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It was a big day over at dailykos today. In the runup to Roberts' confirmation vote, Senator Obama criticized the partisan elements that excoriated the senators like Leahy who pledged Yes votes. There were several diaries at daily kos that wondered about Obama's motivations, and many members who felt betrayed by Obama's stance.

Today, Barack Obama wrote a diary over at dkos, explaining and defending his views. Here's the main section:

According to the storyline that drives many advocacy groups and Democratic activists - a storyline often reflected in comments on this blog - we are up against a sharply partisan, radically conservative, take-no-prisoners Republican party.  They have beaten us twice by energizing their base with red meat rhetoric and single-minded devotion and discipline to their agenda.  In order to beat them, it is necessary for Democrats to get some backbone, give as good as they get, brook no compromise, drive out Democrats who are interested in "appeasing" the right wing, and enforce a more clearly progressive agenda.  The country, finally knowing what we stand for and seeing a sharp contrast, will rally to our side and thereby usher in a new progressive era.

I think this perspective misreads the American people.

First, I'm now officially on the Barack Obama bus. There's probably room for me now that many of the people who merely saw him as a black progressive savior jumped off.

There were two response diaries to Barack's diary, both disagreeing in different ways. One immediately accused everyone of sucking up to Obama.

Anyway, first can I say, isn't this just all exhausting?

There is a huge partisan element to the GOP success. Poisonous and unfair. And rising to meet it is a huge partisan element among the Democratic side. And they are both growing, when, in my opinion, what we really should be working towards is shrinking both of them.

I imagine Senator Obama might be feeling discouraged at reading the the response to his words.

Part of the problem is that even as many of the activists at dkos protest and fight against the negative frames asserted onto the Democrats, they are also reinforcing them.

For instance, the thing about Democrats having no vision. Here's a snippet from Rena's response diary.

Ask yourself this: why is it that the vast majority of progressives who frequent Daily Kos are able to sum up the Republican party's platform in six words?  Strong Military.  Lower Taxes.  Family Values.  Yet this pool of often brilliant thinkers can't do the same for our own party.

Well, duh. Maybe it's because "Strong Military. Lower Taxes. Family Values." is dumb policy. And maybe it's because Democrats tend to actually be interested in fashioning smart policy. And maybe it's true that smart policy tends to be a tad more complicated than dumb policy.

But the diarist and many of the commenters insist on playing into the "Democrats are visionless" frame. It's hogwash. What they're actually whining about is that they aren't being spoonfed enough.

We have a long way to go to get past our own liberal self-hatred before we can be more effective. It should be obvious that the Republicans currently have far less of a positive vision for America than the Democrats do, but instead we fall into the trap of describing the Democrats as disorganized, ineffectual, weak, and visionless.

The activist base is guilty of everything that they accuse the Democratic leadership of being guilty of. They cannot communicate a standard by which the Democratic leadership should be held, and yet they criticize them for failing to meet the standard. The activist base prides themselves on being united in partisanship, not policy, as if it's a good thing. When the truth is that while the activist base is united in excoriating the Democratic side for not living up to their vision of a progressive vision, every activist's progressive vision is different. Yes, that's a good thing, but how do you expect ideological purity if there isn't even supposed to be a pure standard to live up to?

I understand the narrative. If you've already bought into the narrative that our leaders are weak and that they fold under pressure and sacrifice too much, then every vote - every vote - is going to be further confirmation of that narrative. But frames are harmful. That's what a frame does to you - it restricts your ability to see beyond its edges.

What I saw today at daily kos was Barack Obama trying to break a frame, and then being shouted down by those still within the frame.