It is perhaps emblematic of the depths of despair currently implicating those of us to the left of center that not only have our factions begun firing upon each other, but among themselves.
A dedicated fan (except when I am writing about matters affecting Carroll Gardens) writes:
SHAMES: I think it is generally good to remind the "progressives" that progress is taken in successive steps and that incrementalism is a related concept of increase and no more a dirty word than progress. They don't seem to understand that they share their country with a lot of people who don't agree with them on everything and who also believe that they are right.
I think a health care deal needs to be made quickly and we need to move on. When older people see that their Medicare is still okay and the hole in their prescription benefits is filled the unease of those generally reliable voters will pass.
That being said, I do not believe the loss of the Senate seat can be laid exclusively or even primarily at the door of the progressives.
If more people had work and were not losing their homes or even if they were out of work and losing their homes had the administration not so willingly become the face of the banking establishment seeming to be on the side of those who destroyed their work and are taking away their homes perhaps the party would be in better shape.
The fact that the administration has from the beginning taken its economic advice from those who did not see the collapse coming rather than those who had the bleaker but more realistic view and therefore the more accurate prescription for getting out of this is the thing from which we as a party will not fully recover in the near term.
GATE: They did what was necessary in the short term, which was highly distasteful. The Repubs criticized, but, now they trying to block any effort for real reform. And you fail to notice the stimulus package.
SHAMES: I do not question the need to bail out the banks, but the banks owed something real in the way of mea culpa in return and did not give it and the administration is very late on picking up on the populist rage. It is not lost on me that NY as the center of the industry benefits from a restrained approach but that doesn't make it any less of a loser politically.
I do not forget the stimulus, but am making reference to its inadequacy and the fact that it is easier to apply the brakes than it is to get a second stimulus package. Those who warned of the bubble were the ones who warned that the stimulus was inadequate and they were ignored going in and coming out.
GATE: The stimulus was got was probably all the stimulus we were going to get–as Rahm said of Krugman:
“They have never worked the legislative process…How many bills has he passed?…. Now, my view is that Krugman as an economist is not wrong. But in the art of the possible, of the deal, he is wrong. He couldn’t get his legislation…No disrespect to Paul Krugman, but has he figured out how to seat the Minnesota senator? Write a fucking column on how to seat the son of a bitch. I would be fascinated with that column. O.K.? Anytime they want, they can have it, I give them my chair.”
SHAMES: We will never really know because they never advocated for it in public.
GATE: So, you're saying the problem is we need more kabuki? (My G-d, I’m stealing from Mickey Kaus!)
SHAMES: If all that could be done was done (and I am not of that belief) then the current state of affairs was inevitable, as well. If more had been attempted and it all ended up being theater, then at least it would have provided an opportunity to rally the troops and focus the yahoo's away from the Dems. Good theater serves a useful purpose in society. Kabuki is a venerable art form.
I myself do not feel much outrage for an administration whose greatest failings seem in overestimating the achievable by slight margins instead of grand ones, and being intent upon appealing to people’s intelligence instead of their emotions.
But, for all my recent (and not so recent) criticism of the “progressive” left; the time has come to take a look at other problematic sectors of the Democratic Party. In this last week, I’ve felt compelled to note that many of the Democratic Party’s so-called “centrists” have caused it nearly as much damage as the left “progressives” I’ve been so harsh to. As the self described voice of centrist, DLC Democrats in the NYC blogworld, I feel a special responsibility to acknowledge this in a frank and unstinting manner.
Just to be clear, the DLC is the Democratic Leadership Council, a group of centrist Democrats, whose think-tank, the perhaps ironically named “Progressive Policy Institute,” formed the intellectual backbone (such that it was) of the program of the Clinton administration.
My centrist Democratic sympathies are NOT social issue based, but neither are the DLC’s (despite its attracting some of that element). I will admit that I am not opposed to selective dive taking as a prudential tactic, and I think that extreme caution in labeling as bigots those who differ from you is a good idea not only as a matter of prudence, but also of decency.
I also have a few areas where some of the rough edges of my social liberalism have been smoothed out to the right by the hard truths of personal experience, but probably just as many where experience has curved them even further to the left.
