When it comes to “high crimes and misdemeanors” Bill Clinton didn’t hold a candle to Cheney and Bush. One would therefore think that the Clinton impeachment would have long ago given Democrats the idea; the bar is certainly now low enough for the stare decisis enthusiasts among them. But in the Party of Pusillanimity, the POP, impeachment is off the agenda – even now with Democratic majorities in both the House and the Senate. Had there been a serious effort to impeach Cheney and Bush once it became clear that they had lied the country into war – before the 2004 elections or, at least, before 2006 – then now, when more than 70% of the American people can’t wait to see the back of Cheney and Bush, impeachment would “have legs.” We could even raise the prospect not just of removing Cheney and Bush from office but also of bringing them and those around them to justice. As their ought-to-be indicted co-conspirator George Tenet might say, it would be a “slam dunk.” It’s hard to think of an impeachable offense or, for that matter, of an historical crime for which they are not, all of them, prima facie guilty.
But it was only on April 24 of this year that Dennis Kucinich introduced a resolution [U.S. House Resolution 333] to impeach Cheney [first, one hopes]. The House Judiciary Committee, chaired by John Conyers, has yet to schedule a hearing on it; it probably never will. The House leadership, Nancy Pelosi most conspicuously, is dead set against it, claiming that impeachment would be a “distraction.” [When she first said this, there was at least a promise of a legislative program it might distract from; by now, it is clear that there is no program worth talking about and therefore nothing it would distract from.]
But for Cheney’s gross abuses of power, documented in a series of articles published last week by Barton Gellman and Jo Becker in The Washington Post, the issue would be dead in the water. But thanks to Cheney’s latest, almost comical, efforts to keep everything he does secret, it is still alive, though barely. If only Cheney were a little less outrageous, the Pelosiites would easily have their way. [On the concept of “pelosiism,” see “Pelosiism: the Highest Stage of Clintonism,” May 28.] As it is, they may have to work at it. For this most un-twiggy like figure insists on playing the Ann Coulter role, inadvertently aiding his enemies, much like the Federalist Society’s answer to Twiggy recently did by telling a Fox News Network hack that she wouldn’t mind in the least if John Edwards was killed by a terrorist. The difference is that, unlike Elizabeth Edwards, who (literally) called her on it, Nancy Pelosi and the other Democratic leaders have no backbone; they are determined not to fight back. Still, if Cheney succeeds in inviting enough derision, they may have no choice.
HR Resolution 333 now has ten co-sponsors, along with Kucinich. It should not be necessary to praise them for rising to their constitutional responsibilities, especially after delaying so long and with such ill effect. But it is. Let us therefore offer thanks and praise to William Lacy Clay Jr. (Missouri), Jan Schakowsky (Illinois), Albert Wynn (Maryland), Yvette Clarke (New York), Lyn Woolsey (California), Barbara Lee (California), Maxine Waters (California), Keith Ellison (Minnesota), Hank Johnson (Georgia) and Jim McDermott (Washington). It is noteworthy that three of these co-sponsors, Waters, Ellison and Johnson are on the House Judiciary Committee. But where is John Conyers, the committee’s chairman? Where is the vast majority of the so-called Progressive Caucus with its seventy plus not so very progressive members, some of whom also sit on the Judiciary Committee (Mel Watt, Sheila Jackson Lee, Jerrold Nadler, Danny Davis, and Tammy Baldwin)? Evidently, outside the “progressive wing of the Progressive Caucus” (not to mention “the democratic wing of the Democratic Party” of Paul Wellstone’s imagination), pusillanimity and the will to lose still flourish – along with Pelosiism. We can only hope that Cheney will come to the rescue; that unlike so many of the lesser evilists, he’ll at least be good for something.
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Spoilers
In 2000, Al Gore won the popular vote. He would have won Florida’s electoral votes too, and become President of the United States, had he insisted on a recount for the entire state, not just a few heavily Democratic counties. He would have won by an even bigger margin had the party’s left wing mobilized more against George Bush and less against Ralph Nader. They succeeded in scaring away a lot of Nader supporters, but it isn’t clear how many “independents” they won over. In the end, Nader got only 2.74% of the popular vote. Nevertheless he got and continues to get hell from Democrats – because, but for his Florida votes, Gore would have won there even without a recount. The Democrats are starting up again. Next year, even more than in 2000 or 2004, the election is theirs to lose. It is hard to believe that they could lose, given what they’re up against. But it isn’t impossible; after all, they have knack for it. If they do lose, count on them to find a way again to blame any candidate, should there be one, who, like Nader, advances views that, now more than ever, accord with the voters’ about corporate globalization, “free” trade, imperialism and militarism. Threats of electoral defeat from within the mainstream corporate consensus are a different matter.
Take the case of Michael Bloomberg [See “Not in a New York Minute,” June 20.] The pundits are mostly saying that, were he to run an independent campaign, he’d probably harm the Republicans more than the Democrats. [See, for example, the “analysis” in The Wall Street Journal, June 21, p. A6, where this dubious conclusion rests on extrapolations from out of date polling data and from the fact that, like the current Republican frontrunner, Bloomberg is mayor of New York City and was, until a week ago, a Republican.] To be sure, Bloomberg has been a better mayor than Giuliani – it would be hard not to be! However, he’s also more “liberal” than his predecessor on social issues. Outside New York City, he’s best known for his support of gun control. It’s in the so-called blue states, especially New York, that positions like these are popular. It’s in the blue states too that there are the largest numbers of independent voters and, lets face it, the most acceptance of Jewish candidates. [How unfair it is that the other side gets the color red!]. These are among the reasons why I think the pundits who say that a Bloomberg run would help the Democratic candidate in 2008 are more than usually off base.
But, in all likelihood, Democrats need not worry. Although he has enough money to buy almost anything, Bloomberg is a long shot, even in New York, unless Wall Street falls in behind him. Why should they so long as they have Hillary? However, imagine this scenario: Democratic voters succeed in nominating the least Clintonite of the major contenders – John Edwards, presumably – and suppose Edwards runs a “populist” campaign that puts fear in the hearts of our malefactors of great wealth. Suppose too that the monied interests reject whichever bathetic Republican gets the nomination. [This is unlikely, but not impossible. So long as they help them line their pockets, captains of finance and industry have a high tolerance for buffoonery and incompetence – witness their support, even in 2004, for George W. Bush. But the current lot of candidates makes even the Bush boy look good.] Then, maybe, in some “blue” states Bloomberg would have a chance, after all.
Still, the movers and shakers of the lesser evil party are bothered more by Nader than by Bloomberg. Thus their nature shows. In 2000, Nader never had a chance of winning electoral votes. The hope of his supporters was just that he’d win enough votes, 5%, to make the Green Party eligible for federal funding in future elections; and also that he’d push Al Gore to the left. A candidate more progressive than any the Democrats can offer, whether it is Nader again or not, would have even less chance now in the lingering anything-but-Bush (or Bush clone) miasma that set in in 2004. But even for a more venturesome electorate, a “third party” candidate would probably have little effect. Our not so very democratic institutions make it all but impossible.
