Apparently, those of us who thought MoveOn.org has gone too far in suggesting that General Petraeus would “Betray Us” were simply not clued in on how easily the word “betray” is bandied about by the Left.

Matt Stoler has written a vehement post entitled, “Obama Betrays Us, Of Course” that refers to the top challenger for the Democratic nomination as a “sad spectacle of a politician” and “a putz.” His offense? Failing to cancel campaign appearances to vote against a Senate resolution condemning said MoveOn ad.

Sigh.

Matt Stoler is leading the charge for the Netroots to root out the “Bush Dogs” from the Democratic Party, purging it of the impure traitors who do not buy into every jot and tittle of the Progressive Agenda.

We’ve been working to identify the group of conservative Democrats in the House who are holding back progressives from being able to effectively govern. These are concentrated in two main caucuses, the Blue Dog Caucus and the New Democrat caucuses. Blue Dogs consider themselves heirs to the Southern conservative wing of the party, and tend to vote for socially restrictive policies and a hawkish foreign policy. The New Democrats tend to be more partisan, but often are key to passing important pieces of right-wing legislation, such as the Bankruptcy Bill. In the last few years, these two caucuses have expanded their numbers, and the Blue Dogs have become the swing vote in the House allowing for effective conservative control of the Congress. We want to put a stop to the embrace of conservative values among House Democrats, and make sure that when Democrats are elected, they act like Democrats.

[...]

The first step in stopping this behavior is to identify the people engaging in it and offer up criticism. There are a few reasons for this. One, many of these members feel no pressure to vote correctly or uphold progressive values. Criticism is the signal they are relying on to let them know when they err. Two, some of these members may need to face a primary challenge, and it’s useful for potential primary challengers to know that there is criticism of these members. Three, other members considering joining the Bush Dog caucus may be dissuaded if they know there will be criticism. Four, candidates running for office will finally have a signal on how they should talk about being good Democrats that are willing to take tough votes.

He has identified 38 House Democrats who must conform to the Netroots Agenda . . . or else: Jason Altmire, PA-04; Brian Baird, WA-03 (he didn’t vote for FISA, but he just switched his position and now supports the surge); John Barrow, GA-12; Melissa Bean, IL-08; Dan Boren, OK-02; Leonard Boswell, IA-03; Alan Boyd, FL-02; Chris Carney, PA-10; Ben Chandler, KY-06; Jim Cooper, TN-05; Jim Costa, CA-20; Bud Cramer, AL-05; Henry Cuellar, TX-28; Lamar Davis, TN-04; Joe Donnelly, IN-02; Chet Edwards, TX-17; Brad Ellsworth, IN-08; Bob Etheridge, NC-02; Bart Gordon, TN-06; Stephanie Herseth, SD-AL; Baron Hill, IN-09; Nick Lampson, TX-22; Dan Lipinski, IL-03; Jim Marshall, GA-08; Jim Matheson, UT-02; Mike McIntyre, NC-07; Charlie Melancon, LA-03; Colin Peterson, MN-07; Earl Pomeroy, ND-AL
Ciro Rodriguez, TX-23; Mike Ross, AR-04; John Salazar, CO-03; Heath Shuler, NC-11; Vic Snyder, AR-02
Zack Space, OH-18; John Tanner, TN-08; Gene Taylor, MS-04; Tim Walz, MN-01; and Charlie Wilson, OH-06.

FireDogLake, DailyKos, Glenn Greenwald, and MyDD have joined this fine movement. I’m sure, before long, the list of Traitors to the Cause will expand well beyond this original 38. [Glenn Greenwald, writing before Stoler's post, agrees with the idea that the Democrats' problem is that they are not cleaving closely enough to the Progressive line.]

This “scares the hell” out of some moderate[s]-left folks like Michael van der Galien, who worry about chilling effects on free speech and free thought.

And some on the Right are giddy about this idea, too. For example, Michael Goldfarb is crowing at the Weekly Standard about how the Netroots are “doing the work of the NRCC” (National Republican Congressional Committee) for them.

While the numbers are constantly in flux because of deaths, retirements, prison sentences and whatnot, the Democrats won 233 seats last November, to 202 for the Republicans. That means the Republicans need to hold all their current seats plus gain 16 of the Democratic seats to retake the majority next year. That’s an uphill fight, given the party’s current popularity, but not inconceivable.

It would sure help, though, if the 38 most moderate Members were replaced by True Blue, Netroots Approved Progressives. What better way to stem to tide than have Al Franken-style liberals running in places like Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Florida, Utah, North Carolina, Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana?

So, sure, Republicans love this idea. But getting distracted by that sort of thing is short-sighted thinking.

