, these are two writers going at it. When Michelle Malkin calls you a ghoul, is that part of the Republican Party in-fighting?
Hello? Stones. House. Glass.
John Kerry
Looks and charisma are indeed very important.
Dodd
Dodd, you’ll have to do better than that if you want us to read your blog. At least Al Maviva’s posts are 500 hundred words each. No one reads them, but it does get our attention.
Considering I retired from blogging 8 months ago (and deleted all my old posts), I couldn’t possibly care less if you click over to it or not.