I thought I should educate myself and others with the following information culled from the DLC and the Democratic Underground.

Let us begin with Congressional Membership.

I could not locate a list of members on the DLC website.  After performing a search on Google, I located a list maintained at Democratic Underground, the link to which I provide above.  The link Democratic Underground provides to the DLC's website, however, led me to a DLC page that claims the webpage is presently unavailable.  It seems as if the DLC is acutely aware of the disgust many of us have for their policies.  But why must they be so secretive?

The following members of the 109th Congress are also members of the DLC:

Brian Baird, U.S. Representative, WA
Max Baucus, U.S. Senator, MT
Evan Bayh, U.S. Senator, IN
Melissa Bean, United States Representative, IL
Shelley Berkley, U.S. Representative, NV
Maria Cantwell, U.S. Senator, WA
Lois Capps, U.S. Representative, CA
Russ Carnahan, U.S. Representative, MO
Tom Carper, U.S. Senator, DE
Ed Case, U.S. Representative, HI
Ben Chandler, U.S. Representative, KY
Hillary Clinton, U.S. Senator, NY
Kent Conrad, U.S. Senator, ND
Joseph Crowley, U.S. Representative, NY
Jim Davis, U.S. Representative, FL
Artur Davis, U.S. Representative, AL
Susan Davis, U.S. Representative, CA
Christopher Dodd, U.S. Senator, CT
Byron Dorgan, U.S. Senator, ND
Rahm Emanuel, U.S. Representative, IL
Eliot Engel, U.S. Representative, NY
Bob Etheridge, U.S. Representative, NC
Dianne Feinstein, U.S. Senator, CA
Harold Ford, Jr. , U.S. Representative, TN
Charlie Gonzalez, United States Representative, TX
Jane Harman, U.S. Representative, CA
Stephanie Herseth, U.S. Representative, SD
Rush Holt, U.S. Representative, NJ
Darlene Hooley, U.S. Representative, OR
Jay Inslee, U.S. Representative, WA
Steve Israel, U.S. Representative, NY
Tim Johnson, U.S. Senator, SD
John Kerry, U.S. Senator, MA
Ron Kind, U.S. Representative, WI
Herb Kohl, U.S. Senator, WI
Mary Landrieu, U.S. Senator, LA
Rick Larsen, U.S. Representative, WA
John Larson, U.S. Representative, CT
Joe Lieberman, U.S. Senator, CT
Blanche Lincoln, U.S. Senator, AR
Carolyn McCarthy, U.S. Representative, NY
Mike McIntyre, U.S. Representative, NC
Gregory Meeks, U.S. Representative, NY
Charlie Melancon, United States Representative, LA
Juanita Millender-McDonald, U.S. Representative, CA
Jim Moran, U.S. Representative, VA
Bill Nelson, U.S. Senator, FL
Ben Nelson, U.S. Senator, NE
David Price, U.S. Representative, NC
Mark Pryor, U.S. Senator, AR
Loretta Sanchez, U.S. Representative, CA
Adam B. Schiff, U.S. Representative, CA
Allyson Schwartz, U.S. Representative, PA
David Scott, U.S. Representative, GA
Adam Smith, U.S. Representative, WA
Vic Snyder, United States Representative, AR
Debbie Stabenow, U.S. Senator, MI
Ellen Tauscher, U.S. Representative, CA
Tom Udall, U.S. Representative, NM
David Wu, U.S. Representative, OR

Although I am disappointed with the membership of some politicians, none of this surprises me.  Indeed, Melissa Bean and Rahm Emanuel are included on this list.  Embarrassments to the Illinois Democratic Party, they are more dedicated to the problematic policies of the DLC than they are to their constituents in Illinois.  And this was amply illustrated by the intervention of Rahm Emanuel, Hillary Clinton and John Kerry in the Sixth Congressional District of Illinois's Demcratic Primary.  And notice how Rahm, Hillary and John are all members of the DLC.  Will Tammy join if she wins her election this November?

But for what does this organization stand?  On their website's main page, they provide a link to the following article, essentially sanctioning the ideas articulated therein.  The article is entitled "Reclaiming the Democratic Party," and its author is Jackson Diehl of the Washington Post.  Allow me to quote generously from this article.

Though you'd never know it from surfing the Internet, there exists in the Democratic Party a substantial body of politicians and policymakers who believe the U.S. mission in Iraq must be sustained until it succeeds; who want to intensify American attempts to spread democracy in the greater Middle East; and who think that the Army needs to be expanded to fight a long war against Islamic extremism.

Their problem isn't only that some people (mostly Republicans and independents) don't believe they exist. Or that the flamers at MoveOn.org would expel them from the party if that were possible. They also face the formidable task of rescuing what they believe is a quintessentially Democratic policy agenda from the wreckage of the Bush administration, so that a future president can do it right.