Look, what’s the point of winning a majority if your party’s most ideological members aren’t one hundred percent happy, one hundred percent of the time? It’s far better to lose the majority by insisting on ideological purity and then building from there with Pure Progressives. It’s worked nicely for the Libertarians, why not the Democrats?

So, march on brave Netroots soldiers. March on in your quest for the Holy Grail.

UPDATE: Errors in classifying Michael van der Galien’s ideology and Glenn Greenwald’s position on this issue corrected above, with originals struck out and modifications in brackets.

Keith Olbermann’s most recent Special Comment was indeed quite special.

Watch the video:

He has accused the Democratic leadership of “betrayal” for caving in on the Iraq supplemental.

The Democratic leadership has, in sum, claimed a compromise with the Administration, in which the only things truly compromised, are the trust of the voters, the ethics of the Democrats, and the lives of our brave, and doomed, friends, and family, in Iraq.

He also invokes history:

Their “Neville Chamberlain moment” before the Second World War. All that’s missing is the landing at the airport, with the blinkered leader waving a piece of paper which he naively thought would guarantee “peace in our time,” but which his opponent would ignore with deceit.

When compromise with the elected president constitutes “betrayal,” there’s something terribly wrong. Olbermann is being widely cheered in the left blogosphere, though.

Olbermann believes this controversy will have a major impact on the Democratic nomination and force a strong anti-war candidate to the forefront. Presumably, that means Barack Obama, since Chris Dodd and Dennis Kucinich would appear to be non-factors. At any rate, the internecine warfare will be interesting to watch.

Full transcript below the fold.

A Special Comment about the Democrats’ deal with President Bush to continue financing this unspeakable war in Iraq—and to do so on his terms:

This is, in fact, a comment about… betrayal.

Few men or women elected in our history—whether executive or legislative, state or national—have been sent into office with a mandate more obvious, nor instructions more clear:

Get us out of Iraq.

Yet after six months of preparation and execution—half a year gathering the strands of public support; translating into action, the collective will of the nearly 70 percent of Americans who reject this War of Lies, the Democrats have managed only this:

* The Democratic leadership has surrendered to a president—if not the worst president, then easily the most selfish, in our history—who happily blackmails his own people, and uses his own military personnel as hostages to his asinine demand, that the Democrats “give the troops their money”;
* The Democratic leadership has agreed to finance the deaths of Americans in a war that has only reduced the security of Americans;
* The Democratic leadership has given Mr. Bush all that he wanted, with the only caveat being, not merely meaningless symbolism about benchmarks for the Iraqi government, but optional meaningless symbolism about benchmarks for the Iraqi government.
* The Democratic leadership has, in sum, claimed a compromise with the Administration, in which the only things truly compromised, are the trust of the voters, the ethics of the Democrats, and the lives of our brave, and doomed, friends, and family, in Iraq.

You, the men and women elected with the simplest of directions—Stop The War—have traded your strength, your bargaining position, and the uniform support of those who elected you… for a handful of magic beans.
You may trot out every political cliché from the soft-soap, inside-the-beltway dictionary of boilerplate sound bites, about how this is the “beginning of the end” of Mr. Bush’s “carte blanche” in Iraq, about how this is a “first step.”
Well, Senator Reid, the only end at its beginning… is our collective hope that you and your colleagues would do what is right, what is essential, what you were each elected and re-elected to do.
Because this “first step”… is a step right off a cliff.

And this President!
How shameful it would be to watch an adult… hold his breath, and threaten to continue to do so, until he turned blue.
But how horrifying it is… to watch a President hold his breath and threaten to continue to do so, until innocent and patriotic Americans in harm’s way, are bled white.
You lead this country, sir?
You claim to defend it?
And yet when faced with the prospect of someone calling you on your stubbornness—your stubbornness which has cost 3,431 Americans their lives and thousands more their limbs—you, Mr. Bush, imply that if the Democrats don’t give you the money and give it to you entirely on your terms, the troops in Iraq will be stranded, or forced to serve longer, or have to throw bullets at the enemy with their bare hands.
How transcendentally, how historically, pathetic.
Any other president from any other moment in the panorama of our history would have, at the outset of this tawdry game of political chicken, declared that no matter what the other political side did, he would insure personally—first, last and always—that the troops would not suffer.
A President, Mr. Bush, uses the carte blanche he has already, not to manipulate an overlap of arriving and departing Brigades into a ‘second surge,’ but to say in unequivocal terms that if it takes every last dime of the monies already allocated, if it takes reneging on government contracts with Halliburton, he will make sure the troops are safe—even if the only safety to be found, is in getting them the hell out of there.
Well, any true President would have done that, Sir.
You instead, used our troops as political pawns, then blamed the Democrats when you did so.

