I bag on the Democratic Party.\u00a0 A lot.\u00a0 I do it for a lot of good reasons; the party tries to make virtues out of much of the worst of human nature, and to cheapen much of what is the best.\u00a0 If you put a gun to my head and said “become a Democrat or die”, I’d reponse “use a big bullet”.\u00a0\u00a0 I bag on the DFL on principle; it is one of the reasons I started this blog; I am utterly successful at it, and have no plans of stopping.<\/p>\n
Now, many of my best friends, and both of my parents, are Democrats.\u00a0 Heck, I <\/em>used to be one.\u00a0 So in many cases I respect their points of view – but the Democrats and the DFL are my rhetorical\u00a0beeyotch.<\/p>\n But in the unlikely event that, say, my daughter Bun – the more politically-involved of my kids so far – were to not only become a Democrat, but a committed one who did a great job\u00a0(say, managed a successful State Senate campaign for a DFLer candidate), what do you suppose I’d do?<\/p>\n Disown her?\u00a0 Pffft.\u00a0 Not at all.\u00a0\u00a0 I’d be proud of her.\u00a0 Oh, I’d question her political choices; but if she decided to take that course in her life (presumably after a brain injury) and excelled at it, what parent wouldn’t be proud?<\/p>\n And it’s not a big deal – because within certain limits, family comes before politics.<\/p>\n Seems obvious to most people.\u00a0 But some liberals apparently aren’t “most people” .<\/p>\n Benjamin Sarlin – apparently a slumming press-release writer – quoting Tarryl Clark in the “Daily Beast<\/a>“:<\/p>\n [She and Michele Bachmann] have three things in common: We’re women, moms, and we both have sons in AmeriCorps,\u201d Clark said. \u201cThe difference is I’m proud of mine and we should be proud of our young adults giving something to the community.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This is an old meme; Bachmann has criticized Americorps – the Clinton-era social-engineering temp program – on basic principle.<\/p>\n