Successful Policies and Political Success
In some ways, I think the biggest problem I have with Greg Anrig’s book is the subtitle: “Why Right-Wing Ideas Keep Failing.” The reason is because that isn’t really what the book is about at all. What the book is really asking is why right wing ideas are so successful politically.
There may not be a direct relationship between successful policies and political success, but over time it’s pretty close. Occasionally, a good president who tries to do the right thing is overwhelmed by bad luck—think Gerald Ford. And occasionally presidents are rewarded for pursuing penny-wise/pound-foolish policies—think Richard Nixon.
But of course Nixon is also proof that this doesn’t really work. He won a big re-election in 1972 by temporarily goosing the economy with loose money, courtesy of his close adviser Arthur Burns, whom Nixon appointed to chair the Federal Reserve Board. And with the price controls implemented by his Treasury Secretary John Connally in 1971 keeping inflation hidden from view, Nixon was able to avoid the negative consequences of his policies until his re-election was safely in the bag.
But by the time the Watergate scandal broke, the price controls had ceased to work and the inflationary consequences of the Fed’s policy were in full view. This forced the Fed to tighten monetary policy to prevent hyperinflation from developing, which crashed the economy, leading to the worst recession in the postwar era in late 1973.
Friends of Nixon have told me that he believed that the extremely poor economy in 1974 made it impossible for him to recover from Watergate. Had the economy been doing well, he thought he might have survived the scandal.
I don’t think this was wishful thinking. I believe the reason Bill Clinton survived the Lewinsky scandal is because the economy was booming when that broke. Voters rightly decided that it wasn’t worth risking their well-being to punish Clinton for his inexcusable behavior with a White House intern. Had the economy been doing as well in 1974, I think voters would have made the same call and Nixon probably would have avoided having to resign from office.
The point is that to the extent that good policy really is good and makes people better off it is also good politics. Were this not the case, then we would have a much deeper problem with which to contend. We would have to ask whether the whole idea of democracy is fundamentally flawed if voters were consistently fooled by those advocating bad policies.
This suggests that at least in the minds of voters, the bad policies Anrig complains about aren’t really bad as far as they are concerned. It seems to me that this is more of a problem for Anrig than the one he seeks to answer in his book. Instead of asking why bad Republican policies are so successful politically, what he really needs to ask is why the good Democratic policies that he presumably favors have been so unsuccessful since 2000.
My own view is that the Democrats foolishly threw away the tremendous gains of the Clinton years—both political and economic. I thought he did an excellent job of cleansing the Democratic Party of some of its craziness, at least on economic issues. It wasn’t too many years ago that Democrats fought reducing the top income tax rate from 70 percent and blamed inflation on failure of the anchovy harvest. (I’m not making that up.)
Clinton correctly recognized that the party needed to move closer to the middle of the political spectrum if it wanted to win. He reappointed Republican Alan Greenspan as Federal Reserve chairman and appointed strong fiscal conservatives to the Treasury and Office of Management and Budget. Clinton strongly supported free trade, at great political cost to himself, promoted deregulation and signed welfare reform into law. And when he raised tax rates in 1993, he said that 40 percent was the highest rate anyone should pay. This is 10 percentage points below the top rate Ronald Reagan proposed in 1981 that almost all Democrats thought was a give-away to the rich.
I admit that I didn’t think much of Clinton while he was president. I paid too much attention to what he tried and failed to do early in his administration on health care and to some of his left-wing rhetoric. But Clinton wisely learned from the health debacle that voters did not support such sweeping changes to the health care system—evidence that bad policies are bad politics, I would argue—and he tilted well to the right for a Democrat during the balance of his administration. One has to go back to Grover Cleveland to find a more conservative Democratic president than Clinton was.
After finally realizing that George W. Bush is no conservative as I understand the term, I even wrote a mea culpa about Clinton in the New York Times (July 1, 2004). I said that with the benefit of hindsight, he was actually a pretty good president. I likened my changed view of his administration to disco music—it sounded terrible at the time it was popular in comparison to the golden era of rock and roll that came before it; but compared to the really awful music that came afterwards, disco doesn’t sound so bad today.
