Matt Bai on Clintonism

I got my NY Times this morning and I saw this on the front cover of the magazine section

Clintonism
a. It's a poltical philosophy that steered the Democratic Party back to the center, brought about pragmatic policies and on votes.
b. It's a corruption of liberalism and a cynical approach to politics that led to George W. Bush;
c. It's the real issue for Democrats deciding who will be their nominee.
by Matt Bai

http://www.nytimes.com/...

I promised myself I would read the article before going to DKos to see what everyone had to say about it. When I got to DKos I looked for a diary but I haven't found one. So I guess its my turn here.

Matt Bai has spent some around the netroots, he has written a book about the blogosphere, but doesn't really seem to understand it.

I was justifiably skeptical when I saw the article.

I think he starts out OK talking about Bill stumping for Hillary in New Hampshire.

Listening to him talk, I found it hard not to wonder why so many of the challenges facing the next president were almost identical to those he vowed to address in 1992. Why, after Clinton’s two terms in office, were we still thinking about tomorrow? In some areas, most notably health care, Clinton tried gamely to leave behind lasting change, and he failed. In many more areas, though, the progress that was made under Clinton — almost 23 million new jobs, reductions in poverty, lower crime and higher wages — had been reversed or wiped away entirely in a remarkably short time. Clinton’s presidency seems now to have been oddly ephemeral, his record etched in chalk and left out in the rain.

Then he lays out the two sides of the story.

Supporters of the Clintons see an obvious reason for this, of course — that George W. Bush and his Republican Party have, for the past seven years, undertaken a ferocious and unbending assault on Clinton’s progressive legacy. As Clinton points out in his speeches, Bush and the Republicans abandoned balanced budgets to fight the war in Iraq, widened income inequality by cutting taxes on the wealthy and scaled back social programs. "We’ve had now seven years of a radical experiment in extremism in domestic policy," Clinton said in New Hampshire.

Some Democrats, though, and especially those who are apt to call themselves "progressives," offer a more complicated and less charitable explanation. In their view, Clinton failed to seize his moment and create a more enduring, more progressive legacy — not just because of the personal travails and Republican attacks that hobbled his presidency, but because his centrist, "third way" political strategy, his strategy of "triangulating" to find some middle point in every argument, sapped the party of its core principles. By this thinking, Clinton and his friends at the Democratic Leadership Council, the centrist think tank that served as a platform for his bid for national office, were so desperate to woo back moderate Southern voters that they accepted conservative assertions about government (that it was too big and unwieldy, that what was good for business was good for workers) and thus opened the door wide for Bush to come along and enact his extremist agenda with only token opposition. In other words, they say, he was less a victim of Bush’s radicalism than he was its enabler.

... and I thought he was pretty fair here.

snip

He goes on to talk about differing views on the Bill Clinton era. The traditional view...

There are, among Democrats, dueling interpretations of what Clintonism means and how it came into being. The most popular version now, by far, is that Clintonism was chiefly an electoral strategy, a way of making Democrats sound more acceptable to conservative voters by softening the party’s stances on "values" issues like guns, welfare and abortion and introducing pallid, focus-grouped phrases like "work hard and play by the rules" and making abortion "safe, legal and rare." In other words, Clinton was basically as liberal at heart as any other Democrat who marched for civil rights and protested the Vietnam War, but he was a brilliant political strategist who instinctively understood the need to rebrand the party.

He quotes the DLC's Al From

"I don’t want to see what I think is his greatest achievement diminished," From told me. "Just as Franklin Roosevelt saved capitalism by dealing with its excesses, Clinton saved progressive governance, and he saved progressive governance all over the world."

Then Matt starts to go off the Cliff....

Clinton’s critics on the left may scoff at this idea, but it’s fair to say that the discussion of Clintonism among party activists and especially online often displays a stunning lack of historical perspective. For a lot of younger Democrats, in particular, whose political consciousness dates back only as far as 1994 or even to the more recent days of Clinton’s impeachment, the origins of Clintonism have become not only murky but also irrelevant. "Clintonism" is, in much of the Democratic activist universe, a synonym for spinelessly appeasing Republicans in order to win, an establishment philosophy assumed to comprise no inherent principles of its own.

And it took no small amount of courage, at the end of the Reagan era, to argue inside the Democratic Party that the liberal orthodoxies of the New Deal and the Great Society, as well as the culture of the antiwar and civil rights movements, had become excessive and inflexible. Not only were Democratic attitudes toward government electorally problematic, Clinton argued; they were just plain wrong for the time.

Bai fails to see that times have changed. Clinton stuck his hand out to try to meet people half way. It worked for a while, but as soon as the GOP figured out what he was doing, they took that hand that was held out half way and dragged it to the right. For example sure we should accept people of faith, but that doesn't mean you have to acccept the Bush administration tearing down the separation of church and state.

