Moveon.org PAC to run ads targeting Democratic leader in House Steny Hoyer

From Raw Story:

MoveOn.org PAC will run sharp radio ads attack against the Democrats' number two in the House, Democratic Whip, Steny Hoyer (D-MD) along with ten Republican congressmembers, RAW STORY has learned.

To recap the basic story on the bankruptcy bill. The bill is essentially a payoff to the lending industry designed to reduce the number of private citizens who could be protected under capter 7 bankruptcy, allowing them to, eventually, start their lives over with a clean slate.

Promoted as an answer to irresponsible scofflaws who abuse the credit system, the bill fails to account for the fact that the majority of private bankruptcies have little to do with irresponsible borrowing, and much to do with the increasing insecurity ofAmerican personal finances. And especially egregious is the bill's failure to protect those whose financial insolvency is due to medical and related emergenies, which now account for about half of all personal bankruptcies combined.

As such the bill, one would think, should be anathema to a Democratic party seeking to protect the interests of working and middle-class Americans against the depredations of the corporate plutocracy. I mean sure, the Repblicans are for it, but they sold their souls to Big Bizness long ago. But Democrats?

Sad but true. The bill garnered 14 key Democratic votes in the Senate, as well as those of 73 house Democrats (including Democratic whip Hoyer).

[Note - Especially cynical were Lieberman's votes, in typical old paradigm fashion, he voted with the Repubs in the only vote the Dems might have won, and switched his vote once the bill's passage was a done deal and his vote was meaningless- grrr.]

This brings up two points. First, the Democratic Party will never be able to courageously represent the interests of working and middle-class Americans until it can divest itself of its own corporate owners.

The second is that Democrats (as well as Republicans, and the corporate media) are going to have to realize they are operating in a new, and much broader based information environment. Time was when hypocrites like Joe Lieberman, and Joe Biden could spend all their speaking time talking up Democratic values, while making deals for corporate giveaways. No longer.

The powers that be have now to deal with literally millions of eyes watching, parsing, discussing and disseminating their every move. And every depredation exposed on the internet, by Raw Story, by Media Matters, by MoveOn, by Kos, by Atrios, by AmericaBlog, by thousands of bloggers great and small, EVERY move is subject to a smell test like never before. And, like "Jeff Gannon's" nudes, once something's on the net, it never goes away.

So to Joe "voted for it before he voted against it" Lieberman and his ilk, be forwarned. A cloture vote in 2005 may seem like something that will have little impact on the public in 2008, but such hypocrisy is now common knowledge to millions not hundreds.

And we will remember.