This post is in reference to a diary that floridagal has up at boomantribune. My words started off as a comment to her diary but have become so long I'm embarrassed to post it! So what I'll do is post this here at home, and if anyone's interested feel free to go over and give her a read and bounce back here for my take-down. Almost everyone in the thread over at booman as i write this is also an Our Word member.

Floridagal's Kamarck and her Third Way admonition to liberals irritated the heck out of me.

:::my comment begins here:::

My opinion on the organization known as Third Way is that it's a recyled advocacy organization from the past given a brand new task. It has no apparent membership that I can see. It seems geared to advancing some type of corporate/conservative "push" against progressives/netroots/activists and it's serving a small but entrenched and powerful segment of the democratic party power apparatus that to my way of thinking doesn't really have my interests in mind.

The Galston and Kamarck piece? They're saying move to the center if "we" ever want to win again. They say it's the pesky left of the party thats the problem.

Avedon Carol

I'm sick and tired of being told the base is too far left. What does the base believe in? Universal health care, universal education, safe and fair employment, a healthy economy that provides good jobs, regulation to prevent corporations from defrauding us, care for our environment.

The exact same things that more than two-thirds of Americans believe in.

There's nothing wild or extreme about that - it's absolutely ordinary, moderate, apolitical American stuff.

Anyway you can read about it there, and follow the links at the Sideshow to Kevin Drum taking it apart too. I'm interested in another angle.

I looked at Third Way tonight for about ten or fifteen minutes and I'm a little suspicious. Here's why:

Jon Cowan - President
In 2000, Mr. Cowan founded Americans for Gun Safety, and until July 2004 served as President of AGS...

Jim Kessler - Vice President For Policy
Mr. Kessler served as the Director of Policy and Research at AGS for nearly four years. He joined Americans for Gun Safety after a 12-year career on Capitol Hill, where, after serving as Legislative Director for Representative Chet Atkins and Rep./Senator Charles Schumer...

Matt Bennett - Vice President For Public Affairs
Mr. Bennett served for three years as Director of Communications and Public Affairs at Americans for Gun Safety. He took a leave from AGS in 2004 to serve as Director of Communications for the Clark for President Campaign...

Nancy Hale - Director of Finance & Operations
Ms. Hale served with the other founders of Third Way as the Managing Director of the Tides/Tsunami Fund, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit legislative advocacy organization that handles all of the legal, financial, human resources and other administrative support services for Americans for Gun Safety...

Nancy Jacobson - Senior Advisor
In addition to helping found Third Way, she also serves as Senior Advisor to Senator Evan Bayh, National Finance Chair for the Democratic Leadership Council, and Founder and Executive Director of Next Generation, a political action committee devoted to supporting moderate Senate candidates. Ms. Jacobson was Finance Director of the Democratic National Committee when President Clinton assumed office in 1993...

Chad FitzGerald - Director of Development
In the 2004 election cycle, Mr. FitzGerald was Director of the West Region for America Coming Together (ACT) and held a similar position in the Lieberman for President campaign...

Sean Barney - Senior Policy Advisor
Prior to joining Third Way as a Senior Policy Analyst, Mr. Barney was the Policy Director for Tom Carper s successful 2000 campaign for Senate...

Aaron Scholer - Director of National Security Policy
Dr. Scholer serves as the Director of National Security Policy at Third Way. Prior to joining Third Way, he was a Post-doctoral Fellow for National Security Affairs on the personal staff of Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and the Defense Fellow and Deputy Military Legislative Assistant to Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT)...

So, third way seems to be where the Americans for Gun Safety met the Lieberman, Carper, Bayh, Clark, Schumer crowd. So who's Americans for Gun Safety? Well lets ask the NRA (I can't believe I'm citing the NRA! :).

For the record, AGS has nothing to do with gun safety. It is an organization whose sole founder, a former board member of Handgun Control, Inc., has a highly focused and barely hidden agenda: licensing all American gun owners and registering every firearm they own.

AGS is staffed by the architects of the anti-gun schemes of Bill Clinton and Sen. Charles Schumer. Its president is Jonathan Cowan, who served at the right hand of the self-appointed anti-gun Czar of the Clinton cabinet-HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo, whose agenda for fighting crime revolved around threatening nonsensical lawsuits against gun makers. Cowan is assisted by Clinton White House political aide Matt Bennett, and by Jim Kessler, the former guncontrol advisor to Senator Charles Schumer.