It has not been since 1968 that a third party candidate won any electoral votes. The last to do so was George Wallace, running as a segregationist. He got 46 electoral votes from southern states, along with 13.5% of the popular vote from all over the country. In 1992, Ross Perot got 18.9% of the total vote but nothing from the Electoral College; John Anderson in 1980 got 6.6% of the popular vote and, again, no electoral votes. We could debate forever whether these campaigns helped Republicans or Democrats more. But in Bloomberg’s case, there is little doubt. Were his campaign to catch on, his appeal, like Wallace’s would be regional: but the region, this time, would be the Northeast. Were entrenched elites in these states to switch their allegiance from the Republican candidate to someone more palatable, as they did in 2006 in the Senatorial election in Connecticut that Joe Lieberman won, Bloomberg just might win electoral votes somewhere – somewhere “blue” and likely otherwise to remain so. One would think that Democratic strategists would realize this. One would expect that they would be mobilizing now against Bloomberg, just as they would reflexively if it started to look like Nader was going to run again. So far, this has not happened. Are they just not strategizing well? No doubt, that’s part of it. But one cannot help thinking that there is also something more fundamental at work: that Clintonites, no matter how obsessed they are with winning, care even more about giving their paymasters their due.
Note: However deserving they were of contempt, we shouldn’t overestimate the influence of the Democratic “left” in quashing the Nader campaign in 2000. They did go after Nader big time, especially in “liberal” circles in swing states, and they are certainly responsible for scaring many voters away. But that doesn’t explain Nader’s 2.74 % of the popular vote as opposed to Ross Perot’s 18.9%. Neither does Perot’s “centrism,” though the punditocracy claimed and still claims that it did – just as they’ll argue that Bloomberg, should he run, has a chance because he too will run as a centrist. [This assumes that he can find an elusive (because imperceptible) mean between our “polarized” political parties (the ones that agree on everything fundamental to governance and differ only on how socially illiberal they are).] No. The main difference is that Perot got to debate Clinton and Bush on national television, while the Democratic leadership in 2000 succeeded in getting Nader shut out. How much healthier our political culture would now be had they failed!
Take the case of Michael Bloomberg [See “Not in a New York Minute,” June 20.] The pundits are mostly saying that, were he to run an independent campaign, he’d probably harm the Republicans more than the Democrats. [See, for example, the “analysis” in The Wall Street Journal, June 21, p. A6, where this dubious conclusion rests on extrapolations from out of date polling data and from the fact that, like the current Republican frontrunner, Bloomberg is mayor of New York City and was, until a week ago, a Republican.] To be sure, Bloomberg has been a better mayor than Giuliani – it would be hard not to be! However, he’s also more “liberal” than his predecessor on social issues. Outside New York City, he’s best known for his support of gun control. It’s in the so-called blue states, especially New York, that positions like these are popular. It’s in the blue states too that there are the largest numbers of independent voters and, lets face it, the most acceptance of Jewish candidates. [How unfair it is that the other side gets the color red!]. These are among the reasons why I think the pundits who say that a Bloomberg run would help the Democratic candidate in 2008 are more than usually off base.
But, in all likelihood, Democrats need not worry. Although he has enough money to buy almost anything, Bloomberg is a long shot, even in New York, unless Wall Street falls in behind him. Why should they so long as they have Hillary? However, imagine this scenario: Democratic voters succeed in nominating the least Clintonite of the major contenders – John Edwards, presumably – and suppose Edwards runs a “populist” campaign that puts fear in the hearts of our malefactors of great wealth. Suppose too that the monied interests reject whichever bathetic Republican gets the nomination. [This is unlikely, but not impossible. So long as they help them line their pockets, captains of finance and industry have a high tolerance for buffoonery and incompetence – witness their support, even in 2004, for George W. Bush. But the current lot of candidates makes even the Bush boy look good.] Then, maybe, in some “blue” states Bloomberg would have a chance, after all.
Still, the movers and shakers of the lesser evil party are bothered more by Nader than by Bloomberg. Thus their nature shows. In 2000, Nader never had a chance of winning electoral votes. The hope of his supporters was just that he’d win enough votes, 5%, to make the Green Party eligible for federal funding in future elections; and also that he’d push Al Gore to the left. A candidate more progressive than any the Democrats can offer, whether it is Nader again or not, would have even less chance now in the lingering anything-but-Bush (or Bush clone) miasma that set in in 2004. But even for a more venturesome electorate, a “third party” candidate would probably have little effect. Our not so very democratic institutions make it all but impossible.
It has not been since 1968 that a third party candidate won any electoral votes. The last to do so was George Wallace, running as a segregationist. He got 46 electoral votes from southern states, along with 13.5% of the popular vote from all over the country. In 1992, Ross Perot got 18.9% of the total vote but nothing from the Electoral College; John Anderson in 1980 got 6.6% of the popular vote and, again, no electoral votes. We could debate forever whether these campaigns helped Republicans or Democrats more. But in Bloomberg’s case, there is little doubt. Were his campaign to catch on, his appeal, like Wallace’s would be regional: but the region, this time, would be the Northeast. Were entrenched elites in these states to switch their allegiance from the Republican candidate to someone more palatable, as they did in 2006 in the Senatorial election in Connecticut that Joe Lieberman won, Bloomberg just might win electoral votes somewhere – somewhere “blue” and likely otherwise to remain so. One would think that Democratic strategists would realize this. One would expect that they would be mobilizing now against Bloomberg, just as they would reflexively if it started to look like Nader was going to run again. So far, this has not happened. Are they just not strategizing well? No doubt, that’s part of it. But one cannot help thinking that there is also something more fundamental at work: that Clintonites, no matter how obsessed they are with winning, care even more about giving their paymasters their due.
Note: However deserving they were of contempt, we shouldn’t overestimate the influence of the Democratic “left” in quashing the Nader campaign in 2000. They did go after Nader big time, especially in “liberal” circles in swing states, and they are certainly responsible for scaring many voters away. But that doesn’t explain Nader’s 2.74 % of the popular vote as opposed to Ross Perot’s 18.9%. Neither does Perot’s “centrism,” though the punditocracy claimed and still claims that it did – just as they’ll argue that Bloomberg, should he run, has a chance because he too will run as a centrist. [This assumes that he can find an elusive (because imperceptible) mean between our “polarized” political parties (the ones that agree on everything fundamental to governance and differ only on how socially illiberal they are).] No. The main difference is that Perot got to debate Clinton and Bush on national television, while the Democratic leadership in 2000 succeeded in getting Nader shut out. How much healthier our political culture would now be had they failed!
