What?  Its looks as if Metcalf-Mansfield affected Sirota's ability to develop a conclusion.  Perhaps a bit more time needs to elapse between a face to face "how ya do" to the inevitable internet skewering.  What is the proper etiquette?  Honestly, it is certainly getting harder and harder to take the man seriously. 

Regardless,  in the latest diary at LITW, Sirota can't decide whether or not the Baucus hiring (for the Finance Committee) is a good thing, thus poses that question to the reader 

Cottle appears to have given a few contributions to Democratic candidates very recently, which makes me wonder whether she is some sort of Clinton holdover - though that doesn't really make a difference, considering the Clinton administration's record on trade (more on that in a second). Also, corporate lobbying records suggest she wasn't a Clinton holdover. She was lobbying for a huge stable of "free" trade-advocating multinational companies at the end of the Clinton administration. She even lobbied for the Business Roundtable - one of the most powerful Republican Party organs in Washington.

Now, I understand that Baucus has said that he thinks job outsourcing in America is just fine because "the world is flat." And I understand that he used the first day of his chairmanship of the Senate Finance Committee to publish an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal reassuring the White House that he would support reauthorizing fast track, despite fast track's role in creating the unfair trade policies our small businesses, farmers and workers are now being hurt by.

But I was beginning to be hopeful that Baucus's recent tough language on trade was signaling a change. I'm genuinely curious to hear what the explanation for this personnel move is from Baucus's staff - because remember, this is no ordinary hire: putting a Bush USTR official and former Business Roundtable lobbyist as one of the top trade policymakers on the Senate Finance Committee in advance of the biggest trade debate in the last 6 years is no small matter. Maybe there is a legitimate explanation - I'm guessing there isn't, but let's wait to hear from Max, because we know his staff reads this site.

(internal links removed - remain in original article) 

OK.  My bad.  The dripping sarcasm does permeate, and Mr. Sirota answers his own question.    But the post continues to on to question 2 and an opportunity to berate the author of a editorial chastising the new progressives of Montana (PDooM).   While Sirota himself has problems with the new group, the author of the editorial is way off base (not substance, mind you, but pedigree).  It seems he once worked for Clinton.  (insert scream/wail as if hacking off a limb here)

Read the editorial for yourself.  A well written piece that actually comes to a conclusion.   Sirotas biggest fear seems to be those in PDooM may have more interest in personal agendas than on the movement. 

And in reading the initial press reports about the new group, I worry about whether some people in this particular crew (though certainly not all - there are some terrific people in this group) are more interested in being contrarians for egotistical or sour grapes-ish reasons than they are about pushing a progressive agenda. Perhaps its a clumsy press report, but perhaps not.

Who could disagree?  It is doubtful anyone has more experience with personal agendas, egos, or sour grapes.

This from a man who doesn't think Tim Russet is a journalist.