A year or so ago I read Meg Greenfield's posthumous memoir Washington in which she likens the entire place to one big, immature repeat of high school social dynamics. It was amusing. Kind of. But, I thought she overdid the metaphor a bit.

In light of the 'Smite the Dean Apostates!' 'Kick them Out of Our Club!' mentality that seems to be taking hold, I'm beginning to rethink that assessment. Todd at DI has linked to the entire article and picked up on Elaine Kamarck's reaction. (Note that Elaine spoke up for Dean a few weeks ago.)

"That's stupid Washington bullshit," she said. And there was one other response she wanted to share with her erstwhile friends: "Fuck 'em."

Todd says, "my reaction is the same as Elaine Kamarck's." Mine too. And, as I noted in his comment thread, it reminded me of something: I remember raising an eyebrow when Josh Marshall singled out Elaine for her endorsement of Dean. He said,

Perhaps when he really delivered that establishment a fatal blow was in the winter when he got all of them (Gore, Bradley, Carter sorta, Harkin, McGreevey, Kamarck -- yes, we saw Elaine, we saw!) to endorse him and then, with them in tow, drove off a cliff.

Umm. What the hell?

I know that Patrick at Electrolite and others have looked askance at some folks who started referring to Josh Marshall as a "Beltway Heather" for some of his writing over the last few months. But if this isn't a prime example of in-club/out-club school-girl nonsense, I don't know what it is. 'We saaaaaw, Elaine, we saaaw! Nyaaah nyaaah!' ??? How juvenile. Just another little symptom of the self-absorbed preciousness and popularity-focused rot within the Democratic establishment, I guess.

Clearly, the Kool Kidz Klub is too cool for me. This "you're out of my club/never work in this town again" mindset because people supported centrist Democrat Howard Dean while Zell Miller still gets to be a Democratic super-delegate after vowing to vote for George W. Bush is beyond, beyond the pale.

The Democratic Party is broken.

Update: Oh. Happy Valentine's Day.