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Fortress America
Notwithstanding widespread opposition to the Iraq War and to military ventures generally, most Democratic Party strategists believe that their party must appear “strong on defense.” They think that a contrary view has been fixed in our political culture since at least the 1972 elections, and that it has hurt the Democrats’ prospects. As late as the Watergate era, Richard Nixon could still get mileage out of linking the Democrats’ purported weakness on defense with “isolationism.” With more than a hint of irony, he accused Democrats of supporting the idea, formerly dear to an important component of the Republican electorate, that Fortress America could “ignore” the rest of the world. [Of course, in practice, isolationists identified the world with Europe; they had little difficulty accommodating to American imperialism elsewhere, especially in Latin America.] The conventional view, back then, was that isolationism had been proven definitively wrong by the Second World War; and that it was a dangerously irresponsible position to take in a nuclear age. Nixon’s scheme was to scare anti-war voters away from voting for George McGovern by linking McGovern’s opposition to the Vietnam War with isolationism – in contrast to Nixon’s own professed dedication to “peace with honor.” Today, with several additional imperialist decades under America’s collective belt, isolationism has become a non-issue, even at a rhetorical level. Nevertheless, Fortress America is back.
In the aftermath of the Second World War, when the Truman administration contrived the major institutions of our national security state, they could and did stir up fears of Communism to help sell their plans. These fears were not concocted out of nothing; but they were, to put it mildly, overblown. The trick worked. The results were mixed. On the one hand, Truman and his successors set the world on a perilous path. Thanks to them, we live, to this day, with the prospect of perpetual war, hot or cold, and in fear of nuclear annihilation; to this day, the perils of empire threaten our basic liberties and our republican institutions. But there was also good that came of the fears they sowed. We got prosperity thanks to military Keynesianism; we got infrastructure improvements, we got vast sums of money for scientific research and education. In short, we got some of what social democracy brought to the “developed” countries we dominated. By the time Reagan became President in 1981, the Democrats had pretty much exhausted their ambitions to use the state for good. All that was left was the effort to be, or at least appear to be, strong on defense – epitomized by Michael Dukakis’s bathetic tank ride in his 1988 campaign against Bush the Father. Inexorably, Democrats acquiesced in the Reaganite view that “big government” is the problem. Thus, with the ascendance of the Clintonites in the 1990s, we got a (generally) kinder and gentler and certainly more competent version of the politics Bush and Cheney would later caricature. If Hillary Clinton becomes President, or if some other Clintonite does, we face the prospect of yet another implementation of the same political line. Needless to say, what we’d get from them would be better than what we now have or what we’d likely get with a Republican – anything would be! But it would not be fundamentally better or, for that matter, good at all.
But what goes around comes around. Even if the struggle against Bush and Cheney ends with nothing better than a Clintonite restoration, might there not still be a silver lining -- in the shape of a more affirmative state? Unlike a decade ago, it is not out of the question. In this regard, it may be significant that, of all our dead Presidents, Harry S. Truman has become an object of affection in Clintonite circles. They have even launched a “Truman National Security Project.” It represents itself as “strong, smart, [and] and principled.” [Somehow they left out “modest.”] “Principled” gives cause for worry. It suggests that the emphasis on “strength” is not there just for opportunism’s sake. It is also worrisome that the neo-Trumanites -- much like the party’s “liberal” leader, Howard Dean – have no trouble with any of Clinton’s own brutal military ventures or with his “humanitarian interventions” or deadly sanctions. They even support Bush’s on-going war of revenge in Afghanistan. The neo-Trumanites didn’t have trouble either with the Iraq War until it went obviously sour. Their saving grace is just that they’re not encumbered with Bush’s Oedipal obsessions, and are therefore able to let the Iraq War, if not Iraq itself, go. In short, their focus on “strength” is, in all likelihood, more than just posturing – however tempting that may be for them, especially should their standard bearer be from “the weaker (i.e. more reasonable and caring) sex.” The neo-Trumanites may actually believe what they say.
The Truman National Security Project’s advisory board runs the Clintonite gamut from William Perry (Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institute, and formerly Secretary of Defense) to John Podesta (formerly chief of staff and now head of the “liberal” Center for American Progress). Other luminaries include Gregory Craig (of Williams and Connolly), Kurt Campbell (from the Center for Strategic and International Studies), Leslie Gelb (of New York Times fame and lately of the Council on Foreign Relations), William Marshall (President of the Progressive Policy Institute, the Democratic Leadership Council’s favorite think-tank), Anne-Marie Slaughter of the Woodrow Wilson School and Madeleine Albright (former Secretary of State and notorious defender of Clinton’s Iraq sanctions and Yugoslavian bombing campaigns). Another Albright Group principal, Wendy Sherman, is also on the board. In short, the neo-Trumanite wing of the Democratic Party is comprised of eminences from the Old Regime, awaiting a Restoration that will re-empower them or their acolytes.
Predictably, the Truman Project emphasizes toughness, especially in women. But there is a whiff of nostalgia too for the social democratic spirit of the Cold War liberalism Truman helped shape. The first Clinton presidency famously updated the fiscal conservatism of the Eisenhower administration; would the next be a tad more progressive, taking up where the Fair Deal ran aground?
It is not impossible. Truman may be their object of affection, but the neo-Trumanites are closer in spirit to the arch Cold War liberal Scoop Jackson, the former Senator from Washington State. Jackson was an especially ardent proponent of making the world safe for American corporations (he was said to be the Senator from Boeing) and for Israel. The neo-cons who left the party altogether in the 70s and 80s were, in effect, Jackson’s bastard children. Today’s neo-Trumanites are his legitimate heirs. Significantly, most neo-cons never much liked free market theology with its anti-welfare state biases, though they had no problem accommodating to it. For the neo-Trumanites, social progress is even less of a problem. If classical Clintonism morphs into a neo-Trumanite (Scoop Jackson) mode, perhaps it will also move beyond Bill Clinton’s dedication to completing “the Reagan Revolution.” Maybe, amidst all the harm it does, it may also do some good, just as Truman’s Cold War liberalism did.