My point is that Clinton gave Democrats a perfectly good guide to policies that were both good for the economy and politically popular. But for reasons I have never understood, neither Al Gore nor John Kerry chose to run on Clinton’s center-left policies and instead ran as old-fashioned liberals offering new government programs to every voting group in the electorate.
Maybe it is just in the nature of Democrats to reinvent the wheel every four years. Republicans usually stick with what works until it stops working. George H.W. Bush won in 1988 because he said he would simply fulfill Ronald Reagan’s third term and maintain the same policies. I continue to believe that Al Gore would have won easily in 2000 had he run saying he would maintain all of Bill Clinton’s policies.
The great Republican sin, which Anrig documents, is that when it finds an issue that works—like tax cuts—it just beats that issue to death. The party has gone 180 degrees from opposing the Kennedy tax cut in the 1960s because it would lead to a budget deficit to proposing gimmicky tax cuts for just about every conceivable public policy problem, without the slightest regard for the impact on deficits. One wonders why some Republican hasn’t proposed tax credits to the Iraqis if they would stop fighting.
To conclude, I think if Democrats wish to regain power they would be better off trying to figure out why the policies they believe to be good aren’t more popular politically and less time trying to figure out why the Republican policies they believe to be bad have been politically popular. If liberals like Anrig insist on putting Republican policies under a microscope and methodically attacking them, I think they are doing their side a disservice. They would be better off finding liberal alternatives that build on what it is about Republican policies that made them popular.
I likened my changed view of (the Clinton) administration to disco music—it sounded terrible at the time it was popular in comparison to the golden era of rock and roll that came before it; but compared to the really awful music that came afterwards, disco doesn’t sound so bad today.
Bartlett bio:
Publication of (Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy) caused (Bartlett) to be summarily fired by the conservative think tank for which he had worked for more than 10 years. This led New York Times columnist David Brooks to call Bartlett “a man of immense intellectual integrity.”
Calling Valdron, George Dubya as 'awful music"? One of the only living honest Republicans? Does America have the smartest pundits on the planet or what?
September 19, 2007 9:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
According to former Bush insiders, he and his inner circle make policy from what is politically expedient. (Can anyone really argue that Democrats don't?)
The political campaigns staged by the Right are dramas - with themes, slogans, inflamatory appeals and villains - staged thrillers. In drama we suspend disbelief - watching a full-length cartoon, we don't keep saying to ourselves, "Wait a minute, elephants can't fly." Sitting through a lengthy campaign 'drama', we also suspend disbelief - in other words we buy the story without questioning whether it makes any sense or not.
When policies, actually politics in disguise, are presented as drama, we will likewise suspend our disbelief, so it's understandable that what may be pure nonsense - like 'flying' elephants or the failure of the anchovy harvest causing inflation - will never rear its rational head.
We all love drama. Now, if we could just get the Democrats to stage some - rather than delivering lectures to us - we might get some place with the voters. At the least, they might favor our policies.
September 19, 2007 9:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
1. The people supported Clinton during the Lewinsky scandal because they knew it was nothing more than a political stunt by stunted politicians who were more than willing to risk the national prestige, leadership and economy for political gain. Unlike Nixon, Clinton didn't break any laws, nor did he try to subvert the constitution as Nixon and Bush have done. The worldwide damage that the republicans caused by that reprehensible act is only superseded by the damage caused by the republicans and this administration since 2001.
2. Gore won the election. He never once said that he would not continue Clinton's policies. With a few exceptions, the 2000 democratic platform was the same as the 1996 platform. (And the 1992 platform for that matter.)
