Chuck Schumer says both left- and right-wing blogs are too vicious and negative but the difference is: Left-wing blogs "have less credibility and less clout."

Excerpts from his interview with TNR's Isaac Chotiner:

CS: [One] thing the Tea Party does is threaten their fellow Republicans. They actually threaten them. If you punched in—I used to do this—“Marco Rubio” when we were doing immigration reform, nine out of ten hard-right blogs were negative on him: attack after attack after attack....

[T]here are some on the far left who just have a visceral hatred of Wall Street. It’s counterproductive.

IC: ... Is this a problem for your party?

CS: You don’t want to go after them for the sake of going after them. The left-wing blogs want you to be completely and always anti–Wall Street. It’s not the right way to be.

IC: So are the left-wing blogs as bad as the Tea Party ones in this case?

CS: Left-wing blogs are the mirror image. They just have less credibility and less clout.

ADDED: Kos bites back:

Left-wing blogs had credibility when they were helping Schumer's DSCC win control of the Senate. Now that we're criticizing Wall Street? No credibility! And we're just like the Tea Party, having cost Democrats a half-dozen seats and the Senate majority in the last couple of years.

Oh, you mean we haven't pushed the Democratic Party outside of the national mainstream? Weird, then. On the other hand, it wasn't bloggers trying to save Sen. Scott Brown's hide in 2012, like good ol' Chuck:

There is a good little story. [Looks to aide] I can tell this. I went to Scott Brown and said, “If you give us the sixtieth vote for the Citizens United rollback, we won’t go after you.”

If it was up to Schumer, he would've traded an entire Senate seat for one meaningless cloture vote on a bill that would've died a quick death in the House. God knows his Wall Street benefactors would've been thrilled at that!

From my perspective, intra-party relations have never been better. It seems odd that Schumer is trying to start an internecine war at this very moment, particularly with a tough 2014 up ahead. And as the number three Democrat in the Senate, his words carry outsized weight. But it's clear that the Wall Street wing of the Democratic Party is feeling the heat from its resurgent populist wing: the Warrens, Baldwins, Browns and Merkleys.

Republicans are locked in their own bloody civil war. Schumer (and his Third Way allies) may have just signaled that we may be in for some bloodshed of our own. In fact, he appears eager to lead Wall Street's counter attack.