What personal responsibility ethic? (Or: Why Ed Kilgore is wrong)

With apologies to DCBlues.

Today, Ed Kilgore wrote about the "big picture implications" of the Rove scandal over at TPMCafe:

Recall George W. Bush's meta-message during the 2000 campaign: it was time for a "responsibility era" to rein in the excesses introduced by the out-of-control Baby Boomer Bill Clinton. The grown-ups, emblemized by Dick Cheney and other Bush 41 exiles, were ready to give America a mature and accountable government.

That has turned out to be the biggest Bush lie of them all.

Yeah, except that this was always a red herring. Bush's message was never about "personal responsibility". What Bush offered in 2000 was a wink-wink-nudge-nudge little deal: in return for a trillion dollars in tax giveaways to his old-economy country club friends, Bush and Cheney would send you a little cheque, keep their wangs in their pants, and basically stay the hell out of your life... more to the point, they'd keep those insufferable New Democrats the hell out of your life. Personal responsibility was, after all, an intrinsically Clintonian meta-message. The basic idea was that, if you as a citizen did your part and "played by the rules", the government would do its part and help you meet your potential.  Even when Clinton signed ugly legislation like the 1996 welfare reform bill, he sold it, and hoped to improve it, as a part of this scheme: the government set out conditions and responsibilities that any able-bodied individual had to fulfill -- specifically, joining the paid economy -- and in return, it provided (in theory) more of what people needed to get ahead: job training, child care and wage-income supplements.

The fatal flaw in all this was that, by offering themselves as essentially equals, providing one part of a contract, Clinton and Gore opened themselves to charges of hypocracy and, worse, to charges of hypocracy laced with contempt: they hadn't "played by the rules" and therefore the rules themselves were moot. From the start, Bush combined the classic Reaganish resentment of "big government" with the more personal, pointed resentment of the individuals -- Clinton and Gore -- who, he charged, hypocritically demanded that you conform to their arbitrary notion of the public good, even when their own lives were fucking messes. Only a very earnest New Democrat could think this was an appeal to "personal responsibility" (or as Bush's speechwriters put it, "honor and dignity"), beyond the narrowest sense of not doing the interns. It was actually more like an appeal to South Park conservatism coated with a thin veneer of "compassionate" bullshit to keep the New York Times' op-ed columnists happy.  Why else was Bush the candidate of choice for Reason Magazine?

That's why, with all due respect to Kilgore, we shouldn't be surprised about "the big lie". Personal responsibility, basic accountability, were never part of the deal. The Republicans, save maybe Jack Kemp here and John McCain there, haven't been about personal responsibilty since shortly after Watergate. That's why, as Kilgore points out, every challenge Bush has faced so far has been met with a flat rejection of personal responsibility, for the government of course, but also for the population. How should the US respond to a terrorist attack fuelled by Saudi oil money? Of course: it should up its consumer spending just to show those terrorists we can't be frightened into responsible energy consumption! Not asking for sacrifice made Bush popular and, afterall, not having to make sacrifices was what 50 million Americans and 5 Supreme Court judges voted for. The same callous laissez-faire ethic lay behind the fixing of the intel on Iraq; behind the "Mission Accomplished" stunt; behind the deliberate lowballing of the cost of the Medicare drug benefit; behind the breathtakingly nasty Bush-Cheney reelection effort; and especially behind the roughly $3.5 trillon in tax cuts that Bush has used to wreck the budget over the past five years. In all cases the White House did what was politically easy and served their short-run interests. It told Americans not to worry about the details, and requested only in return that Americans follow that advice.

So of course Bush stands behind Karl Rove, even though he has probably perjured himself and is, at any rate, a politically stupid and ethically indefensible thug. Bush likes Rove, and Rove was part of the package. Why should Bush have to fire someone he likes? That wasn't part of the deal. The deal was for Bush to keep Bill Clinton's / Al Gore's / John Kerry's meddling, goo-goo statist nose out of your fucking business. He's done that. Twice. The rest is gravy, dudes. Go out and spend, spend, spend.

•  Except he isn't keeping goo statist noses

  out of our fucking business.  He's sitting back while his party in the majority tries to decide how a woman will die among other things.

  Kilgore is right about the "responsiblity era" as being sold as the grownups coming back after bad boy Bill and his pizza boxes and oval office sex and don't know what the meaning of is, is.  So if not surprise, it's noteworthy to point to hyprocrisy when we see it.

