Carville-ista for a day.
Having once picked up Stickin', I realize that life is really too short to spend any time reading things by James Carville or his Crossfire-alum friend Paul Begala (although I'll make an exception for anything I can read in under five minutes, like their new Washington Monthly piece on campaign finance reform, which is, if nothing else, a thought-provoking little fantasy).
Nevertheless, Kevin Drum makes a good point in complaining about Charles Pierce' "in-joke" review of Begala & Carville's latest book for TAP. For starters, without actually picking up a copy of B&G's tome, it strikes me as unlikely that the pundits advocate "pitching the privacy rights of 51 percent of the population overboard piecemeal."
Did Begala and Carville really suggest that the Dems abandon their support for abortion rights? Abortion rights were, after all, the one issue on which Bill Clinton, B&C's patron, never sold out, even a little bit (well, actually, yes, a little bit, on the willingness to sign a ban on partial birth abortion ban so long as it contained an exemption for the health of the mother. But Dick Gephardt, the most prominent anti-Clinton liberal Dem during the '90s went further in selling out on that one, voting for the bill without the exemption.) The Clinton-lovin' DLC has recently taken on the defence of Roe -- and agitation against the Bush Court's threat to it -- as its great laisson to the rest of the liberal world. If B&C are really urging Dems to lose this issue like they lost gun control after 2000, then that's (bad) news. But let's see the direct quotes on the matter so we can judge for ourselves.
Then there's this:
This entertaining exercise in public wankery is caught between being outraged at the current administration and weepy nostalgia for the golden age of the Pericles of the Ozarks. Make no mistake: These boys can still triangulate. Gaze in awe at a work that bubbles with outrage at the depredations of C-Plus Augustus and the Avignon Presidency but fails to mention the great debt the current administration owed to the previous one. When Tom Daschle couldn't hold his own caucus on the first round of tax cuts, he was paying for years of tolerating the likes of John Breaux, and it was hard not to hear the echoes of "The era of big government is over."
Never mind that one doesn't have to support "big government" in order to be against giveaways to the rich or huge federal deficits brought about by irresponsible tax-cutting. The John Breaux reference is the real red herring here. The Clintonites didn't much like John Breaux, and they certainly weren't responsible for him. They didn't put him in the cabinet. Al Gore fought with him internally over energy taxes, once asking in a meeting of Democrats if Breaux was going to "screw us". Nor do a lot of serious New-Dem pundits have much time for him. Witness this delicious Jon Chait hatchet-job, in which Chait points out that "Breaux was no Clinton-style New Democrat, thoughtfully searching for new ways his party could solve the nation's problems. He was moderate in the very Old Democrat style--1950s old--loyally and unapologetically carrying water for his state's business interests."
There's a damn good case to make against the Clinton nostalgia industry of which Begala and Carville make up the "populist" component (as a bookend to people like Andrei Cherny on the wonkish center-right.) I'm about halfway through The Survivor and find it almost shocking how profoundly unappealing Bill Clinton (and Hillary Clinton) come off, despite the author's ostensibly sympathetic take on their Administration. And, as anyone who knows me will attest, I'm morbidly fascinated by the trainwreck that neoliberal politics has become in the US -- thanks in no small part to Bill Clinton.
But it's still no excuse for glibness in the pursuit of pith. That's what Pierce is giving us here.
Nevertheless, Kevin Drum makes a good point in complaining about Charles Pierce' "in-joke" review of Begala & Carville's latest book for TAP. For starters, without actually picking up a copy of B&G's tome, it strikes me as unlikely that the pundits advocate "pitching the privacy rights of 51 percent of the population overboard piecemeal."
Did Begala and Carville really suggest that the Dems abandon their support for abortion rights? Abortion rights were, after all, the one issue on which Bill Clinton, B&C's patron, never sold out, even a little bit (well, actually, yes, a little bit, on the willingness to sign a ban on partial birth abortion ban so long as it contained an exemption for the health of the mother. But Dick Gephardt, the most prominent anti-Clinton liberal Dem during the '90s went further in selling out on that one, voting for the bill without the exemption.) The Clinton-lovin' DLC has recently taken on the defence of Roe -- and agitation against the Bush Court's threat to it -- as its great laisson to the rest of the liberal world. If B&C are really urging Dems to lose this issue like they lost gun control after 2000, then that's (bad) news. But let's see the direct quotes on the matter so we can judge for ourselves.
Then there's this:
This entertaining exercise in public wankery is caught between being outraged at the current administration and weepy nostalgia for the golden age of the Pericles of the Ozarks. Make no mistake: These boys can still triangulate. Gaze in awe at a work that bubbles with outrage at the depredations of C-Plus Augustus and the Avignon Presidency but fails to mention the great debt the current administration owed to the previous one. When Tom Daschle couldn't hold his own caucus on the first round of tax cuts, he was paying for years of tolerating the likes of John Breaux, and it was hard not to hear the echoes of "The era of big government is over."
Never mind that one doesn't have to support "big government" in order to be against giveaways to the rich or huge federal deficits brought about by irresponsible tax-cutting. The John Breaux reference is the real red herring here. The Clintonites didn't much like John Breaux, and they certainly weren't responsible for him. They didn't put him in the cabinet. Al Gore fought with him internally over energy taxes, once asking in a meeting of Democrats if Breaux was going to "screw us". Nor do a lot of serious New-Dem pundits have much time for him. Witness this delicious Jon Chait hatchet-job, in which Chait points out that "Breaux was no Clinton-style New Democrat, thoughtfully searching for new ways his party could solve the nation's problems. He was moderate in the very Old Democrat style--1950s old--loyally and unapologetically carrying water for his state's business interests."
There's a damn good case to make against the Clinton nostalgia industry of which Begala and Carville make up the "populist" component (as a bookend to people like Andrei Cherny on the wonkish center-right.) I'm about halfway through The Survivor and find it almost shocking how profoundly unappealing Bill Clinton (and Hillary Clinton) come off, despite the author's ostensibly sympathetic take on their Administration. And, as anyone who knows me will attest, I'm morbidly fascinated by the trainwreck that neoliberal politics has become in the US -- thanks in no small part to Bill Clinton.
But it's still no excuse for glibness in the pursuit of pith. That's what Pierce is giving us here.
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