Motley Moose – Archive

Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

The Curious Case of the Winning Democrats

One of the reason I am so resistant to self-identify as an official “Democrat” is how figgen scatterbrained the “base” tends to be.

On balance I agree more with the general Democratic platform than the Republican, but mainly because there is not a viable Socialist party.

So, I consider myself a prgmatist in many ways, especially when viewing how politics work. Setting aside the Lieberman decision by the Democratic caucus today, in letting him keep his Homeland security chairmanship (hell, I think the whole Department of Homeland security notion kind of creepy to start with), there has been a lot of backbiting in Democratic circles about a possible H. Clinton as SoS, and the fact that Obama is drawing on Clinton era appointees to help staff his WH.

To which I say,

Consider, the bulk of what a president gets done happens in the first two years. The pool of experienced Democratic talent Obama has to draw on is pretty limited to the Clinton years. And make no mistake he needs experienced people in office, otherwise you are going to end up with 6 months to a year lost to people trying to find their feet.

Recall B. Clinton’s first few months in office? They where horrendous. One of the reasons the Health care initiative failed so bad was the complete inability of the Clinton WH to get anything done with their green staff.

Indeed, it seems that nowadays even a large section of the “Left” has bought into the narrative that the “right” has managed to propagate so effectively, that the Clintons = bad.  As Bill Marh has said recently, in fact the majority of “drama” from the Clintons was media manufactured bull shit. Outside of the failing to keep his dick in his pants, once Bill managed to get a handle on how things actually worked in Washington he was a pretty effective president in many areas. Yes, there are notable exceptions, losing congress is a glaring one, but you tell me, who is better, B. Clinton or George Bush, Bush II, Reagan… Cause even with his many flaws he was head and shoulders above those wankers.

It was the Republicans who where suppose to be in disarray after the election, yet it seems the Dems have managed to form up a nice little circular firing squad all their own.

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9 comments

  1. rfahey22

    But I have seen a lot of OUTRAGE (TM) over other potential appointees.  What’s disappointing is that a lot of the resistance seems to be coming from people who have no background knowledge of the particular issue at hand, and who are simply engaging in rumormongering themselves.  I thought we were generally smarter than that.

    And, really, it’s not like the people complaining have that many fresh ideas – they like columns written by Paul Krugman, so he should be Treasury Secretary; they like Patrick Fitzgerald, so he should be AG (now that Edwards can’t be because he’s politically radioactive).  Now, I’m not saying that either of those two would be unqualified for those roles, because I lack the personal knowledge necessary to make those judgments, but this is the type of shallow analysis that’s going on.  Popularity isn’t a qualification.

  2. Jjc2008

    If I had a dollar for every idiot who calls themselves a progressive and talks about how as soon as Clinton got into office he went right and betrayed the left, I’d not be worrying so much about bills.  Do these people read nothing or do they only listen to the right and to MSNBC???

    Bill was sort of stuck.  The previous dem administration had been Carter’s four year stint.  Now I had no problem with Carter (except he was naive).  And I understand that after 12 years, maybe there were not a lot of his people left….not that it mattered.  Clinton and Carter had bad blood because Clinton resented Carter sending the Cuban prisoners to Arkansas……no one wanted to house them because it was political dynamite.

    Nonetheless every thing I read says Bill had two big problems …no experienced people to hire and he went too far left too soon.  I think Barack has learned from that.  No matter how much the blogs want it to be so, the majority is not anxious for fast change…..the majority tends to be cautious.  They are however anxious for things (like the economy) getting fixed.

    Bill Clinton was/is a brilliant, albeit flawed, being.  The fact that he rose above his circumstances should have impressed people.  But I truly believe that because he was a from the south, the Northeastern Blueblood dems really did resent him.   I feel many of them still do.  Bill was a populist in many ways before it was an “in” thing to be.

    But anyway, thanks for the diary.

  4. GrassrootsOrganizer

    For eight straight years, and the only eight years of my adult life, neither I or my husband or anyone I knew worried about finding a job or keeping the one they had.  As a matter of fact, there was a labor shortage which had employers actually competing with benefit packages and other perks to attract even unskilled workers.

    I felt so safe it was boring and never for a minute imagined my young sons going to war.  College was affordable.  I don’t remember freaking out over my income taxes although my property taxes were kicking my ass because my home kept escalating in value.  I remember the strength of the dollar made it attractive to vacation overseas, but it didn’t bust our budget to drive an Econoline 2000 miles on vacation.  

    Healthcare copays were either negligible or non-existent.  I never felt embarrassed to be an American.

    I don’t remember buying anything that was made in China except trinkets. I trusted that my food and other purchases were inspected and safe.  It felt like we had entered a period of prosperity and security.

    It felt affirming to have our first first lady who was outspoken, accomplished and visibly intelligent.  I trusted my government.  The future seemed bright.

    I never quite understood all the venom towards the Clintons, especially from folks who had to be in junior high through most of the Clinton era.  Sure seemed like good living for the average American to me.  

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