A Candid look into the Morally vacant

So says Dean Barnett of the new, would-be progressive "Bible," Crashing the Gate.

Aside from an excellent analysis of Democratic ills, he's not really sure what the point is:

Democratic political consultants receive particularly harsh treatment. Moulitsas and Armstrong take shots at Bob Shrum (who is now 0 for 8 in presidential elections) , and yet is seemingly entrusted every four years to run another Democratic campaign into the ground. Crashing the Gate also exposes the astronomical fees that Shrum and his ilk charge and acidly observes how even the notoriously spendthrift Bush campaign was able to pay less than half as much for better service.

Armstrong and Moulitsas astutely highlight another critical challenge facing the Democrats--the party has devolved into a gaggle of squabbling factions who care more about their own pet issues than they do the fate of the party. NARAL, for instance, comes in for a bashing for its endorsement of pro-choice Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee in Rhode Island.

The authors conclude that the Democrats' big tent is crammed with special interest groups is because the party has no unifying principles or goals. Moulitsas and Armstrong declare, "It is difficult to overstate the need for the Democratic Party to develop its own ideas, not just argue against the Republican ones."

...

BUT THE MOST DISTURBING question raised by Crashing the Gate is if progressives don't know what they're fighting for, then why are they fighting so hard?

Crashing the Gate provides an invaluable snapshot of the Democratic party and the progressive movement circa 2006. Moulitsas and Armstrong are at the vanguard of the progressive movement, and even they don't know seem to know what it stands for.

Indeed. Too many ideas, from too many people a unifying vision do not make.