He goes on...

He (Clinton) laid out a forceful case for improving and decentralizing decades-old institutions, from public schools to welfare, and modeling government after corporate America.

Yes when Clinton took those steps it was appropriate. That doesn't mean that the DLCers of today should be supporting the
Bankrupcy Bill

He goes on to talk about how todays progressives feel about some of Clinton's actions.

For a lot of liberals (those who now call themselves progressives), the ’90s were a conflicted time. They never really bought the ideological premise of Clintonism, and they quietly seethed as the president moved his party to the center — enacting free-trade agreements over the objections of union leaders; embracing balanced budgets and telling Americans that "the era of big government is over"; striking a deal to give Republicans a long-sought overhaul of the welfare system.

I know there is some of that sentiment around here regarding free trade. Bai doesn't realize that there are a spectrum of views on that issue here. I also think most folks agree that democrats do more to ensure that free trade helps everyone. The problem we have now is that the DLC or elements in the party are just rolling over to the GOP.

There is alot more to the article, but I think have the gist of it. Bottom line, some good parts, but Matt always seems to find a way to miss the point.

•  Tip Jar

  by CTMET on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 12:38:13 PM PDT

  •  I'm skeptical of "isms"

    Bill probably would have made gazillions with a mega-church had he chosen that path, but he went into politics.  He's very good at politics, but he and Hillary don't always see eye to eye on everything, so I don't see an "ism."  HRC is a very smart person.  She goes on her listening tours, because she knows that it's what other people think that matters, not anybody's "ism."

    by ljm on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 01:12:45 PM PDT

•  That seems like a lot of copied paragraphs.

  I think people try to use a limit of 3.

  by rserven on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 12:56:08 PM PDT

  •  It was a really long article

    by CTMET on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 12:57:09 PM PDT

•  netrots?

  was that deliberate?

  by VelvetElvis on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 12:57:54 PM PDT

  •  Oops

    Might have been if it was cut and pasted, but that came from my fingers. I fixed it.

    by CTMET on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 01:00:21 PM PDT

  •  At least it wasn't "nutroots"

    That was the very droll Dan Gerstein's contribution to political conversation.

    by Dump Terry McAuliffe on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 02:31:31 PM PDT

•  I would edit a bit

  I don't think KOS will like it if he sees that much pasted.

  by nevadadem on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 01:06:12 PM PDT

  •  I may be wrong

    but I think it depends on the length of the article. It's more of a percentage calculation than a hard and fast 3 paragraph rule.

    by bumblebums on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 01:15:52 PM PDT

    •  I looked at the front page and saw alot more

      cutting and pasting then I have here. The odds that Markos would come down from the mountain to visit my poor little diary are fairly slim.

      by CTMET on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 03:08:24 PM PDT

      •  Besides the purpose was to start the conversation

        I was somewhat surprised that no one had diaried this before me.

        by CTMET on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 03:11:03 PM PDT

•  That the era of big government was over

  was a policy statement whose real genesis was obscured.  That is, to the extent that the civil and consumer rights legislation of the '60s and '70 had made government accessible to the whole adult population, it was considered important to take some measures in the interest of re-establishing the authority of the elite and re-asserting their law and order.
  The strategy finally settled upon was privatization which could be sold to the public as a measure to increase efficiency and improve the quality of services, but would insulate the providers behind the veil of the private corporation's right to privacy, proprietary secrets, patent rights and confidentiality agreements.
  And that's how we arrived back to the way it used to be --public officials doling out public assets to their associates and friends and sticking the public with the costs (resource depletion, air and water pollution, etc). But, there's one additional difference in that what's being doled out is mostly money to purchase things the general public doesn't need, but our industrial and commercial sectors have come to rely on--a significant military force to back up monopolistic arrangements and "favored nation" status.  You'd think we were back in the days of gunboat diplomacy.

  If you want an example, just consider Iran which has been pressured with threats of military attack, if it doesn't agree to purchase uranium fuel from the U.S. supplier and its Russian subsidiary.

  The only real difference between Clinton One and Bush Two is that while Clinton focused on South America (NAFTA) and deals in the Far East, Bush Two was fixated on the Middle East, although there was still some "fixing" to be done in North Korea.

  by hannah on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 01:15:34 PM PDT

  •  Well..

    The only real difference between Clinton One and Bush Two is that while Clinton focused on South America (NAFTA) and deals in the Far East, Bush Two was fixated on the Middle East, although there was still some "fixing" to be done in North Korea.