On economic issues, I share the DLC’s desire to regulate Wall Street rather than to detonate it, and I like the DLC's willingness to explore different strategies (best exemplified in the work of its CEO, Bruce Reed, who served as the WONK Counterpart to Rahm Emanuel‘s HACK among the Clinton White House’s band of young Turks.), but I'm probably to the DLC’s left on many issues–I like single payer.
And while I share the DLC’s willingness not to invariably come down on the sides of the unions or other traditional liberal allies (say, on charter schools), I find that, on many of these issues (like charter schools), I end up skeptical about the new ideas in actual practice.
But the DLCers were not wrong about welfare reform (which, I'll admit needs some fixing, though it would need far less if we'd passed our own plan in 93, instead of tinkering with the Republican plan after we lost our majorities in Congress).That all said, my willingness to compromise on domestic issues is more reality based than ideological.
The one economic issue where I’m most down with the DLC is trade. It’s not that I’m a fan of globalization. I’m not; but, I'm also not a fan of winter. Nonetheless, we have to deal with the real world The Clinton administration’s eight years of peace and prosperity drew its strength in large part from its embrace of such realities.
In fact, it is because I am pragmatist, who understands that the “progressive” idea that we can somehow stop globalization is another left delusion, that I also understand that our system of mostly employer-supplied health care is an anachronism that hurts American competitiveness in a world where most of our advanced competitors have a government-facilitated system of universal health coverage which does not burden companies with such costs.
My radicalism on what health care system I’d prefer is a direct result of my overall centrist worldview.
Finally there is foreign policy/defense–I never was a Liebermanite, but I was a Clintonite and now I'm an Obamanite. That is, an uneasy mixture of liberal internationalist values and realistic methodology.
I am decidedly not a neo-con embracing preventive war and imperialism; nor am I an America-First Aggressive Isolationist. As such, I cannot be a Republican.
But I am also not any breed of foreign policy “progressive.” I am not a pacifist. Nor am I one who invariably considers America a force for evil. I do not eschews the use of American force at anytime, in any place for any reason (or one of those who pretends there are some circumstances which might justify the use of force, but can never find any that do).
This means I'm more of DLC Democrat than a Kos Democrat.
Ideologically, I consider myself in sync with the DLC in favoring a robust public sector which tries to implement liberal goals, but has no problem with acknowledging that free enterprise and markets usually work, provided one acknowledges their flaws and their limitations, keeps their excesses well leashed and provides an expansive social contract and a strong social safety net.
It is this set of principles, and its interest in seeking solutions which are often out of the box, and sometimes opposed by party allies, which has lead the DLC to be to seek out innovative Democrats from around the country of all political stripes for favorable notice (they were one of the earliest outside groups to give recognition to an Illinois State senator named Barack Obama).
But mostly, I appreciate the DLC as a place where good Democrats who dissent from orthodoxies can gather, even if in practice I disagree with many in this group more than I disagree with my liberal friends.
To be clear, the Congressional manifestation of the DLC is the New Democratic Coalition (NDC), not the Blue Dog Coalition. Though a diverse group, the NDCers average out as moderately liberal on social and economic issues.
By contrast, the Blue Dogs consist mostly of Democrats from conservative districts. Although they do not, as a group, take positions on social issues, they tend mostly to be social issue conservatives or moderate-conservatives. Unlike DLCers, some blue dogs are pretty protectionist.
In general, Blue Dogs embrace bi-partisanship as a worthy end in itself, while NDCers (with a few notable exceptions) embrace bi-partisanship, when they do, only as a means to particular ends.
The Blue Dogs were originally focused on deficit reduction, Since the Reagan years, when David Stockman purposefully adopted a program of embracing huge budget deficits as a means to strangle the possibility of activist government ever again rearing its head, those concerned about deficits have had no where else to go but to the Democrats.
And those Democrats really concerned about restoring a robust sector and expanding our social contract and social safety net invariably are first forced to clean up the vomit of drunken sailor Republicans living on the buy-now-pay-never plan.