Truman realized that, in his time and place, a frightened populace was indispensable for getting anything positive done. But fear is a two-edged sword. Anti-Communism made the Fair Deal possible, but it was anti-Communist fear mongering – with the Korean War abroad and McCarthyism at home -- that did the Fair Deal in. This time around, there is no Communism to fear. Except perhaps for a handful of true believers in “the axis of evil,” everyone today understands that no state or bloc of states threatens the United States. But there is political Islam – jihadism. Thus there is a new kind of perpetual phony war to concoct and exploit. Truman famously proclaimed the need for a bipartisan foreign policy. With Iraq out of the picture, a new bipartisanism – aimed at fighting political Islam -- could be forged. Republicans have already gotten a lot out of the Global War on Terror; it has been the basis of Bush’s entire presidency, and of Rudy Giuliani’s – and increasingly Mitt Romney’s and John McCain’s – candidacies. Democratic voters who know better than their party’s leaders should be mightily concerned that, with the partial exception of John Edwards, none of the major Democratic candidates has a problem with the War on Terror. [See “The Real War on Terror, “ June 12.] What the leading candidates object to is only the incompetent and misguided way the Bush administration has implemented it. Not surprisingly, Hillary Clinton is the most explicit in pressing this view. With her prospects for the nomination depending on her coming around, she finally turned against the Iraq War – but only in order to redeploy America’s military assets elsewhere, the better to fight the Global War on Terror. One can almost hear Madeleine Albright declaring the continuing militarization of American society – and the murder and mayhem it causes -- “a price worth paying.”
Still, as in the original Cold War, won’t some good come of it too? It’s not likely. Communism provided a vision of social progress. New Deal and Fair Deal liberalism, along with LBJ’s Great Society – like post-World War I Social Democracy -- offered an alternative path to a similar destination. The good consequences of Cold War liberalism stem largely from the character of the purported enemy, and the need to compete with it -- not just militarily but also socially, politically and economically. In marked contrast, political Islam offers no vision of social progress. Like other untrammeled expressions of Abrahamic religiosity – Jewish and Christian too – it is a reactionary phenomenon. [To be sure, with the partial and (hopefully) temporary eclipse of secular Left movements in the Islamic world, jihadism is also an expression of anti-imperialist resistance. But political Islam is an anti-imperialism of fools.] It is far from clear that a renewal of affirmative state policies in the United States or anywhere else would counter political Islam’s appeal. Perhaps the neo-Trumanites do have genuinely ameliorative intentions. But if they do, their reforming impulses are far more tenuously connected to their “security” policies than was the case for their counterparts in the Truman era.
Neo-Trumanites like the international institutions the Truman administration helped construct, including those that advanced international law and human rights. This is for the good, though all signs suggest that, to a degree their founders would have found troubling, they would use these institutions more to legitimate than to govern American activities throughout the world. However, like Truman, the neo-Trumanites are unequivocal proponents of military Keynesianism and “enlightened” foreign aid. Along with NATO, they regard the Marshall Plan as Truman’s greatest achievement, and intimate intentions to follow its example – though it is unclear how or even where. This is not the place to show how profoundly and disablingly ahistorical their thinking is. Anyone tempted by their arguments would be well advised to consult, among many other sources, Robert Brenner’s, The Economics of Global Turbulence (Verso, 2006). What worked more or less as intended half a century ago is not transferable to present conditions.
Like the Bush government, the neo-Trumanites also have faith in technological fixes for the insecurity that their commitment to the national security state makes inevitable. There is more to ponder in this facet of their thinking than just the implausibility of their position. In the July 2 edition of The Nation magazine, Naomi Wolff has a fascinating column on how, since 2001, the Israeli economy has flourished by becoming a “laboratory” for a “fortressed world”; developing security technologies that permit peoples who dominate other peoples to live a fairly undisturbed life despite a perpetual threat of terrorism, and while their governments pursue policies that increase the likelihood of terrorist blowback. This, more than a renewed welfare state, is the promise of neo-Trumanite Clintonism. The Cold War, in its own perverse way, fostered progress in the arts and sciences, and even in the arts of living securely and well. The never-ending War on Terror the Bush-Clintonite consensus envisions may, like Truman’s concoction, help enhance a distorted but nevertheless genuine prosperity. But its by-products are likely to be far less ameliorative than in the original version. What will come from them instead is a new Fortress America. The Clintonite hope is that, unlike the fortress of discredited and forgotten “isolationists,” the new version will not require withdrawal from lucrative “foreign entanglements.” If their expectations are fulfilled, corporate America will be free to pursue its predations while “the homeland” remains secure behind high-tech fortifications, contrived by the next generation of entrepreneurs whose imagination and technological prowess will keep the economy in an expansionist mode. Except for these entrepreneurs and their corporate and financial backers, this is hardly an attractive vision. It is not a credible one either. But if lesser evilism is the best we can do, it could be our future.
In the aftermath of the Second World War, when the Truman administration contrived the major institutions of our national security state, they could and did stir up fears of Communism to help sell their plans. These fears were not concocted out of nothing; but they were, to put it mildly, overblown. The trick worked. The results were mixed. On the one hand, Truman and his successors set the world on a perilous path. Thanks to them, we live, to this day, with the prospect of perpetual war, hot or cold, and in fear of nuclear annihilation; to this day, the perils of empire threaten our basic liberties and our republican institutions. But there was also good that came of the fears they sowed. We got prosperity thanks to military Keynesianism; we got infrastructure improvements, we got vast sums of money for scientific research and education. In short, we got some of what social democracy brought to the “developed” countries we dominated. By the time Reagan became President in 1981, the Democrats had pretty much exhausted their ambitions to use the state for good. All that was left was the effort to be, or at least appear to be, strong on defense – epitomized by Michael Dukakis’s bathetic tank ride in his 1988 campaign against Bush the Father. Inexorably, Democrats acquiesced in the Reaganite view that “big government” is the problem. Thus, with the ascendance of the Clintonites in the 1990s, we got a (generally) kinder and gentler and certainly more competent version of the politics Bush and Cheney would later caricature. If Hillary Clinton becomes President, or if some other Clintonite does, we face the prospect of yet another implementation of the same political line. Needless to say, what we’d get from them would be better than what we now have or what we’d likely get with a Republican – anything would be! But it would not be fundamentally better or, for that matter, good at all.
But what goes around comes around. Even if the struggle against Bush and Cheney ends with nothing better than a Clintonite restoration, might there not still be a silver lining -- in the shape of a more affirmative state? Unlike a decade ago, it is not out of the question. In this regard, it may be significant that, of all our dead Presidents, Harry S. Truman has become an object of affection in Clintonite circles. They have even launched a “Truman National Security Project.” It represents itself as “strong, smart, [and] and principled.” [Somehow they left out “modest.”] “Principled” gives cause for worry. It suggests that the emphasis on “strength” is not there just for opportunism’s sake. It is also worrisome that the neo-Trumanites -- much like the party’s “liberal” leader, Howard Dean – have no trouble with any of Clinton’s own brutal military ventures or with his “humanitarian interventions” or deadly sanctions. They even support Bush’s on-going war of revenge in Afghanistan. The neo-Trumanites didn’t have trouble either with the Iraq War until it went obviously sour. Their saving grace is just that they’re not encumbered with Bush’s Oedipal obsessions, and are therefore able to let the Iraq War, if not Iraq itself, go. In short, their focus on “strength” is, in all likelihood, more than just posturing – however tempting that may be for them, especially should their standard bearer be from “the weaker (i.e. more reasonable and caring) sex.” The neo-Trumanites may actually believe what they say.
