Bill Clinton, as usual, absolutely nails the Republican hypocrisy on MoveOn and details the GOP’s history of attacks on people in uniform like John Kerry and Max Cleland. Are you sure he can’t run again? Please?
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Bill Clinton On The MoveOn Distraction
September 26th, 2007
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Lord knows I don’t agree with Bill on everything and see him largely as an opportunist (albeit a pragmatic one), he sees politics more clearly than just about anyone in the world. If any single Democratic leader had been able to say anything resembling this on the Senate or House floor instead of voting WITH THE REPUBLICANS in a waste of time condemnation, then we might actually make some progress in Iraq. And they wonder why Congress’s approval rating is in the toilet.
Why would you want the DLC laden, centrist Democrat Bill Clinton to run again?
Bill Clinton is the exact kind of politician the ‘new’ (ie, Kos dorks) Democrats cannot stand.
Except that you’ve swallowed, hook, line, and sinker, that this is about ideology. I guarantee you the vast majority of Kos and the netroots would easily vote for Clinton again, much more so than the rightroots would vote for Bush again.
Oliver, Jay is pulling another bait-and-switch by trying to change the subject away from Republican hypocrisy. Please don’t fall for it.
Megamoze, yeah I know. Max Cleland…triple amputee…Kerry war hero….Republican meanies…blah blah blah. We get it.
And Oliver, you need to clear things up a bit because this article by Kos bemoans what Bill Clinton did to the Democratic Party and claims that being an ‘insider’ is going to be a hindrance to her (the article was written over a year ago). Meanwhile, she’s got a sizable lead over the kind of candidates Kos said she needed to be in order to get the nomination.
He writes:
No longer would D.C. insiders impose their candidates on us without our input; those of us in the netroots could demand a say in our political fortunes. Today, however, Hillary Clinton seems unable to recognize this new reality. She seems ill-equipped to tap into the Net-energized wing of her party (or perhaps is simply uninterested in doing so) and incapable of appealing to this newly mobilized swath of voters. She may be the establishment’s choice, but real power in the party has shifted.
So much for that.
WE get it. You don’t. For all the right-wing bloviating over patriotism and the troops, you’ve just succinctly summed up the TRUE attitude of Republicans by reducing Max Cleland’s sacrifice to “blah blah blah.” Because if you can’t exploit soldiers for your cynical partisan points, then that’s about as far as you care about them.
So go ahead and keep trying to change the subject. I guess I don’t blame you for not wanting to talk about this one.
I can’t speak for Markos, in fact I think I wrote at the time that he was very wrong – I never thought the netroots threatened HRC nor did I think she was dumb enough to ignore such a loud part of the base. Furthermore, I don’t think everyone that reads Kos or is a member (like me) shares his position on the issue.
And Democratics have never attacked people in uniform prior to Patraeus?!? I guess Bob Dole and GHWB 41 were just figments of my imagination…
Farris, don’t waste your time. The “GOP attacked Max Cleland’s patriotism” charge is a myth, but it has become reality in the minds of the left so there’s no point in even bothering. Cleland’s voting record was attacked.
And Oliver, I’m not asking you to speak for Markos, but you hold somewhat the same view of him with regard to the DLC and their view of campaigning successfully. Let’s face it. Hillary’s campaign thus far has been taken right out of the DLC/Dick Morris playbook. Triangulation. And to the chagrin of a lot of progressives — so it is in large part about ideology. Bill Clinton would have done it the same way. Hard to see how those who are annoyed that Hillary hasn’t been liberal enough would warmly embrace Bill Clinton running again.
“Farris, don’t waste your time. The “GOP attacked Max Cleland’s patriotism” charge is a myth, but it has become reality in the minds of the left so there’s no point in even bothering. Cleland’s voting record was attacked.”
So they put up an image of his voting record next to Saddam and Osama? I don’t remember it that way.
But at least you admit the MoveOn ad attacked the generals report, and not the general himself.