Where to begin: with the dismissal of what Diehl calls "Internet" activists who are also members of the Democratic party; with Diehl's touting of a defense strategy that is increasingly losing popularity in the United States; or with his denigration of MoveOn.org, something Republicans, especially Liz Dole and the NRSC, enjoy doing with a vengeance?  And why is this review of their new text entitled With All Our Might: A Progressive Strategy for Defeating Jihadism and Defending Liberty displayed on the DLC's front page?  If it insults the most active organizations within the Democratic Party's orbit, would it not be in the best interest of their members who are also members of the Democratic Party to not affiliate themselves with such statements?

But the jabs in Diehl's article are not limited to "Internet" activists and MoveOn.org; they are also directed to our Congressional leaders.  Try digesting this gem:

No, I'm not talking about House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who wants to quickly abandon Iraq, regardless of the consequences; or Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, who recently issued a "Democratic Plan to Protect America and Restore Our Leadership in the World" that does not include the word "democracy."

Harry Reid, according to Diehl and, by implication, the DLC, does not believe in "democracy." Or as they view it, his foreign policy stance is one that is somehow undemocratic.  And again, the DLC publicizes this unfounded characterization of Reid's platform on their website.  The dismissal of Nancy Pelosi is similar, but notice how Murtha, whose plan Pelosi now embraces, is not mentioned in Diehl's article.  For if it was, Diehl and the DLC would be criticizing a Viet Nam Veteran.  But Reid and Pelosi are fair game for the hawkish DLC, for the Minority Leaders are not veterans.  The sanctimony and hypocrisy is astounding.

Let us continue:

This is about a coalition of mostly younger foreign affairs professionals who held mid-level positions at the State Department and the National Security Council during the Clinton administration and who have spent the past several years formulating a distinctly Democratic response to the post-Sept. 11 era -- as opposed to a one-dimensional critique of President Bush or Iraq. Now they are beginning to gravitate toward some of the centrist Democrats who -- unlike Pelosi or Reid -- might actually emerge as serious presidential candidates in 2008, such as former Virginia governor Mark Warner, Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh and Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack.

Those of us who desire to withdraw our troops from Iraq are now "one-dimensional?" Should I recommend Marcuse's text to them?  For Diehl and the DLC certainly do not understand Marcuse's use of that adjective.  But those of us who understand preemptive war and the destruction of a country's infrastructure in the name of establishing political hegemony are somehow simplistic?  And this is endorsed by members of the DLC?  But even worse, Democrats who have actually assumed a coherently articulated stance against the war are not capable of serving as US President?  Is this the threadbare "electability" argument that lost us the election in 2004?  And lackluster Governors such as Tom Vilsack and Mark Warner and ineffective and frankly lazy Senators such as Evan Bayh are somehow qualified to be US President simply because they desire to continue a war that promises to deplete our Treasury and thereby engender an economic doldrum?  This is considered leadership?

But it gets better.  Look at the following political strategy the DLC endorses:

Like most of its authors, editor Will Marshall, a DLC founder who now heads the policy institute, sees himself as reviving the foreign policy of Harry Truman and John F. Kennedy, who formulated the Democratic response to the totalitarian menace of communism. Jihadism, Marshall says, requires a similar exercise of intellectual muscle. "Democrats have always been at our best when we have defended democratic values against illiberal ideologies," Marshall told me last week. "When we do that we can appeal to a broader public, not only at home but globally."

I did not know that "illiberal ideologies" only existed abroad.  Do Diehl and the DLC notice the illiberal ideology that is presently eroding our civil liberties, our civil rights and our ability to control our own destinies?  Have they viewed Bush's 2005 and 2006 budgets?  Have they vetted Sensenbrenner's Immigration Bill?  Should we not address these domestic affronts to liberal ideology, however they may define it, and not those they believe exist overseas?  And is producing an easy scapegoat that enables one to avoid domestic issues a liberal practice?  The answer is an obvious and resounding no, but I imagine it will fall on deaf ears.

But these two paragraphs are even more interesting:

As Marshall sees it, the rapidly sinking popularity of Bush and the Republican Congress provides Democrats with "their first real opportunity since 9/11 to make the case on national security." The paradox is that Bush has appropriated some of the central themes of the Truman-Kennedy foreign policy -- above all, the emphasis on the global promotion of freedom. Bush has poisoned grass-roots Democratic support for democracy promotion: The book quotes a German Marshall Fund survey showing that Democrats now oppose it by 50 to 43 percent, while Republicans favor it by a margin of 76 to 19.