The Truman National Security Project’s advisory board runs the Clintonite gamut from William Perry (Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institute, and formerly Secretary of Defense) to John Podesta (formerly chief of staff and now head of the “liberal” Center for American Progress). Other luminaries include Gregory Craig (of Williams and Connolly), Kurt Campbell (from the Center for Strategic and International Studies), Leslie Gelb (of New York Times fame and lately of the Council on Foreign Relations), William Marshall (President of the Progressive Policy Institute, the Democratic Leadership Council’s favorite think-tank), Anne-Marie Slaughter of the Woodrow Wilson School and Madeleine Albright (former Secretary of State and notorious defender of Clinton’s Iraq sanctions and Yugoslavian bombing campaigns). Another Albright Group principal, Wendy Sherman, is also on the board. In short, the neo-Trumanite wing of the Democratic Party is comprised of eminences from the Old Regime, awaiting a Restoration that will re-empower them or their acolytes.
Predictably, the Truman Project emphasizes toughness, especially in women. But there is a whiff of nostalgia too for the social democratic spirit of the Cold War liberalism Truman helped shape. The first Clinton presidency famously updated the fiscal conservatism of the Eisenhower administration; would the next be a tad more progressive, taking up where the Fair Deal ran aground?
It is not impossible. Truman may be their object of affection, but the neo-Trumanites are closer in spirit to the arch Cold War liberal Scoop Jackson, the former Senator from Washington State. Jackson was an especially ardent proponent of making the world safe for American corporations (he was said to be the Senator from Boeing) and for Israel. The neo-cons who left the party altogether in the 70s and 80s were, in effect, Jackson’s bastard children. Today’s neo-Trumanites are his legitimate heirs. Significantly, most neo-cons never much liked free market theology with its anti-welfare state biases, though they had no problem accommodating to it. For the neo-Trumanites, social progress is even less of a problem. If classical Clintonism morphs into a neo-Trumanite (Scoop Jackson) mode, perhaps it will also move beyond Bill Clinton’s dedication to completing “the Reagan Revolution.” Maybe, amidst all the harm it does, it may also do some good, just as Truman’s Cold War liberalism did.
Truman realized that, in his time and place, a frightened populace was indispensable for getting anything positive done. But fear is a two-edged sword. Anti-Communism made the Fair Deal possible, but it was anti-Communist fear mongering – with the Korean War abroad and McCarthyism at home -- that did the Fair Deal in. This time around, there is no Communism to fear. Except perhaps for a handful of true believers in “the axis of evil,” everyone today understands that no state or bloc of states threatens the United States. But there is political Islam – jihadism. Thus there is a new kind of perpetual phony war to concoct and exploit. Truman famously proclaimed the need for a bipartisan foreign policy. With Iraq out of the picture, a new bipartisanism – aimed at fighting political Islam -- could be forged. Republicans have already gotten a lot out of the Global War on Terror; it has been the basis of Bush’s entire presidency, and of Rudy Giuliani’s – and increasingly Mitt Romney’s and John McCain’s – candidacies. Democratic voters who know better than their party’s leaders should be mightily concerned that, with the partial exception of John Edwards, none of the major Democratic candidates has a problem with the War on Terror. [See “The Real War on Terror, “ June 12.] What the leading candidates object to is only the incompetent and misguided way the Bush administration has implemented it. Not surprisingly, Hillary Clinton is the most explicit in pressing this view. With her prospects for the nomination depending on her coming around, she finally turned against the Iraq War – but only in order to redeploy America’s military assets elsewhere, the better to fight the Global War on Terror. One can almost hear Madeleine Albright declaring the continuing militarization of American society – and the murder and mayhem it causes -- “a price worth paying.”
Still, as in the original Cold War, won’t some good come of it too? It’s not likely. Communism provided a vision of social progress. New Deal and Fair Deal liberalism, along with LBJ’s Great Society – like post-World War I Social Democracy -- offered an alternative path to a similar destination. The good consequences of Cold War liberalism stem largely from the character of the purported enemy, and the need to compete with it -- not just militarily but also socially, politically and economically. In marked contrast, political Islam offers no vision of social progress. Like other untrammeled expressions of Abrahamic religiosity – Jewish and Christian too – it is a reactionary phenomenon. [To be sure, with the partial and (hopefully) temporary eclipse of secular Left movements in the Islamic world, jihadism is also an expression of anti-imperialist resistance. But political Islam is an anti-imperialism of fools.] It is far from clear that a renewal of affirmative state policies in the United States or anywhere else would counter political Islam’s appeal. Perhaps the neo-Trumanites do have genuinely ameliorative intentions. But if they do, their reforming impulses are far more tenuously connected to their “security” policies than was the case for their counterparts in the Truman era.
Neo-Trumanites like the international institutions the Truman administration helped construct, including those that advanced international law and human rights. This is for the good, though all signs suggest that, to a degree their founders would have found troubling, they would use these institutions more to legitimate than to govern American activities throughout the world. However, like Truman, the neo-Trumanites are unequivocal proponents of military Keynesianism and “enlightened” foreign aid. Along with NATO, they regard the Marshall Plan as Truman’s greatest achievement, and intimate intentions to follow its example – though it is unclear how or even where. This is not the place to show how profoundly and disablingly ahistorical their thinking is. Anyone tempted by their arguments would be well advised to consult, among many other sources, Robert Brenner’s, The Economics of Global Turbulence (Verso, 2006). What worked more or less as intended half a century ago is not transferable to present conditions.
Like the Bush government, the neo-Trumanites also have faith in technological fixes for the insecurity that their commitment to the national security state makes inevitable. There is more to ponder in this facet of their thinking than just the implausibility of their position. In the July 2 edition of The Nation magazine, Naomi Wolff has a fascinating column on how, since 2001, the Israeli economy has flourished by becoming a “laboratory” for a “fortressed world”; developing security technologies that permit peoples who dominate other peoples to live a fairly undisturbed life despite a perpetual threat of terrorism, and while their governments pursue policies that increase the likelihood of terrorist blowback. This, more than a renewed welfare state, is the promise of neo-Trumanite Clintonism. The Cold War, in its own perverse way, fostered progress in the arts and sciences, and even in the arts of living securely and well. The never-ending War on Terror the Bush-Clintonite consensus envisions may, like Truman’s concoction, help enhance a distorted but nevertheless genuine prosperity. But its by-products are likely to be far less ameliorative than in the original version. What will come from them instead is a new Fortress America. The Clintonite hope is that, unlike the fortress of discredited and forgotten “isolationists,” the new version will not require withdrawal from lucrative “foreign entanglements.” If their expectations are fulfilled, corporate America will be free to pursue its predations while “the homeland” remains secure behind high-tech fortifications, contrived by the next generation of entrepreneurs whose imagination and technological prowess will keep the economy in an expansionist mode. Except for these entrepreneurs and their corporate and financial backers, this is hardly an attractive vision. It is not a credible one either. But if lesser evilism is the best we can do, it could be our future.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Not in a New York Minute!
