"When progressive opinion leaders wait for conservatives to say something stupid and then pounce on it, they cede the choice of topics in national debate to their enemies.... [I]t’s no substitute for a liberalism that tells its own story, on its own timeline, and lets the right react."

I think there's at least a couple kernels of truth in this guy's take on things. It reminds me of that Ron Suskind article a few years back about the Bush White House guy boasting how progressives think about things, and conservatives just do things and assert their agendas.

Good article with several good points although I think completely ignoring people like Beck is also not the answer - pick certain battles. If the left wants to win the fight for ideology in this country, people need to 1) set the agenda rather than react to it, 2) have a unified counter-movement that is cohesive like the tea party on the right, and 3) be willing to call out policies on the right when they are obvious gifts to business at the cost of citizens.

This is why we spend so much time talking about Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck. Instead of discussing progressive ideas and forwarding progressive policies we're waiting for the next thing Beck says to prove how stupid he is. In the meantime, people have no idea of what the progressive ideas are because no one ever discusses them.

Instead of reacting to what Beck and Palin are saying progressives should be discussing their ideas for turning this economy around.

The tax cuts have failed and our future is threatened by cuts to education and infrastructure investment.

For every one job available there are 5 people applying for it.

A resurgence in the discussion and forwarding of FDR type policies, and their value, is going to accomplish significantly more than spending all of our time talking about Palin and Beck.

Hence the call to ignore Palin and Beck, just ignore them. No matter how dumb a statement they make, ignore it and shift the discussion to something more relevant.