GregsOpinion.com

Since about the only thing going slower than my reading of "My Life" is my writing of topical reviews of said book, I thought I'd pass along this post by Jack O'Toole. Pretty good post, in the succinct style that it possesses. But brevity, as in this case, can sometimes lead to vastly overgeneralizing something without benefit of elaboration, explanation, or definition (the difference? ... let's just say I'm going to keep this brief and leave it at that.)

But the proposition O'Toole poses is one I think needs to be asked more loudly within polite Democratic circles: If Bill Clinton was such a moderate sellout, if the DLC's "Republican Lite," and if the moderate copout of possessing no true belief system earned the great economic results that Clinton saw in the 90s ... then what in the name of Walter Mondale would those on the far left propose that would do any better? The link to Gene Sperling's long speech is worth setting aside for some quality reading, as Sperling goes into great detail on the economic results witnessed in the 90s.

Comment Critics point out one consistent claim: Clinton had the dot-com bubble, which created a once-in-a-lifetime economic bonanza. No argument that booms like we saw in the 90s cannot be planned. And they are, almost by definition ... rare. But Ronald Reagan had a pretty good boom going from 1984 on, too. Tax loopholes created a thriving loophole industry that led in no small part to the S&L debacle. There's also a vast difference in how we had increasing budget deficits under Reagan and increasing budget surpluses under Clinton. Point being, boom times are one thing. But how you manage things around them still have an impact on the ability of the boom to play out, both in terms of sharing the wealth geographically as well as demographically.

So what would those still-obssessed Deaniacs claim to have accomplished if they're "Fourth Way" were enacted? Anything better than Clinton's finished product? Hard to imagine. But, alas, few have really tried making the argument.

Where I think O'Toole's logic comes undone a bit by brevity, is that he simplifies the case as Clinton having cast aside liberal "means" in favor of finding another way (a "third way" perhaps?) towards seeing liberal "ends" met.

Now, it is certainly true that the DLC-style centrism that Clinton embodied represents at least a partial rejection of the means generally associated with Great Society liberalism. (Though, interestingly, not necessarily those of the New Deal; it was FDR, after all, who called any system of long-term public assistance for the able-bodied a "narcotic.") But a look at the Clinton record would seem to indicate that his policies were far from disappointing in terms of achieving liberal ends -- which, one would think, should be the real test of the soul of any Democratic politician or governing philosophy.

...

Some of the blogosphere's finest minds and pens belong to traditional liberals, and it would be a real service to both blogdom and the Democratic party if one or more of them were to substantively address this issue. How, exactly, would a liberal Democratic administration differ from the Clinton model with regard to its policies and initiatives? How would it go about getting those policies enacted? And, most importantly, why should we expect it to produce more impressive outcomes for the people at the bottom of the economic pile?

The first half of the above quotage covering the "means/end" debate, I think this is vastly overstated. Clinton, at heart, was a populist Southern Dem who understood two central things that led to his success:

a) the objective is to win. Win elections, win passage of legislation, but just win. Not a lot different from those "half-a-loafers" who would claim that a half a loaf is better than no loaf at all, so take what you can get and fight for the rest afterwards. This led to some half-baked deals from Clinton's purist side, like Welfare Reform. Clinton knew he was signing a bill he'd have to fight to rid of offensive elements later on. But he knew he had before him about 75% of what he wanted in terms of welfare reform, too. Critics from the right will say he signed it to have something to point to on the scoreboard as accomplished. Critics from the left claim he caved to GOP haranging. Nevermind that Clinton had been a proponent of similar welfare reform measures (the 75% part, so to speak) in his tenure as Governor.

b) the Democratic Party had lost its moorings in terms of both public perception from the outside and policy direction from the inside. The DLC gets both praise and scorn for this among many Dems. They ended up saving the party by getting a Democrat elected President. But don't hold your breath waiting to hear such a confession from a "Kucitizen." Among those on the left, a more cynical view is taken towards the DLC who advocate much of what we hear today: that are no more "bad Democrats" who make our party image something that more and more voters find intolerable. Again ... "Kucitizens" likely will never realize how their hero qualifies as such. Both parties have the occassional tendency to lose their minds when it comes time to nominate candidates. Certain factions will sense they've been left on the backburner for too long, rebel strongly enough, and possibly even put forth a candidate. We're at a similar stage within the Democratic party, but the catch is that the far left never found their candidate this time around. In a sense, we lucked out. To the extent that dissatisfaction with Bush (and hence, his reelection prospects) holds between now and November, so has the rest of America.

Since O'Toole lays down the gauntlet, there's an article in The Nation that's worth a read if only as a counterpart to this. Katrina Vanden Heuvel & Robert Borosage take up the challenge of pointing out Kerry-as-liberal, but cast most of their argument as a battle of movements: conservative vs progressive. If you want policy ideas, this one has nothing to offer, however. Its rather telling, I think. The best point the authors make is that we stand as a contrast to another party with ideas that are, for their taste, better defined even if ill-conceived. Is that any way to build a lasting movement?

SIDENOTE: It's worth pointing out that O'Toole leads off by directing one to read a post by Jeanne D'Arc. I tried, but I couldn't get past the opening sentence: "Max Sawicky wrote a terrific post yesterday ...." Ugh.

SIDENOTE II: That Max Sawicky post? It concludes with the following:

Let's get purely, crassly political for a second. From where has the energy for the Democrats' campaign come? First we had Howard Dean/Beale, mad as hell. Then Michael Moore called the president a deserter. Some moaned at the excess, but the press spent the ensuing weeks unpacking the dirty details of Bush's service record. Now we have Moore's movie, another exercise in extremism, and evidently an invaluable tool for the Democrats. There is John Edwards' two Americas routine, class war with a happy face. Finally, Ehrenreich's own work is a worthy contribution to political discourse, anything but infantile.

Who's kidding whom? Centrist Democratic politics is as cold as yesterday's mashed potatoes. The Clinton model is not generalizable.

We need a third party TODAY, now more than ever. Stubbornness in defense of the working class is no vice.

Get me my gun!

SIDENOTE III: Did I read this right? "Ehrenreich's own work is a worthy contribution to political discourse, anything but infantile". Roll tape, please! (from today's Ehrenreich column: Owning Up to Abortion)

It would be unfair, though, to pick on the women who are in denial about aborting "defective" fetuses. At least 30 million American women have had abortions since the procedure was legalized, mostly for the kind of reasons that anti-abortion people dismiss as "convenience" - a number that amounts to about 40 percent of American women. Yet in a 2003 survey conducted by a pro-choice group, only 30 percent of women were unambivalently pro-choice, suggesting that there may be an appalling number of women who are willing to deny others the right that they once freely exercised themselves.

Honesty begins at home, so I should acknowledge that I had two abortions during my all-too-fertile years. You can call me a bad woman, but not a bad mother. I was a dollar-a-word freelancer and my husband a warehouse worker, so it was all we could do to support the existing children at a grubby lower-middle-class level. And when it comes to my children - the actual extrauterine ones, that is - I was, and remain, a lioness.

Aside from her faulty math (complete with the presumption that 40% of American women have had abortions), the new claim here is that women need to be prouder of their abortions. Brilliant. This will go over real well with those who don't want a picture of an aborted fetus shown in civil company, I'm sure.

Anything but infantile? Gimme a break.

SIDENOTE OF SIDENOTES: After reading a bit more of O'Toole's blog, I'm hereby offering a fullfledged endorsement of it as "worth reading" by any somewhat likeminded reader on this site.