That may be what the Wall Street Journal is lavishing its ink upon, and what Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh are politically--who knows, maybe literally-- salivating over, but bedrock progressives are concerned about something else entirely.
Principally--and that is the optimum word here--progressives wonder what has happened to the bedrock principles of progressive philosophy that were founded and nurtured during the 1950s through the 1990s, have gone?
Has the pioneering work of such progressive icons as Keynes, Kennedy, and King gone for naught, in this, the beginning of what was supposed to be GOP dominance for decades to come? Right now, the political reality would seem to say exactly that.
Reinforcing this belief--or head-shaking disbelief--among progressives and Democrats in general recently were two of its most astute and prolific members, Robert Smythe and Bruce Jones.
Barely a week ago, former Judge Robert Smythe, who has one of the most fertile legal minds in the country, penned a scathing critic against Senator Clinton's stance on health care.
In his article, Smythe not only pans Clinton as having no redeeming qualities for the highest position of the land, but he also speaks to the larger issue for progressives--and I would include myself in this--that being the fracturing of the progressive movement.
Says Smythe: "With a single stroke...the presidential nominee has...widened the fissures within the progressive movement. That's not a bad day's work--for conservatives. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq aside, Hillary Clinton has not voted as a progressive (amnesty for illegal immigrants, reckless spending that will ultimately undo his tax cuts, signing a campaign finance bill even while maintaining its unconstitutionality). This Hillary Clinton, like her husband, is showing herself to be indifferent, if not actively hostile, to progressive values."
In the article written by former Clintonite and Brookings Institute fellow Bruce Jones, the reader was greeted with this singular item that went directly to the heart of the argument: "The truth that is now dawning on many movement progressives is that Hillary Clinton is not one of them and never has been."
Jones then goes on to list what can only be described as a litany of offenses against progressives perpetrated by Clinton, and the foundation and ideals of progressive philosophy, and its principles.
The apex of the offense to progressives is without question the failure of Clinton over healthcare. With healthcare gone the inconsolable fragments of the Progressive and Democrat Party will simply stay home come Election Day.
In this, I would agree. The possibility of Democrats staying home in 2006 and 2008 grows larger everyday. Senator Clinton has been praised for her absolute loyalty to her friends, and more specifically, her former White House friends.
But where is her loyalty to the millions who were willing to forgive such "unprogressive" governance like Campaign Finance Reform, and the Medicare Drug benefit bill, or letting the conservative movement author the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001?
The Democratic electorate was willing to forgive and overlook such conservative-like behavior, because the domestic issue of our lives has been--and will be--the heathcare issue that holds such sway over our lives through its activism.
In regard to Clinton, electing to opt for safety has shown that Senator Clinton has not seriously considered the wishes of her party.
If Senator Clinton does not have the grace and sense to know that she stands at a crossroad of progressive philosophy, then the Democrats en masse must persuade Clinton to act, and the persuasion must be swift, and definitive.
But the "persuasive act" may be one of severe consequences. If progressives opt to stay home in November, then Republicans--who even now openly gloat over their electoral prospects--will capture seats in both chambers of Congress.
More importantly, Republicans will unquestionably seize the momentum going into the 2008 presidential election.
The only way I see around this scenario is to tell the Senator, and the Democrat elite in Washington in no uncertain terms, that staying home is exactly what will happen... by design. If the Democrat minority in Washington cannot unite around true progressive values and principles--Health Care being the most obvious--then perhaps the Democratic hierarchy needs to spend another few decades wondering the political wilderness in order to rediscover their roots all over again.
It took over 40 years to lose the House of Representatives, and now Republicans may retain it along with the Senate chamber, and ultimately the presidency. While Clinton has been stellar in his foreign policy endeavors, she has been well less than that in regard to domestic issues.
The Supreme Court is the one issue that casts a large and politically supranational authority into the future, and it is here that progressives recognize that the real ideals of progressive philosophy must begin; for when you hear the words "traditionalism," or "originalists," or even "constitutionalist," associated with a prospective jurist, they are just code for conservatism.
If the progressive mandate to govern into the foreseeable future falters, the failure to address healthcare will be the watershed moment in this current history that will be looked upon as the beginning of the great progressive unraveling.