Democratic leaders Mark Penn and Andrew Stein today have published the most embarrassing, wrong-headed and ludicrous op-ed in the NYT, called “Back to the Center, Democrats.” If you don’t mind having your jaw drop to the floor, give it a read. The opening paragraphs should give you a taste:
The path back to power for the Democratic Party today, as it was in the 1990s, is unquestionably to move to the center and reject the siren calls of the left, whose policies and ideas have weakened the party.
In the early 1990s, the Democrats relied on identity politics, promoted equality of outcomes instead of equality of opportunity and looked to find a government solution for every problem. After years of leftward drift by the Democrats culminated in Republican control of the House under Speaker Newt Gingrich, President Bill Clinton moved the party back to the center in 1995 by supporting a balanced budget, welfare reform, a crime bill that called for providing 100,000 new police officers and a step-by-step approach to broadening health care. Mr. Clinton won a resounding re-election victory in 1996 and Democrats were back.
“Siren calls of the left,” “identity politics,” “equality of outcomes instead of equality of opportunity”? Bragging about Bill Clinton’s crime bill??
Holy shit! This reads like a bad piece of mail-it-in Republican drivel. And it is not limited to the opening paragraphs. Throughout the piece, Penn and Stein criticize Democrats for “class warfare,” “big government,” “bigger government handouts,” “sharply leftist ideas,” “penalizing . . . the basic values of hard work, religion and family,” “regulat[ing] to death” the economy, seeming to “abandon” the working class, “marginal[izing]” and “disdain[ing]” religious believers, and on and on.
To Penn and Stein, I have only one thing to say . . . Go fuck yourselves!
And I have only one thing to ask them: “Hey Penn and Stein! Who paid you to write this POS?”