Approaching the summer solstice, Hillary Clinton is the leading POP (Party of Pusillanimity) candidate in next year’s primary elections, and Rudy Giuliani is leading in the GOP. Two New Yorkers – though, in Hillary’s case, not by birth, but by choice (of the national and state party leadership) and vaunting ambition. As if that weren’t enough, it is now more likely that, having opted out of the GOP (declaring himself an “independent”), New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg will run too. It’s not a prospect to be taken lightly. He bought his present office for some 70 plus million of his own money; that leaves him billions to spare on the Big Enchilada.
This is not the place to rehearse the case against the first two; I’ve done it in earlier postings and will doubtless have to do it again and again. Nor is this the place to make the obvious case for compulsory public funding of elections and related democracy enhancement measures, such as one finds in most liberal democracies. But Bloomberg’s possible “independent” candidacy does give occasion to reflect again on the semi-official party duopoly under which our political culture suffers.
In 1992, the Texas moneybag, H. Ross Perot, found it convenient to launch a Reform Party. Perhaps the New York moneybag will follow suit. He could call his the Plutocratic Party. Whether he does or not, the conventional wisdom has it that the electorate is fed up with “polarization” and is desperately seeking “centrists.” This is also not the place to explain again what nonsense this is. But given how little space there is between Democrats and Republicans, it is worth wondering what the “center” is supposed to be.
Perhaps a fine jeweler or careful surgeon could find a space between the Democrats and the Republicans. But that’s not Bloomberg’s strength; and, in any case, the media designation is clearly misleading. The point about Bloomberg, as about Perot before him, is that, by being self-financing, he’s unencumbered by those pesky constituencies that adulterate unimpeded rule by Wall Street. Unlike Republicans, including Giuliani, he has no need to pander to the religious Right. Unlike Democrats, including Clinton, he can keep as much distance as he likes from labor and other progressive constituencies, including ones he really can’t abide – like civil libertarians. Were our ruling classes not so wedded to maintaining a stifling duopoly, a Bloomberg candidacy could, as they say, have legs. He offers them something even the most Clintonized Democrats can’t. And, having let the lunatics control the asylum for so long, the Republicans will have a hard time breaking free from their “useful idiots,” even if Giuliani, the most socially “liberal” major candidate, somehow gets the nomination. If only Blumberg were a WASP, it would be a match made in heaven. But, even if he were, the duopoly is so entrenched that it is unlikely that any “independent” candidate could marshal the requisite support – especially from the corporate media who have become the arbiters of what is acceptable in our political culture and what is only tolerated. Still, it’s not impossible that Bloomberg will run; and not impossible that he will win. Money talks – and the Mayor has more than enough of it.
It’s too soon to catastrophize. Bloomberg may have squirreled away enough to buy even this most expensive of offices, but he is still more likely than not to keep his money rather than venture a large chunk of it on an unlikely quest. What is clear is that not one of these real or pretend New Yorkers is fit for office; not for a New York minute! What is clearer still is that a Clinton-Bloomberg-Giuliani race would be a perfect nightmare. It would also squander an opportunity of a kind that has not existed for many years – a chance to break free, even if only slightly, of Wall Street’s clutches. That’s why now is the time for Billionaires for Bloomberg to get into the act. Could there be a better time too to start up Monica Lewinsky Democratic Clubs and branches of Firefighters for Truth throughout the land!
This is not the place to rehearse the case against the first two; I’ve done it in earlier postings and will doubtless have to do it again and again. Nor is this the place to make the obvious case for compulsory public funding of elections and related democracy enhancement measures, such as one finds in most liberal democracies. But Bloomberg’s possible “independent” candidacy does give occasion to reflect again on the semi-official party duopoly under which our political culture suffers.
In 1992, the Texas moneybag, H. Ross Perot, found it convenient to launch a Reform Party. Perhaps the New York moneybag will follow suit. He could call his the Plutocratic Party. Whether he does or not, the conventional wisdom has it that the electorate is fed up with “polarization” and is desperately seeking “centrists.” This is also not the place to explain again what nonsense this is. But given how little space there is between Democrats and Republicans, it is worth wondering what the “center” is supposed to be.
Perhaps a fine jeweler or careful surgeon could find a space between the Democrats and the Republicans. But that’s not Bloomberg’s strength; and, in any case, the media designation is clearly misleading. The point about Bloomberg, as about Perot before him, is that, by being self-financing, he’s unencumbered by those pesky constituencies that adulterate unimpeded rule by Wall Street. Unlike Republicans, including Giuliani, he has no need to pander to the religious Right. Unlike Democrats, including Clinton, he can keep as much distance as he likes from labor and other progressive constituencies, including ones he really can’t abide – like civil libertarians. Were our ruling classes not so wedded to maintaining a stifling duopoly, a Bloomberg candidacy could, as they say, have legs. He offers them something even the most Clintonized Democrats can’t. And, having let the lunatics control the asylum for so long, the Republicans will have a hard time breaking free from their “useful idiots,” even if Giuliani, the most socially “liberal” major candidate, somehow gets the nomination. If only Blumberg were a WASP, it would be a match made in heaven. But, even if he were, the duopoly is so entrenched that it is unlikely that any “independent” candidate could marshal the requisite support – especially from the corporate media who have become the arbiters of what is acceptable in our political culture and what is only tolerated. Still, it’s not impossible that Bloomberg will run; and not impossible that he will win. Money talks – and the Mayor has more than enough of it.
It’s too soon to catastrophize. Bloomberg may have squirreled away enough to buy even this most expensive of offices, but he is still more likely than not to keep his money rather than venture a large chunk of it on an unlikely quest. What is clear is that not one of these real or pretend New Yorkers is fit for office; not for a New York minute! What is clearer still is that a Clinton-Bloomberg-Giuliani race would be a perfect nightmare. It would also squander an opportunity of a kind that has not existed for many years – a chance to break free, even if only slightly, of Wall Street’s clutches. That’s why now is the time for Billionaires for Bloomberg to get into the act. Could there be a better time too to start up Monica Lewinsky Democratic Clubs and branches of Firefighters for Truth throughout the land!