As Bill Clinton famously whined "I hope you're all aware we're all Eisenhower Republicans,…We stand for lower deficits and free trade and the bond market. Isn't that great?"
Republican supply sider voodoo is precisely the reason a larger stimulus package was not politically possible, and continues to undermine our ability to prime the pump and get back upon our feet.
These days the Blue Dogs seem most concerned with appearing “pro-business” to business lobbyists. Moreover, it must be noted that the Blue Dogs now include some members who eschew virtually any tax increase for any reason, which is almost exactly counter to the group’s original “budget-hawk” agenda.
Nonetheless, there are some blue dogs who are pretty standard liberal or moderate-liberal Democrats, but who divert from left “progressive” orthodoxy in one or several areas, and just seem to have joined the group to have some company among their fellow outcasts. Adam Schiff of California, whose positions are not too far from my own, fits in this category, as do several others (these sort of Blue Dogs tend also to be NDCers).
Further confusing the matter is the fact that those standard issue Democrats who divert from party orthodoxy only on social issues, like anti-abortion crusader Bart Stupak of Michigan, tend not to be Blue Dogs.
The Blue Dogs are thus a diverse lot, and, despite the cries of the KOSsacks, it is hard for Democrats to eschew them as a group.
However, some individual “Centrists,” not all of them Blue Dogs, and some purported DLCers, do perhaps deserve exile
This is most manifest in the Senate. With the preposterous procedural rule that it takes the permission of 60 Senators to bring a bill to a vote now having evolved into a nearly invariable substantive rule that only bills commanding the votes of sixty senators are allowed to pass, the definition of a "Centrist" has also evolved.
“Centrist” used to be a word applying to those middle of the road members of both parties whose views allowed them to work with both sides to break through legislative logjams.
If we are to believe the mainstream media, the word “Centrist” now seems to apply to those members, sometimes of either party, but usually Democrats, who insert themselves into the middle of the road to create logjams and block legislation.
With both types of “Centrist,” compromise is facilitated. However, what is being compromised has changed.
In the past what had been comprised was the legislation. Nowadays, it is often the “ethics,” of the Centrists.
The DLC, which emphasizes policy innovations which focus upon what works, rather than upon what is ideologically correct, is the first kind of “Centrist.” Senator Ben Nelson (D-Nebraska) is of the second kind.
Ben Nelson always wants to cut money; from the budget, from the stimulus, from health care. When it is comes to a proposal’s bottom line, he’s always leading the charge to cut it by some arbitrary number, just for the sake of cutting it.
But when it come to saving money by means of looking at a program and making it deliver the most bang for the buck, Ben Nelson is one of the most wasteful members of Congress.
When it came to health care, The DLC’s CEO, Bruce Reed said to pass it.
Nelson’s health care program was “cut the bottom line, but slop my trough.” In the end, he helped to kill Health Care Reform entirely.
When it came to the stimulus, the DLC crusaded against using it for ,short-sided parochial goals.
By contrast, Nelson organized a cartel of “Centrist” extortionists from both parties, whose platform consisted of a large chop in the bottom line and dozens of parochial apples tossed into their trough.
Then there is the budget.
Here’s what the DLC’s website says about the agricultural policy:
“American agricultural productivity is the envy of the world, but all is not well on America's farms. The creaking machinery of government farm subsidies is increasingly obsolete. Farm legislation, formulated during the Depression, is anachronistic, inefficient, intrusive, and unfair.”
When, as part of his first budget, President Obama attempted to enact such reforms, Nelson helped kill them.
This, in part, is what the DLC website says Student Loans:
“The federal government provides student loans for college and graduate school in two ways: by guaranteeing bank loans and by lending directly to students. Approximately three-quarters of federal student loans are guaranteed and one-quarter are direct. In the guaranteed loan program, a 40-year-old system, banks lend students money and profit from the interest payments while the government guarantees the loans against default and makes subsidy payments to the banks. In the direct loan system, the alternative President William J. Clinton enacted in 1993, middlemen are cut out of the process. The government provides low-interest loans directly to students, using borrower interest payments to help cover the costs of the program.
