What personal responsiblity ethic?
Ed Kilgore, watching the Rove-and-pals-leaked-a-CIA-agent's-identity-and-now-Rove-has-probably-perjured-himself situation get more and more unbelievably pathetic for the White House, writes about the big picture implications of the scandal over at TPMCafe:
Recall George W. Bush's meta-message during the 2000 campaign: it was time for a "responsibility era" to rein in the excesses introduced by the out-of-control Baby Boomer Bill Clinton. The grown-ups, emblemized by Dick Cheney and other Bush 41 exiles, were ready to give America a mature and accountable government.
That has turned out to be the biggest Bush lie of them all.
Yeah, except that this was always a red herring. Bush's message has never been about "personal responsibility", no matter how father-figurish Dick Cheney might have looked on the stump and no matter how many photo ops Bush took with Colin Powell. What Bush offered in 2000 was actually a wink-wink-nudge-nudge little deal: in return for a trillion dollars in tax giveaways to his old-economy country club friends, Bush and Cheney would send you a little cheque, keep their wangs in their pants, and basically stay the hell out of your life... more to the point, they'd keep those insufferable New Democrats the hell out of your life. Personal responsibility was, after all, an intrinsically Clintonian meta-message. The basic idea was that, if you as a citizen did your part and "played by the rules" (Clinton actually borrowed this now-iconic phrase from Geraldine Ferraro's 1984 nomination acceptance speech), the government would do its part and help you meet your potential. Even when Clinton signed ugly legislation like the 1996 welfare reform bill, he sold it, and hoped to improve it, as a part of this scheme: the government set out conditions and responsibilities that any able-bodied individual had to fulfill -- specifically, joining the paid economy -- and in return, it provided (in theory) more of what people needed to get ahead: job training, child care and wage-income supplements.
The essential appeal of Clintonism, at least in this aspect, was that it was inherently populist, even egalitarian. The Clintonites presented themselves neither as rarified figures like Reagan and Eisenhower had been, nor as pious moral guides like Carter. They offered engagement rather than dictation. But the fatal flaw was that, in so doing, they opened themselves to charges of hypocracy and, worse, to charges of hypocracy laced with contempt. By 1999, a smart Republican campaign could, and did, argue that Clinton (because of Monica) and Gore (because of Fundraising '96) hadn't kept their end of the bargain; they hadn't "played by the rules" and therefore the rules themselves were moot. Bush stirred up the classic Reaganish resentment of "big government" and combined it with the more personal, pointed resentment of the individuals -- Clinton and Gore -- who, he charged, hypocritically demanded that you conform to their arbitrary notion of the public good, even when their own lives were fucking messes. Only a very earnest New Democrat could think this was an appeal to "personal responsibility" (or as Bush's speechwriters put it, "honor and dignity"), beyond the narrowest sense of not doing the interns. It was actually more like a closetted appeal to South Park conservatism coated with a thin veneer of "compassionate" bullshit to keep the New York Times' op-ed columnists happy.
That's why we shouldn't be surprised about "the big lie". Personal responsibility, basic accountability, were never part of the deal. The Republicans, save maybe Jack Kemp here and John McCain there, haven't been about personal responsibilty since shortly after Watergate. That's why, as Kilgore points out, every challenge Bush has faced so far has been met with a flat rejection of personal responsibility... for the government of course, but also for the population. How should the US respond to a terrorist attack fuelled by Saudi oil money? Of course: it should up its consumer spending just to show those terrorists we can't be frightened into responsible energy consumption! Not asking for sacrifice made Bush popular and, afterall, not having to make sacrifices was what 50 million Americans and 5 Supreme Court judges voted for. The same callous laissez-faire ethic lay behind the fixing of the intel on Iraq; behind the "Mission Accomplished" stunt; behind the deliberate lowballing of the cost of the Medicare drug benefit; behind the breathtakingly nasty Bush-Cheney reelection effort; and especially behind the roughly $3.5 trillon in tax cuts that Bush has used to wreck the budget over the past five years. In all cases the White House did what was politically easy and served their short-run interests. It told Americans not to worry about the details, and requested only in return that Americans follow that advice.
So of course Bush stands behind Karl Rove, even though he has probably perjured himself and is, at any rate, a politically stupid and ethically indefensible thug. Bush likes Rove, and Rove was part of the package. Why should Bush have to fire someone he likes? That wasn't part of the deal. The deal was for Bush to keep Bill Clinton's / Al Gore's / John Kerry's meddling, goo-goo statist nose out of your fucking business. He's done that. Twice. The rest is gravy, dudes. Go out and spend, spend, spend.