  You've got a really smart take on why "playing by the rules" came back and bit both Bill and Al.  That's smart.  Unfortunate too, becuase I'm a sucker for the personal responsiblity message.  I think it's important for a lot of reasons, not least of which it's how we might begin to have less resentment of the government.

  by Cathy on Mon Jul 18, 2005 at 01:25:13 AM PDT

  •  Nobody understands my diary!

    OK, but the point of all that prose was that this isn't hypocracy like Kilgore says.  This is always what we were supposed to expect.  Bush was never about "personal responsibility", it wasn't his "meta-message".  He was, from the start, about breaking the New Democrats' personal responsibility contract.  So it's not hypocracy; it's just Bush keeping his end of the original deal.

    by tlaura on Mon Jul 18, 2005 at 05:37:20 AM PDT

    •  OK, the wrong kind of hypocrisy.

      I see now.

      Kilgore, in your opinion, should realize that the main hypocrisy is that Bush intended for everyone to think it was Clintonesgue "play by the rules" responsiblity he was pretending to sell, when it was a rebuke of that, a coded message to the Princes and Princesses of Darness, i.e. the Novaks of the world:  It's about taxes, and government off our backs, Stupid!

      I'll buy that.

      by Cathy on Mon Jul 18, 2005 at 06:49:45 AM PDT

      •  Exactly!

        But you're right in that the real hypocracy was Bush's caving into the religious right and putting governments on our backs.  Bush sold himself as a who-gives-a-rats-ass libertarian.  He was all about cynicism and contempt (the Rove stuff) but not about American tablibanism (the Dobson stuff).

        by tlaura on Mon Jul 18, 2005 at 08:15:22 AM PDT

•  So, you totally agree with Kilgore ...

  ... but you thought the diary would sell better here with a "Kilgore was wrong" title?

  Kilgore's post in toto:

  Others on this site and elsewhere are doing a fine job of slicing and dicing the Rove/Plame scandal.  All I wish to add is one big-picture point about why all this slicing and dicing is necessary.

  Recall George W. Bush's meta-message during the 2000 campaign: it was time for a "responsibility era" to rein in the excesses introduced by the out-of-control Baby Boomer Bill Clinton.  The grown-ups, emblemized by Dick Cheney and other Bush 41 exiles, were ready to give America a mature and accountable government.

  That has turned out to be the biggest Bush lie of them all.

  With precious few exceptions, this administration has been characterized by a recklessness and irresponsibility that could barely have been matched if the country had been turned over to actual adolescents.

  From the tax cuts to the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the Bushies have consistently pursued their policies in the most completely thoughtless and dangerous manner available to them.  And moreover, they have made it definitively clear that no one loyal to the White House can lose his or her job for incompetence, negligence, corruption, or any other sin.

  George W. Bush has systematically ushered in an "irresponsiblity era" that is aimed to insulate his policies, his appointees, and his party from any significant oversight or control.

  In other words, these people will not, under any circumstances, police themselves, and with the exception of a few minor figures in the Senate, the Republican Congress will not police them either.  That's why Democrats, the press, and indeed anybody with a voice, must do it for them, and for the country.

  Nowhere does E.K. suggest that W's "responsibility era" was anything but a red herring, or that it was believable when they promised it.

  by RonK Seattle on Mon Jul 18, 2005 at 02:58:04 AM PDT

  •  I was thinking the same thing

    Pointing out this hypocrisy isn't necessarily indicative of naivete or being wrong about Bush's saying one thing, doing another. That's all Kilgore is doing here as far as I'm concerned, highlighting hypocrisy.

    by Cathy on Mon Jul 18, 2005 at 03:57:11 AM PDT

  •  Lol!

    I've been accused of DLC-baiting on Daily Kos!  That's hilarious.

    No; you didn't read carefully.  Kilgore argues that the 2000 Bush campaign was a veiled appeal to "personal responsibility".  It was in fact, the very opposite of that, which is what the diary says.  Kilgore accuses the Bushies so hypocracy in their overall conduct leading up to Rove.  I'm saying, it's not hypocracy: this is always what we had to expect.

    That's why Kilgore is wrong.  I swear, no super double secret ulterior motives on my part.

    by tlaura on Mon Jul 18, 2005 at 05:25:10 AM PDT