By Dave Zweifel
November 7, 2003
Any smart democrat will take these words and basically just repeat them in future stump speaches, debates, and interviews.
At the risk of once again stirring up the Bill Clinton haters in our midst, there are parts of an interview he gave to American Prospect magazine this month that deserve to be shared.
Surprisingly, Clinton gives credit to the Republicans for the clever way they have been able to get Americans - particularly working-class Americans - to vote for them even though to do so is against their own economic interests.
They've succeeded, he said, in putting the focus on narrow social issues over economic ones, issues like abortion, the rights of gays, gun control and so on.
"And through the extraordinary ability to increase their dominance in the mainstream press (and to) have a competing right-wing press and label Democrats ... almost turn them into cartoons in a way, that got them votes from people who otherwise never would have voted for them. That's basically been their strategy," he said.
"So they believe those things, coupled with their extraordinary ability to raise money from the people they're helping financially with the government, will enable them to pursue policies which are way to the right of where the American people are," he added.
Clinton used the tax cuts as an example of the Republicans getting lavish return on their investments.
"I mean, people say, 'Gosh, how did Bush raise $200 million, $300 million?' I say it's peanuts compared to the tax cuts he gave. It's not even a tithe (for the contributors), you know? Not even 1 percent!" the former president remarked.
How should the Democrats respond to all this? he was asked.
"Now what we should say is that they, not we, have brought class warfare back to America. You know, every time I complain about these tax cuts some conservative says I'm practicing class warfare. I am not. I pay these taxes ... and I should. Nobody makes me live in this country. America has been good to me.
"And I think for somebody to give me a tax cut and then turn around and say, 'We've gotta have $87 billion spent in Iraq, but we're gonna kick 300,000 kids out of after-school programs, 84,000 kids out of student loans, 25,000 uniformed police off the street'? We're gonna kick a couple thousand police off the street in New York city who put their lives on the line on Sept. 11th, and they're going to give me a tax cut? That's class warfare! And I think we ought to say that.
"I also think we ought to say, 'It's not like they're not spending money! They're creating a big lie here. They're spending the money and giving you a tax cut and printing money to pay the bills.'
"And let me just say, I didn't object to the president running deficits after 9/11. He didn't make those conditions. But they did decide how to respond to them. And to give a big tax cut in 2001 before we knew what our income, expense or emergency costs were going to be was not responsible."
Bill Clinton still tells it like it is.
Published: 7:17 AM 11/07/03