Not that these Democrats, who had this country’s support and sympathy up until 48 hours ago, have not since earned all the blame they can carry home.

“We seem to be very near the bleak choice between war and shame,” Winston Churchill wrote to Lord Moyne in the days after the British signed the Munich accords with Germany in 1938. “My feeling is that we shall choose shame, and then have war thrown in, a little later…”

That’s what this is for the Democrats, isn’t it?

Their “Neville Chamberlain moment” before the Second World War.
All that’s missing is the landing at the airport, with the blinkered leader waving a piece of paper which he naively thought would guarantee “peace in our time,” but which his opponent would ignore with deceit.
The Democrats have merely streamlined the process.
Their piece of paper already says Mr. Bush can ignore it, with impugnity.

And where are the Democratic presidential hopefuls this evening?
See they not, that to which the Senate and House leadership has blinded itself?

Judging these candidates based on how they voted on the original Iraq authorization, or waiting for apologies for those votes, is ancient history now.

The Democratic nomination is likely to be decided… tomorrow.
The talk of practical politics, the buying into of the President’s dishonest construction “fund-the-troops-or-they-will-be-in-jeopardy,” the promise of tougher action in September, is falling not on deaf ears, but rather falling on Americans who already told you what to do, and now perceive your ears as closed to practical politics.
Those who seek the Democratic nomination need to—for their own political futures and, with a thousand times more solemnity and importance, for the individual futures of our troops—denounce this betrayal, vote against it, and, if need be, unseat Majority Leader Reid and Speaker Pelosi if they continue down this path of guilty, fatal acquiescence to the tragically misguided will of a monomaniacal president.

For, ultimately, at this hour, the entire government has failed us.

* Mr. Reid, Mr. Hoyer, and the other Democrats… have failed us.
They negotiated away that which they did not own, but had only been entrusted by us to protect: our collective will as the citizens of this country, that this brazen War of Lies be ended as rapidly and safely as possible.
* Mr. Bush and his government… have failed us.
They have behaved venomously and without dignity—of course.
That is all at which Mr. Bush is gifted.
We are the ones providing any element of surprise or shock here.

With the exception of Senator Dodd and Senator Edwards, the Democratic presidential candidates have (so far at least) failed us.

They must now speak, and make plain how they view what has been given away to Mr. Bush, and what is yet to be given away tomorrow, and in the thousand tomorrows to come.

Because for the next fourteen months, the Democratic nominating process—indeed the whole of our political discourse until further notice—has, with the stroke of a cursed pen, become about one thing, and one thing alone.
The electorate figured this out, six months ago.
The President and the Republicans have not—doubtless will not.
The Democrats will figure it out, during the Memorial Day recess, when they go home and many of those who elected them will politely suggest they stay there—and permanently.
Because, on the subject of Iraq…
The people have been ahead of the media….
Ahead of the government…
Ahead of the politicians…
For the last year, or two years, or maybe three.

Our politics… is now about the answer to one briefly-worded question.
Mr. Bush has failed.
Mr. Warner has failed.
Mr. Reid has failed.
So.
Who among us will stop this war—this War of Lies?
To he or she, fall the figurative keys to the nation.
To all the others—presidents and majority leaders and candidates and rank-and-file Congressmen and Senators of either party—there is only blame… for this shameful, and bi-partisan, betrayal.

Matt Stoler, the thought leader in the internet wing of the progressive movement, has published a List of Blue Dog Saboteurs, Democrats who are refusing to vote for a bill with “a certain date for withdrawal” from Iraq.

In the hopes of getting the message out, I reproduce that list in its entirety below:

Michael Arcuri (NY-24)
John Barrow (GA-12)
Melissa Bean (IL-08)
Dan Boren (OK-02)
Jim Cooper (TN-05)
Bud Cramer (AL-02)
Brad Ellsworth (IN-08)
Kirsten Gillibrand (NY-20)
Baron Hill (IN-09)
Tim Mahoney (FL-16)
Jim Marshall (GA-08)
Mike McIntyre (NC-07)
John Peterson (PA-05)
John Salazar (CO-03)
Joe Sestak (PA-07)
Heath Shuler (NC-11)
Gene Taylor (MS-04)

These scoundrels should be horsewhipped. Or, at very least, driven from the Democratic Party.

Indeed, it is my firm hope that these DINOs will either resign from Congress and run as Republicans or simply be replaced by Republicans in the next election. The country would certainly be better served if only Democrats who pledge no deviation from the BlogPAC platform emerged from the primaries.