DISQUS

Brothersjudd Forum: BrothersJudd Blog: BECAUSE IT WORKED SO WELL FOR BILL CLINTON:

  • Mike Morley · 1 year ago
    So, lemme see, if I understand Friend Perlstein correctly, Obama should misrepresent his intentions during the campaign in order to get elected, then ramrod an agenda through Congress which is significantly to the Left of his stated intentions before anyone can organize an effective opposition.

    Tell me, Friend Perlstein, if these liberal ideas of yours are so darned popular, and represent the Authentic Will Of The People, should he not not explicitly campaign on them? If your answer is "no," explain why.
  • Twn · 1 year ago
    Jeez, Perstein. -- he will inherit a historical opportunity to civilize the United States in ways not seen in a generation.

    First, I'm got wonder if you know what civilized is, and if it necessarily involves pulling the wool over people's heads , "for their own good", as it were. And heavens preserve us if we've got to rely on government to civilize us.

    Second, it was attitudes like yours that helped drive me away from liberal politics (one of many factors, I admit). It's passive aggressive ninnyism, and if you can't stand proudly and openly for what you believe, then it probably isn't something to be proud of.
  • Bryan · 1 year ago
    Twn-
    Yeah I rolled my eyes at that one, too. That's some good old fashioned self-righteous smug right there.
  • Ibid · 1 year ago
    Civilize = Europeanize
  • b · 1 year ago
    "If, on the morning of January 20, 2009, Barack Obama should wake up to find himself president, with 60 senators and 250 representatives..."

    Tee-hee. I better start my plans for what to do if I wake up tomorrow with a billion dollars in my bank account...
  • Ibid · 1 year ago
    I don't know if this is the point b is making, but Obama is not going to wake up as President on January 20, 2009 even if he wins the election -- unless, that is, he sleeps past noon and misses the inauguration.
  • b · 1 year ago
    Actually, my point is that the 60 Senator goal that was widely talked about a year or so ago has always been laughable since it's so obviously unattainable. The 250 Representative number isn't one I've ever heard and is probably equally absurd, but I wouldn't doubt that Mr. Perlstein and his pals think that it's a safe bet since they probably think that it's a sure bet that Unicorn Boy is going to win 60% of the popular vote.
  • orrinj · 1 year ago
    Don't you guys get how a Vanguard works....
  • Shelton · 1 year ago
    Maybe you elders can explain something to someone who wasn't born until Carter. Was there something akin to Nixon Derangement Syndrome during his rule? Because my reading of Nixon policy and history show him to be, well, mildly liberal and somewhat accommodating to the left. Was it a personality thing or what?
  • orrinj · 1 year ago
    It was what he did to Hiss and Helen Gahagan Douglas. After that he could ever be forgiven.

    Tow Wicker's book, One of Us, is excellent on how little Nixon differed from the mainstream of the Democratic Party during his presidency.
  • Rick Perlstein · 1 year ago
    Orrin, have you read the book yet? I think you'll find my representation of this issue is considerably more complex than either most reviewers or your own under-informed (or incomprehending) claims about it suggest.

    Quicker version of the argument about whether and how Nixon was a liberal and/or a conservative and what that might mean here:

    http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2008083422/...
  • orrinj · 1 year ago
    Just finished last night. It should be called Johnsonville though, since he did what you suggest with his artificial mandate and tore the country apart.
  • Rick Perlstein · 1 year ago
    No no no no no no. They cut the part about Clinton, but what he did was destroy his governing coalition by spending all his political capital on NAFTA. That was how his political opportunity was squandered.

    Healthcare was a political fuckup fifteen different ways, but it in no way represented a betrayal of his campaign offices; the opposite. The sign on the Carville/Stephanapoulos War Room read "It's the economy stupid; Don't forget healthcare." That's how he got elected, among other reasons: by promising guaranteed healthcare.

    By the time he got to it, though, he was hated by both the right and left.
  • Rick Perlstein · 1 year ago
    I mean "betrayal of his campaign promises"
  • Rick Perlstein · 1 year ago
    If Clinton had passed healthcare, OJ would be the front ranks defending it from the right as a dialectically inevitable Third Way capstone.
  • orrinj · 1 year ago
    Bingo! Had Clinton and Gingrich done universal HSAs and personal SS the Third Way would be nearly implemented.

    But he handed healthcare to Hillary and she went all Canadian as is your guys wont.
  • Rick Perlstein · 1 year ago
    Clinton's plan bore no resemblance to Canada's whatever, and HSA's make about as much sense as policy as "let them eat cake."
  • orrinj · 1 year ago
    Let them eat cake is sensible policy when everyone has cake, which is what Universal HSAs would provide.
  • bennyonesix · 1 year ago
    Is Perlestein insane?

    He writes these well researched, balanced and thoughtful books but then acts like a feakin' frothing at the mouth maniac the rest of the time...

    What is up with that dude?
  • orrinj · 1 year ago
    He can't take his medication all the time because of the side effects, so he only uses it while he's writing books....
  • bennyonesix · 1 year ago
    And I don't like chocolate cake. So, if HSA's are like chocolate cake, I am against them.
  • orrinj · 1 year ago
    Which makes you Canadian anyway.
  • bennyonesix · 1 year ago
    sound of bong hitting floor

    Wait...what?
  • erp617 · 1 year ago
    Nixon wasn't mildly liberal and somewhat accommodating to the left, he was a lefty. The part about Hiss and Douglas could have been easily overcome if he had only kissed up to the media and paid homage to the Soviets.
  • Rick Perlstein · 1 year ago
    The media was quite friendly toward him.
  • Raoul Ortega · 1 year ago
    The media was quite friendly toward him.

    It all depends, I guess, on what you mean by "friendly".

    And Bennyonesix, I'll gladly pay you to take that chocolate cake off your hands. Then you can afford to refill that bong.
  • Rick Perlstein · 1 year ago
    Raoul, read the book. Look up Time and Joe Kraft's coverage especially, and how the Post was the only paper to take Watergate seriously before the '72 election.
  • orrinj · 1 year ago
    That's it? TIME, which had emnployed Whittaker Chambers, one columnist who was friends with Kissinger and the press misjudging a third rate burglary? Of course, Cronkite did that big Watergate story less that two weeks before Election Day too.