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Hillary's Experience and Good Intentions
In the lead article in yesterday’s Salon.com, Walter Shapiro praises Hillary Clinton’s preparedness and competence, and then in an accompanying interview, he emphasizes her experience. Well, maybe she does prep well for campaign appearances. But experience? True, she has been a Senator for seven years. That’s a bit longer than her main rivals, but not nearly as long as some of the others. What has she accomplished in that post? No one could claim a great deal; certainly nothing that would give her an edge in the experience department. No, for Shapiro and others, her experience comes from have been First Lady. But since when is that a qualification? Nobody ever thought it was until now: not even in Eleanor Roosevelt’s case, not to mention Bess and Mamie, Jackie O, Lady Bird, Pat (recall JFK’s “we can’t stand pat”), Betty or Roslyn (two perfectly fine ladies), the Lady Gipper (who is said to have kept her actor husband from doing even more harm than he did) or, horror of horrors, Barb. Isn’t it telling that, with the Republican field of candidates so comically weak, no one suggests Laura? Yet somehow Hillary is different. Well, not that different. Like all the rest, she wasn’t any kind of official, not even an unelected one; just an official wife (doubtless more official than most).
This raises the question of how well she did the one time when, at her spouse’s behest, she actually did act in a semi-official capacity. In interviews publicizing the imminent release of his movie “Sicko,” Michael Moore, conceding that Hillary is now as much or more in the pocket of the health industry as anyone in Congress, claims that her heart is (or was) in the right place -- and that the problem in 1993 was that she was too nice and therefore didn’t take on the big insurance companies. To these and similar emanations from those who are still grasping at straws in the hope of supporting a female candidate, all I can say is – “huh?” Hillary Care was all about serving mighty corporations. It was a pure expression of Clintonism (see “Combat Clintonism!”, April 27). The reason it failed was hardly that its proponents were too nice for their own good. It failed because the mighty corporations the Clintons favored turned out to be not mighty enough when lesser beneficiaries of the status quo ganged up on the Clintons – and not loyal enough to their faithful servants when it became clear that they didn’t have to settle for nearly a full loaf, since they could get the whole thing.
This raises the question of how well she did the one time when, at her spouse’s behest, she actually did act in a semi-official capacity. In interviews publicizing the imminent release of his movie “Sicko,” Michael Moore, conceding that Hillary is now as much or more in the pocket of the health industry as anyone in Congress, claims that her heart is (or was) in the right place -- and that the problem in 1993 was that she was too nice and therefore didn’t take on the big insurance companies. To these and similar emanations from those who are still grasping at straws in the hope of supporting a female candidate, all I can say is – “huh?” Hillary Care was all about serving mighty corporations. It was a pure expression of Clintonism (see “Combat Clintonism!”, April 27). The reason it failed was hardly that its proponents were too nice for their own good. It failed because the mighty corporations the Clintons favored turned out to be not mighty enough when lesser beneficiaries of the status quo ganged up on the Clintons – and not loyal enough to their faithful servants when it became clear that they didn’t have to settle for nearly a full loaf, since they could get the whole thing.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
What the Horse Race Shows
A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll is out. The good news, for the lesser evil party is that 52% of Americans now say that they want a Democrat to be President, while only 31% want a Republican. The bad news is that Clinton’s numbers are up since April – from 36% to 39% -- while both Obama’s and Edwards’ are down. Obama fell from 31% to 25%, and Edwards from 20% to 15%. The “expert” view is that Clinton got a bounce from the two debates – because she seemed more “presidential” than expected, and because she gets high marks for competence and experience. Of course, it is far too early to make predictions based on these numbers. At this point, only party stalwarts and political junkies are even paying attention. But there is already reason to fear a repeat of the run up to the 2004 primaries when Democratic stalwarts and political junkies outsmarted themselves. Being for “anything but Bush” and putting competence first, they gave the nomination to John Kerry. Of course, this time around, the reasons to be for “anything but Bush” – or anything Bush-like – and the need for competence have increased exponentially. So has awareness of the Bush government’s failures. But these are hardly reasons to persist in the old losing strategy.
On the other hand, there are analyses that suggest that most of Clinton’s lead over Obama comes from Democratic women, and that women who describe themselves as “independents” hate Hillary with almost as much passion as Republican men. If this fact penetrates into the thinking of the pundit wannabes who got the nomination for Kerry, perhaps the trend will change. One can only hope so. For there is no doubt that it will be better for the country and the world if the Democrats’ candidate has more than just competence to offer, and more than a Clintonite Restoration. Only powerful popular movements can change policy fundamentally, and then only when conditions are right, but having a government that can be brought along -- as in the New Deal or, to a lesser extent, the Fair Deal and Great Society -- can help. John Edwards is not there yet, but he’s the only major candidate so far – indeed, the only Democrat since Jesse Jackson in 1988 --who has shown any inkling of promise. Chris Dodd has taken some good positions, but he’s ensconced in the second tier; Dennis Kucinich has taken far better positions, but he has no chance at all. Among the plausible candidates, Obama’s views remain a mystery. Clinton’s are well known. Notwithstanding some of her recent remarks on trade (see “Hooray for Hillary? Hooray for Us!, June 13), it is safe to assume that there is no space whatever between her and her husband. She’ll say what she must to get the nomination, but she remains the Queen of Clintonism. Since she shows no sign of self-destructing, let’s hope that her rivals rise to the occasion.
The approval rating for George Bush is now down to 29%, his lowest ever. His disapproval rating is 66%! But the approval rating for Congress is even lower than for Bush – it’s just 23% -- and only 41% of Americans think their representatives “deserve reelection.” Those numbers are similar to what the polls showed before the 2006 election. As the Wall Street Journal reports, this is bad news for Democrats or at least for Democratic incumbents.
Thus it is clear that, for now, Pelosiism is doing poorly, while classical Clintonism is still doing fine. [I define and discuss these concepts in “Combat Clintonism!” (April 27) and “Pelosiism: the Highest Form of Clintonism” (May 28).] A Pelosiite will talk left and act right – for example, by nominally opposing Bush’s wars and then funding (and therefore supporting) them. A classic Clintonite will just shamelessly screw you over – so long as you’re not a major donor or a pillar of global capitalism – while charming your pants off (sometimes literally) and “feeling your pain.” For as long as there have been Clintonites, there have been Pelosiites too – think, for example, of those “advocates” of universal health insurance, like the “maverick” Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, who somehow always found reasons not to back even such timid proposals as Paul Wellstone’s, while effectively supporting the Clintons’ plan – helping to set the cause of universal health care back a generation. But it is only now – with an electorate fed up with Bush but wary of corporate globalism and other Clintonite obsessions -- that Pelosiism is in the ascendant. If not combated effectively, it could lead the Democrats to defeat.