The difference between the two systems, in budgetary terms, is substantial. In the decade since the beginning of Clinton's initiative, there have been numerous audits and investigations of both the direct and guaranteed student loan programs, and in every case the auditors have agreed: Direct lending is the more cost-effective approach. In fact, it is much more cost effective…
…Congress should take action now, before more money is wasted. Lawmakers should insist that the student loan industry offer up a system that is as cost-effective as direct lending. If the industry cannot deliver, Congress should completely replace the guarantee system with direct lending and capture those savings for the benefit of American families who are struggling to afford higher education.“
When President Obama, as part of his first budget, tired to enact this reform, Nelson killed it, pretty much single-handedly.
If the DLC Centrism is about pushing for ideas which work, regardless of their ideological origins or the special interests they may offend, then Ben Nelson is not a “Centrist,” but perhaps Centrism’s greatest enemy.
Then there is Mary Landrieu, who supported Health Care Reform only after extracting promises of $300 million in pork. Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh took a lot of heat for comparisons of Landrieu with a prostitute, but in this rare instance they were not wrong.
My only questions is, what did they thinking they were gaining by calling a Senator from Louisiana a whore for the interests of her state? From time immemorial, the one attribute the Big Sleazy has most prized in their solons is an ability to swallow without gagging. Landrieu’s predecessor, John Breaux (George H.W. Bush‘s favorite Democrat) once bragged how he couldn’t be bought, only rented; someone once called Breaux a “two bit whore” and he responded by hitting them over the head with a bag of quarters.
The there is Arkansas’ Blanche Lambert Lincoln, who is really just less of the same. Lincoln’s most notable attribute is that she first attained office by stabbing her own mentor in the back, following in the footsteps of such disreputable characters as Una Clarke, George Pataki and …Barack Obama.
Never mind.
There are probably other examples, such as Arlen Specter, the first person to successfully undergo an operation reversing political gender re-assignment surgery, but nonetheless possessing one of the world’s largest set of testicles, even if he is a moral eunuch.
And, even though they profess to be Republicans, one should not fail to mention the twin strumpets from the state of Maine, who thanks to being Scozzafavazzed into submission by their party’s right wing, have stopped betraying their principles on case by case cash basis in tandem with Ben Nelson, and have instead sold them out completely..
But we are of course ignoring the elephant in the room who pretends he is a donkey–Joe Lieberman.
Joe Lieberman is not, as if often assumed, the sort of “Peter Beinart Democrat” so disdained by “progressives.” Democrats of our sort believe in that “America must lead the world by persuasion, not command.” By contrast, Joe Lieberman believes in imposing his morality wherever he sees fit. It is as if Dubya replaced his machismo with a double dose of whining sanctimony.
But at least that is a position of principle.Since his defeat in his 2006 race for re-nomination, Lieberman has gone from “being with us on everything but the war” to being against us on everything but keeping his committee chairmanship. As I warned back in late 2008, Joe Lieberman has not gotten us to sixty votes when it counts, he’s merely hung us with the albatross of having the numbers on paper, but not being able to deliver.
Besides being a hawk, Joe Lieberman used to be most notable as a “process liberal.” Hubert Humphrey used to disdain New England schoolmarm types like Mike Dukakis for being more interested in whether the pipe was shiny than in whether good things were flowing through it. New Englander Lieberman has spent his year giving the pipes a spit shine, while opining his superior ethical worldview in a manner which nearly drove Philip Roth nuts (Read “The Human Stain“).
“Process liberal” Lieberman was especially sanctimonious about the Filibuster, saying "[People] are fed up–frustrated and fed up and angry about the way in which our government does not work,.And I think the filibuster has become not only in reality an obstacle to accomplishment here, but it is also a symbol of a lot that ails Washington today."
Yet today he conspires to use the Filibuster he so disdained to display his petulance for petulance’ sake, help Ben Nelson in his latest efforts at extortion, and tie the Senate, The Country, and the party which gives him his chairmanship, into knots.
So as a Centrist Democrat, I implore the deity to please save us from these so-called “Centrists.”
I have one more name, who I intend to discuss in my next article. A man who Chairs the Democratic Leadership Council, but seems blithely unaware of what it stands for.
His name is Harold Ford.