“And Democratics have never attacked people in uniform prior to Patraeus?!? I guess Bob Dole and GHWB 41 were just figments of my imagination”
Well, yes.
Farris, don’t waste your time.
I agree.
Meanwhile, she’s got a sizable lead over the kind of candidates Kos said she needed to be in order to get the nomination.
Which is odd because the candidate she needs to be is Obama.
Remember when good, honest, patriotic Republicans nationwide were insisting that John Kerry tricked the Navy into giving him his purple hearts? What good, honest, patriotic people our GOP friends are! Let no one question their decency and honor!
I think the DLC is ridiculous because they take credit for things they don’t have dick to do with, they prod Dems to move to the right – not the center. President Clinton and Sen. Clinton are both centrist progressives that are far better for America than the idiot DLC. The DLC has ridden on Bill Clinton’s success, not the other way around.
Guess what Oliver? When you’re sitting on the left and you’re prodded to move to the center, that’s moving to the right.
And cmon man. To claim that the DLC has ridden Bill Clinton’s success is to ignore history. Bill Clinton was chair of the DLC in 1990-1991! Cripes, did you read Clinton’s book?
In 1985, I got involved in the newly formed Democratic Leadership Council, a group dedicated to forging a winning message for the Democrats based on fiscal responsibility, creative new ideas on social policy, and a commitment to a strong national defense. Later on, I traveled to thirteen states and the District of Columbia to speak on topics about evenly divided between politics and policy. The most important political speech was one called “Democratic Capitalism,” which I delivered to the DLC in Williamsburg, Virginia. I thought the DLC was the only group committed to developing the new ideas Democrats needed both to win elections and do right by the country. In Williamsburg, I spoke about the need to make access to the global economy “democratic” — that is, available to all citizens and communities. I had become a convert to William Julius Wilson’s argument, articulated in his book The Truly Disadvantaged, that there were no race-specific solutions to hard-core unemployment and poverty. The only answers were schools, adult education and training, and jobs.
In March 1990 I went to New Orleans to accept the chairmanship of the DLC. I was convinced the group’s ideas on welfare reform, criminal justice, education, and economic growth were crucial to the future of the Democratic Party and the nation. In December, we launched the Texas DLC chapter in Austin. In my speech, I argued that, contrary to our liberal critics, we were good Democrats. We believed in keeping the American dream alive for all people. We believed in government, though not in the status quo. And we believed government was spending too much on yesterday and today — interest on debt, defense, more money for the same health care — and too little on tomorrow: education, the environment, research and development, the infrastructure. I said the DLC stood for a modern, mainstream agenda: the expansion of opportunity, not bureaucracy; choice in public schools and child care; responsibility and empowerment for poor people; and reinventing government, away from the top-down bureaucracy of the industrial era, to a leaner, more flexible, more innovative model appropriate for the modern global economy.
I was trying to develop a national message for the Democrats, and the effort fueled speculation that I might enter the presidential race in 1992. I spent the next few months traveling the country for the DLC. Because I was out there making the case for how we could regain “mainstream, middle-class” voters who “have left the party in droves for twenty years,” the press continued to speculate that I might run in 1992.
Geez.
To claim that the DLC has ridden Bill Clinton’s success is to ignore history. Bill Clinton was chair of the DLC in 1990-1991!
Without Bill Clinton, we never would have even heard of the DLC.
And Mr. Clinton is also correct, Jay. Republicans would much rather talk about MoveOn’s Petraeus ad than talk about the general’s assessment of the situation in Iraq.
And it was good that Clinton moved the Dems to the center, but the problem is the DLC would like to pull us to the right and point to the sole success they had – the Clinton presidency – as evidence of their rightness. What has the DLC done outside of Bill Clinton? They haven’t done dick. To be perfectly frank, it’s like James Carville still coasting on the fact he managed Bill Clinton’s campaign. Looking at these things now from the perspective of history, I think it’s safe to say the DLC’s “success” was being attached to Bill Clinton and not vice versa.