It probably won’t, though, because Bush continues to do the Democrats’ work for them, and because, on the Republican side, the situation is so dismal that the mediocre and famously lazy former Senator and “Law and Order” actor, Fred Thompson, has jumped into second place, at 20%, without even formally declaring his candidacy! Rudy Guiliani is still in first place, but falling – from 33% to 29%. As his character and record as New York mayor become more widely known, his numbers are sure to fall further. Bush and Cheney squeezed all they could out of 9/11; there isn’t much left for Rudy. [Imagine too how easy it would be to organize Firefighters for Truth!]. Next, the godly family man and world-class flip-flopper, Mitt Romney, is tied, despite his money, with the “maverick” war monger John McCain at 14% -- a slight gain for Romney, a big drop for McCain. Since Romney, a Mormon, isn’t quite Kosher enough for the religious Right, there’s also Mike Huckabee at a whopping 3%, up from 2%, and the guy who’s the matter with Kansas, Sam Brownback; his numbers are even lower. Where did they find these losers! Clearly, the stars are lining up for the Democrats. The main fear, therefore, is not that the Democrats will lose – they won’t, no matter how much contempt they earn -- but that, with their victory, everyone else will lose.
We voters can mitigate that eventuality. We pushed John Edwards to the center-left [see “Bravo for Edwards (Sort of),” May 3] or at least made it possible for him to situate himself there. If he doesn’t turn back, there may actually be a serious candidate beyond the Clintonite fold – for the first time in twenty years. We can certainly change the political climate enough to bring alternatives to Clintonism in from the margins. We have done a lot already in shifting the framework of discussion into more constructive territory. We can do more.
On the other hand, there are analyses that suggest that most of Clinton’s lead over Obama comes from Democratic women, and that women who describe themselves as “independents” hate Hillary with almost as much passion as Republican men. If this fact penetrates into the thinking of the pundit wannabes who got the nomination for Kerry, perhaps the trend will change. One can only hope so. For there is no doubt that it will be better for the country and the world if the Democrats’ candidate has more than just competence to offer, and more than a Clintonite Restoration. Only powerful popular movements can change policy fundamentally, and then only when conditions are right, but having a government that can be brought along -- as in the New Deal or, to a lesser extent, the Fair Deal and Great Society -- can help. John Edwards is not there yet, but he’s the only major candidate so far – indeed, the only Democrat since Jesse Jackson in 1988 --who has shown any inkling of promise. Chris Dodd has taken some good positions, but he’s ensconced in the second tier; Dennis Kucinich has taken far better positions, but he has no chance at all. Among the plausible candidates, Obama’s views remain a mystery. Clinton’s are well known. Notwithstanding some of her recent remarks on trade (see “Hooray for Hillary? Hooray for Us!, June 13), it is safe to assume that there is no space whatever between her and her husband. She’ll say what she must to get the nomination, but she remains the Queen of Clintonism. Since she shows no sign of self-destructing, let’s hope that her rivals rise to the occasion.
The approval rating for George Bush is now down to 29%, his lowest ever. His disapproval rating is 66%! But the approval rating for Congress is even lower than for Bush – it’s just 23% -- and only 41% of Americans think their representatives “deserve reelection.” Those numbers are similar to what the polls showed before the 2006 election. As the Wall Street Journal reports, this is bad news for Democrats or at least for Democratic incumbents.
Thus it is clear that, for now, Pelosiism is doing poorly, while classical Clintonism is still doing fine. [I define and discuss these concepts in “Combat Clintonism!” (April 27) and “Pelosiism: the Highest Form of Clintonism” (May 28).] A Pelosiite will talk left and act right – for example, by nominally opposing Bush’s wars and then funding (and therefore supporting) them. A classic Clintonite will just shamelessly screw you over – so long as you’re not a major donor or a pillar of global capitalism – while charming your pants off (sometimes literally) and “feeling your pain.” For as long as there have been Clintonites, there have been Pelosiites too – think, for example, of those “advocates” of universal health insurance, like the “maverick” Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, who somehow always found reasons not to back even such timid proposals as Paul Wellstone’s, while effectively supporting the Clintons’ plan – helping to set the cause of universal health care back a generation. But it is only now – with an electorate fed up with Bush but wary of corporate globalism and other Clintonite obsessions -- that Pelosiism is in the ascendant. If not combated effectively, it could lead the Democrats to defeat.
It probably won’t, though, because Bush continues to do the Democrats’ work for them, and because, on the Republican side, the situation is so dismal that the mediocre and famously lazy former Senator and “Law and Order” actor, Fred Thompson, has jumped into second place, at 20%, without even formally declaring his candidacy! Rudy Guiliani is still in first place, but falling – from 33% to 29%. As his character and record as New York mayor become more widely known, his numbers are sure to fall further. Bush and Cheney squeezed all they could out of 9/11; there isn’t much left for Rudy. [Imagine too how easy it would be to organize Firefighters for Truth!]. Next, the godly family man and world-class flip-flopper, Mitt Romney, is tied, despite his money, with the “maverick” war monger John McCain at 14% -- a slight gain for Romney, a big drop for McCain. Since Romney, a Mormon, isn’t quite Kosher enough for the religious Right, there’s also Mike Huckabee at a whopping 3%, up from 2%, and the guy who’s the matter with Kansas, Sam Brownback; his numbers are even lower. Where did they find these losers! Clearly, the stars are lining up for the Democrats. The main fear, therefore, is not that the Democrats will lose – they won’t, no matter how much contempt they earn -- but that, with their victory, everyone else will lose.
We voters can mitigate that eventuality. We pushed John Edwards to the center-left [see “Bravo for Edwards (Sort of),” May 3] or at least made it possible for him to situate himself there. If he doesn’t turn back, there may actually be a serious candidate beyond the Clintonite fold – for the first time in twenty years. We can certainly change the political climate enough to bring alternatives to Clintonism in from the margins. We have done a lot already in shifting the framework of discussion into more constructive territory. We can do more.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Hooray for Hillary?? Hooray for Us!!
Free trade ideologues are in a tizzy because, last weekend, Hillary Clinton announced that she’d oppose Bush’s proposed free trade agreement with South Korea. This morning’s editorial in the Washington Post (June 13) is typical: it accuses her of failing “a test of leadership on trade,” comparing her unfavorably to her husband. Could it be that the Clintonite consensus is coming apart: that concern for old-fashioned workers’ rights and environmental concerns is finally trumping servility to corporate greed? Not likely. More likely, she was only doing what Clintons do best: pandering. According to news reports, her remarks were favorably received at a union gathering in Michigan. Let’s hope that unions stay wary. But let’s also revel, briefly, in a small victory. That the high priestess of Clintonism (see “Combat Clintonism!”, April 27) would feel compelled to come out against a free trade agreement is a sign that the call for a saner trade policy, one that really does “put people first” (as Bill Clinton said he would in 1992, just days before assuming the presidency), is again being heard over the din of academic and media free trade drivel.
John Edwards, by the way, announced opposition to the Korean free trade agreement last spring, as part of a comprehensive and estimable, though much too “moderate,” trade policy. Barack Obama is still thinking about it (along with almost everything else).
John Edwards, by the way, announced opposition to the Korean free trade agreement last spring, as part of a comprehensive and estimable, though much too “moderate,” trade policy. Barack Obama is still thinking about it (along with almost everything else).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)