These credentials may explain the insistence of AGS in perpetrating clear falsehoods. The previous Administration championed the tactic of "tell a lie often enough, and soon it becomes the truth." AGS is clearly hoping that the same tactic will prevail in its assault on gun shows.

Well I'm not quite sure how much weight to put into that but it's obvious that the organization formerly known as Americans for Gun Safety is still at work functioning under another name, Third Way. Do you suppose gun-control as a democratic party issue is one of the first things given up in a rush to the middle? Well, lets find something else for them to work on, shall we? If NRA is right though, I mean it's possible, are these people still championing the tactic of "tell a lie often enough, and soon it becomes the truth"?

Who can say?

More light could be shone on the board of trustees, I'm sure, but this piece is getting long and it's late.

Lets look at the Third Way honorary Senate Chairs:

Blanche Lambert Lincoln, U.S. Senator, Arkansas
Evan Bayh U.S. Senator, Indiana
Tom Carper U.S. Senator, Delaware

Honorary Vice Chairs:

Mary Landrieu, U.S. Senator, Louisiana
Mark Pryor, U.S. Senator, Arkansas
Ken Salazar, U.S. Senator, Colorado

The following Democrats voted for the bankruptcy bill (S. 256, Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005) when it came up for a vote in the senate:
Baucus (D-MT)
Bayh (D-IN)
Biden (D-DE)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Byrd (D-WV)
Carper (D-DE)
Conrad (D-ND)
Inouye (D-HI)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kohl (D-WI)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Pryor (D-AR)
Reid (D-NV)
Salazar (D-CO)
Stabenow (D-MI)

The following Democratic party members of the Senate voted to confirm John Roberts as Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Together, they sided with members of the Republican party to confirm Roberts in a 78-22 vote.

Baucus (MT)
Bingaman (NM)
Byrd (WV)
Carper (DE)
Conrad (ND)
Dodd (CT)
Dorgan (ND)
Feingold (WI)
Johnson (SD)
Kohl (WI)
Landrieu (LA)
Leahy (VT)
Levin (MI)
Lieberman (CT)
Lincoln (AR)
Murray (WA)
Nelson, Ben (NE)
Nelson, Bill (FL)
Pryor (AR)
Rockefeller (WV)
Salazar (CO)
Wyden (OR)

From the Democrats for Life 108th congress scorecard. Note that the O represents the pro-choice position and the X represents the anti-choice position.The referenced bills are below the senators voting record. (columns are beyond me this evening, sorry)

Bill, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Bayh, 0, X, 0, X, 0
Carper, 0, X, 0, X, X
Landrieu, X, X, 0, X, X
Lincoln, 0, X, 0, X, 0
Pryor, X, X, X, X, X
Salazar, not a member in 108th

Senate
1.Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act:
Feinstein Substitute
Roll Call #: 49
Date: March 12, 2003
Vote Result: 35-60
Pro-Life Position: No Vote
12 Democrats voted Yes

2. Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 -
Final Passage on legislation to prohibit partial
birth abortions.
Roll Call #: 402
Date: March 13, 2003
Vote Result: 64-33
Pro-Life Position: Yes Vote
16 Democrats voted Yes

3. Abortion in military medical facilities
Amendment - to allow the use of U.S. military
medical facilities for abortion.
Roll Call #: 192
Date: May 22, 2003
Vote Result: 48-51
Pro-Life Position: No Vote
5 Democrats voted No

4. Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 -
Conference Report on legislation to prohibit
partial birth abortions.
Roll Call #: 402
Date: October 21, 2003
Vote Result: 64-34
Pro-Life Position: Yes Vote
17 Democrats voted Yes

5. Unborn Victims of Violence Act: passage -
The bill would protect the rights of unborn
children from assault and murder.
Roll Call #: 63
Date: March 25, 2004
Vote Result: 61-38
Pro-Life Position: Yes Vote
13 Democrats voted Yes

Who funds these people?

Well, you can stick a fork in this organization, The Third Way. They might use the word progressive on the website but they're not progressive in my book. Like Roberts says about the Supreme court, it's just like baseball, Three strikes and you're out!