    Clinton one didn't trample on the constitution, drive up debt, squander American prestige, start unecessary wars... but I guess those are only minor points.

    by CTMET on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 03:16:46 PM PDT

    •  The invasion of Iraq was planned

      on Clinton's watch and the monitoring of communications was begun.  The justification for the latter was to counter-act industrial espionage.
      Clinton diminished the Presidency and on his watch the number of poor increased, as did the number deprived of health care.  Welfare reform did not improve it.  The Federal Reserve policies which are now causing a cascade of personal bankruptcies were set up under Greenspan whom Clinton didn't have the guts to remove.
      The uranium enrichment industry was privatized and the responsibility for the wastes was left with the public.  It was during Clinton's term that the first DU weapons were used in Kosovo (a war crime).  A million Iraqi children died prematurely and the embargo crippled the Iraqi research programs.  The no-fly zone was periodically re-enforced with bombardments of "command and control" facilities such as telephone exchanges.  The CIA was permitted to attempt to "destabilize" Saddam by teaching his opponents (Allawi) how to construct and detonate sophisticated car bombs.

      Why was it that Kerry said he's run the war smarter?  Because they were all in on the planning.  Why are the Democrats still voting to pay for the occupation?  Because they were all in on the planning.  Why is Hillary refusing to declare her vote a mistake?  Because she was in on the planning.

      by hannah on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 05:17:59 PM PDT

•  Matt Bai

  Here's another article in the New York Times by Matt Bai about this subject from some time back.

  Mrs. Triangulation

  by William Domingo on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 02:22:45 PM PDT

  •  Re: "Mrs. Triangulation"

    Bai suggested in that article that HRC would be an antidote to the so-called excesses of the 1960s. I'd rather have a president who reined in the excesses of the first years of the 21st century--especially at the Executive Branch level.

    by Dump Terry McAuliffe on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 02:33:22 PM PDT

    •  excesses of the 1960s.

      I'll have to re-read to whole article, but if you're talking about what's on the first web-page, it says that "Robert F. Kennedy, who used the same Senate seat as his springboard 40 years earlier" stood for Liberal issuess, but Hillary stands for nothing and:

      wants nothing to do with ideological crusades, and she has thus far resisted the pull of rising antiestablishment forces - bloggers, donors and activists - who are fast becoming today's equivalent of the 60's left. Instead, Hillary (as she is universally known) has navigated with extreme caution through the party's fast-changing landscape, and if she has evolved as a public figure, it is in a way that has distanced her from the party's more liberal base.

      http://www.nytimes.com/...

      Matt Bai says "bloggers, donors and activists are fast becoming today's equivalent of the 60's Liberal left" and that Hillary wants nothing to do with them.

      by William Domingo on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 03:04:14 PM PDT

      •  Yeah the point I was trying to get to is I think

        a lot of those "excesses of the 60s" are urban legends made up by right wingers and the press. I was really young at the time, but I think there is some revisionist history going on.

        I think their solution is a return to the 50s which had its own set of problems.

        by CTMET on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 03:19:04 PM PDT

        •  "excesses of the 60s"

          A lot of those "excesses of the 60s", and the 30ties up until the 60ties that Right-Wings wail about are working people getting too many rights, economic and legal. In 1968 Richard Nixon ran on a platform of turning back the "excesses" that supposedly had occurred in the prior decades up to that point. The civil rights movement, the anti-war movement, the labor movement, etc. Hw wanted to turn all that back.

          by William Domingo on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 03:53:50 PM PDT

    •  The politics of the '60s is starting to fade

      As someone who is a member of Generation Y, I don't see why this election should be about the politics of our parents. This is 2008, not 1968, or even 1988. People want our troops home, better healthcare and a crackdown on corporate abuse.
      The DLCers think that voters are still voting like they did 20-40 years ago, when this is complete bullshit.

      by Progressive Moderate on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 03:41:52 PM PDT

•  Democratic Party crumbled during the Clinton era

  In 2001, when Bill Clinton left office, the Democratic Party had fewer seats at every tier of government from the U.S. Senate on down than it had when he was sworn in.

  And the damage continued in 2002. With his good friend you-know-who at the head of the DNC, the party lost seats in both houses of Congress--a rare and dubious achievement for a party not in control of the White House.

  by Dump Terry McAuliffe on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 02:30:39 PM PDT

  •  We were also behind in terms of online activity

    The GOP was first in mobilizing netroots activity in the form of FR and Drudge. 7-8 years ago, right-wing trolls were more present on any message board relating to politics with nary a response from our side. No Daily Kos, no FDL, Democratic Underground...nada!.

    During the '90s Democrats as a whole were both jaded and complacent, giving way to the political landscape that enabled Nader to get nearly 3% of the popular vote (sorry, while he enabled Bush, Gore circa 2000 was a lousy candidate, even if he was a victim of MSM mud-slinging and electoral theft).

    It took Bush, sadly enough, to mobilize us and get us involved. Without the worst excesses of the Bush years,  I doubt that as many of us would be following politics as we are now.

    by Progressive Moderate on Sat Dec 22, 2007 at 03:47:17 PM PDT