Recall George W. Bush's meta-message during the 2000 campaign: it was time for a "responsibility era" to rein in the excesses introduced by the out-of-control Baby Boomer Bill Clinton. The grown-ups, emblemized by Dick Cheney and other Bush 41 exiles, were ready to give America a mature and accountable government.
That has turned out to be the biggest Bush lie of them all.
Yeah, except that this was always a red herring. Bush's message has never been about "personal responsibility", no matter how father-figurish Dick Cheney might have looked on the stump and no matter how many photo ops Bush took with Colin Powell. What Bush offered in 2000 was actually a wink-wink-nudge-nudge little deal: in return for a trillion dollars in tax giveaways to his old-economy country club friends, Bush and Cheney would send you a little cheque, keep their wangs in their pants, and basically stay the hell out of your life... more to the point, they'd keep those insufferable New Democrats the hell out of your life. Personal responsibility was, after all, an intrinsically Clintonian meta-message. The basic idea was that, if you as a citizen did your part and "played by the rules" (Clinton actually borrowed this now-iconic phrase from Geraldine Ferraro's 1984 nomination acceptance speech), the government would do its part and help you meet your potential. Even when Clinton signed ugly legislation like the 1996 welfare reform bill, he sold it, and hoped to improve it, as a part of this scheme: the government set out conditions and responsibilities that any able-bodied individual had to fulfill -- specifically, joining the paid economy -- and in return, it provided (in theory) more of what people needed to get ahead: job training, child care and wage-income supplements.
The essential appeal of Clintonism, at least in this aspect, was that it was inherently populist, even egalitarian. The Clintonites presented themselves neither as rarified figures like Reagan and Eisenhower had been, nor as pious moral guides like Carter. They offered engagement rather than dictation. But the fatal flaw was that, in so doing, they opened themselves to charges of hypocracy and, worse, to charges of hypocracy laced with contempt. By 1999, a smart Republican campaign could, and did, argue that Clinton (because of Monica) and Gore (because of Fundraising '96) hadn't kept their end of the bargain; they hadn't "played by the rules" and therefore the rules themselves were moot. Bush stirred up the classic Reaganish resentment of "big government" and combined it with the more personal, pointed resentment of the individuals -- Clinton and Gore -- who, he charged, hypocritically demanded that you conform to their arbitrary notion of the public good, even when their own lives were fucking messes. Only a very earnest New Democrat could think this was an appeal to "personal responsibility" (or as Bush's speechwriters put it, "honor and dignity"), beyond the narrowest sense of not doing the interns. It was actually more like a closetted appeal to South Park conservatism coated with a thin veneer of "compassionate" bullshit to keep the New York Times' op-ed columnists happy.
That's why we shouldn't be surprised about "the big lie". Personal responsibility, basic accountability, were never part of the deal. The Republicans, save maybe Jack Kemp here and John McCain there, haven't been about personal responsibilty since shortly after Watergate. That's why, as Kilgore points out, every challenge Bush has faced so far has been met with a flat rejection of personal responsibility... for the government of course, but also for the population. How should the US respond to a terrorist attack fuelled by Saudi oil money? Of course: it should up its consumer spending just to show those terrorists we can't be frightened into responsible energy consumption! Not asking for sacrifice made Bush popular and, afterall, not having to make sacrifices was what 50 million Americans and 5 Supreme Court judges voted for. The same callous laissez-faire ethic lay behind the fixing of the intel on Iraq; behind the "Mission Accomplished" stunt; behind the deliberate lowballing of the cost of the Medicare drug benefit; behind the breathtakingly nasty Bush-Cheney reelection effort; and especially behind the roughly $3.5 trillon in tax cuts that Bush has used to wreck the budget over the past five years. In all cases the White House did what was politically easy and served their short-run interests. It told Americans not to worry about the details, and requested only in return that Americans follow that advice.
So of course Bush stands behind Karl Rove, even though he has probably perjured himself and is, at any rate, a politically stupid and ethically indefensible thug. Bush likes Rove, and Rove was part of the package. Why should Bush have to fire someone he likes? That wasn't part of the deal. The deal was for Bush to keep Bill Clinton's / Al Gore's / John Kerry's meddling, goo-goo statist nose out of your fucking business. He's done that. Twice. The rest is gravy, dudes. Go out and spend, spend, spend.
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