So Democrats have to start by "reclaiming our own ground," Marshall says. His book proposes two important ways to do that. First, Democrats can clean up the crimes perpetrated by the Bush administration at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and the CIA's secret prisons, and restore America's reputation as the world's foremost defender of human rights. They can also end Bush's cynical policy of demanding democracy from enemy regimes such as Iran and Syria while tolerating the continued autocracy of such friends as Egypt and Saudi Arabia. In an essay laying out a "grand strategy for the Middle East," former NSC official Kenneth M. Pollack proposes that a Democratic administration take a simple but crucial step that Bush has eschewed: directly linking the $2 billion in annual U.S. aid to Egypt to the implementation of "a long term plan for political and economic changes."

We surmount the paradox of Bush's appropriation of an erstwhile Democratic policy by reclaiming it after it has been abused and debased?  And then we become even more hawkish than the Bush Administration in order to affirm our committment to the spread democracy and to a very dangerous foreign policy that is the product of Republican madness?  There is a difference between a committment to democratic political systems and the fascist imposition of such systems on other geopolitical entities, I believe, and I do not believe reinscribing Bush's foreign policy is one anyone with a critical sensibility should condone in the wake of his plummeting approval ratings.  But if this is the strategy the DLC and their mouthpeices desire to undertake, I will allow them to dig their own hole.  Again, the DLC publishes this on the main page of their website.

Here is the final paragraph of Diehl's article, and I reproduce it in full:

Are those Democrats talking? Yes, indeed: Marshall's group also has ideas on how Democrats can build stronger ties to the Republican-dominated military, revitalize NATO and the United Nations, and reverse Bush's tax cuts in order to modernize and expand the Army. Don't be surprised if, after all the Internet noise fades away, such ideas are at the center of the next presidential campaign.

So the "noise," not the legitimate criticism, on the Internet must fade so those who are not Democrats can become the phoenix that rises from the ashes of a fully invalidated and pulverized progressive movement.  But how does this resonate with the DLC's position on the use of the Internet to further political participation?  Read the following from the DLC's "key document" entitled "The Hyde Park Declaration: A Statement of Principles and a Policy Agenda for the 21st Century," which was penned on 1 AUG 2000:

2. Return Politics to the People

At a time when much of the world is emulating American values and institutions, too many Americans have lost confidence in their political system. They are turned off by a partisan debate that often seems to revolve not around opposing philosophies but around contending sets of interest groups. They believe that our current system for financing campaigns gives disproportionate power to wealthy individuals and groups and exerts too much influence over legislative and regulatory outcomes.

The time for piecemeal reform is past. As campaign costs soar at every level, we need to move toward voluntary public financing of all general elections and press broadcasters to donate television time to candidates.

The Internet holds tremendous potential for making campaigns less expensive and more edifying and for engaging Americans directly in electoral politics. We should promote the Internet as a new vehicle for political communication and champion online voting.

Goals for 2010

Introduce voluntary public financing for all general elections.

Allow properly regulated voter registration and voting online.

Implement civic education courses in every public school.

If the Internet is to serve as a tool for "political communication" that promises to "return politics to the people," why would your organization endorse an article that denigrates open, public debate on the Internet as so much "noise?" Or is communication a one-way street for the DLC?  Or does the DLC assume that only they are "people?" 

And what about the following sentence did Rahm Emanuel, the main culprit in the Cegelis Scandal of 2006, fail to understand about the following:

The Internet holds tremendous potential for making campaigns less expensive and more edifying and for engaging Americans directly in electoral politics. We should promote the Internet as a new vehicle for political communication and champion online voting.

Should we revoke Emanuel's DLC membership?  Or did Cegelis threaten to make rhetoric into a reality?

But this is my last concern.  Here is the DLC:  

They are turned off by a partisan debate that often seems to revolve not around opposing philosophies but around contending sets of interest groups.

 Why do I hear Markos Moulitsas Zuniga's voice?  Why does his voice come to mind unbidden?  Or why do I hear Markos parroting DLC rhetoric?  Who speaks when Markos writes, the DLC or Markos Moulitsas Zuniga?  Who speaketh thus?  

I will end there.  But I must say I am not pleased with the DLC's endorsement of Diehl's column, and I am certainly not pleased with Kos's utilization of an idea culled from the DLC's "Hyde Park Declaration." After all, are not the DLC and Daily Kos special interest groups?  Are they not one of many groups who comprise the Democratic Party?  Aspiring to efface their marked status by espousing a policy of unity though subsumption beneath an undefined banner named the Democratic Party, both Kos and the DLC desire to shove "special interest groups" to the margins with the goal of colonizing the unmarked space in the center of the party's orbit with their own "special interests." And why does this recall the DLC's policy of confronting "illiberal ideologies" abroad?  Eradicate that which you define as antithetical to your own goals in order to establish what you call "unity"?  Hegemony is now a liberal virtue?  I hope both of these "special interest groups" will medidate on this paradox instead of what Diehl calls the paradox of Bush adopting a Democratic foreign policy.

Voilà!