3. What republican policies? The republicans haven't offered any policies since Gingrich's contract on America, which was the "policy" of setting about to tear the social structure of the nation to shreds. The republicans haven't offered any policies in the last 30 years - what they've offered are pretenses. Pretense that they have some particular lease on the moral highground (and we all know the sad reality of that) the pretense that they and they alone pay taxes so that some "welfare queen" can live like, well, they do and in my opinion, the most egregious pretense of all, their assertion that they alone "care" for the military and are the true patriots who love this country. That is probably the most absurd of all their pretenses, considering the fact that their one overwhelming desire is to destroy the government of the United States - or at least to paraphrase one of the great patriots of the party, shrink it so they can strangle it in the bathtub." They "care about the military"? They've demonstrated their contempt and their willingness to waste the lives of others to further their own agenda, and an inability to admit a mistake.
Republican "policies" were nothing more than acts of utter selfishness wrapped in the pius humbuggery they employ when they're at their most venal. There is nothing to build on because there was never anything there in the first place. The one gesture that best illustrates the republican party's "policies" is Bush standing on a pile of melted bodies and rubble at Ground Zero with a bullhorn shouting a message of retaliation and spite.
September 19, 2007 9:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Mr. Bartlett,
Your point is well taken, but I think it reflects an archaic way of thinking about the electorate. The old adage in the 80's was that people voted with their wallet and that's the canard you're arguing for.
But we know this is not the case. Book after book - What's the Matter With Kansas, The Political Mind, etc. - has shown that people do not vote in their calculated best interest, but rather on the basis of values - whatever that means.
How else do you explain what the right derides as limousine liberals - rich people who advocate policies that actually help others to the detriment of their own self interest?
Even the media caught on in 2000 when it harped on the notion that people voted for Bush because he was a guy you could have a beer with.
Political affiliation is as much cultural as it is economic, if not more so. While you believe that this represents a significant problem for Democracy, I'm not so sure. We can't all be economists, so it has a lot to do with trust.
That's why Republicans won for the past few decades.
And that's why they will lose for the next few.
September 19, 2007 9:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Re: Had the economy been doing as well in 1974, I think voters would have made the same call and Nixon probably would have avoided having to resign from office.
I was only seven years old in 1974, but I think the above is indeed wishful thinking. Watergate outraged the rank and file of the public and ultimately even many Republicans in a way that Clinton's tawdry sex scandal did not and never could. Nixon moreover was simply not a personally popular president; he lacked Clinton's easy bonhommie.
Re: The point is that to the extent that good policy really is good and makes people better off it is also good politics.
True, and this is why many rightwing policies either fail (see: the Iraq War-- who has that benefited?) or are so unpopular they are never enacted in the first place (see: Social Security privatization).
September 19, 2007 9:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wow... the arrogance of the conservative columnists who have joined Anrig's book discussion is just amazing. Guys -- it's nice to have you here, but please give some thought to where you are. This isn't Fox News. We don't buy slogans even from our own side and we're not going to by them from you.
You compared Clinton's zippergate to Watergate? You think that Clinton was only saved by the economy? No. Nixon ran a secret shadow government that involved the use of paid thugs against his political opponents -- Nixon actually did what all of you nuts accused Clinton of doing during your Vince Foster obsessions.
Like I said, it's great to have you all here. But bring your A game. This stuff won't fly with us (and honestly, we've seen this level of posting from people on our own side and have crucified them for it).
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
September 19, 2007 9:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bruce Bartlett... gee that name sounds familiar... hey, aren't you the guy who thought Bush was a disaster in 2004, but you kept your mouth shut until after the election, choosing instead to cash in when it was 'safe' to jump on the anti-Bush bandwagon and writing a book about him?
Yeah, that is you. GFY, Bartlett. You helped create this mess and now you're trying to cash in on it. I have nothing but utter contempt for you. You could have helped prevent Bush's second term but instead you chose your own self-interest and party over country, if we are to believe your thesis that Bush is an utter disaster as a president.
Before 2004, if you criticized Bush you were a terrorist-loving America-hater. After 2004, when it's too late to do anything about Bush (since the spineless Dems won't impeach), it's suddenly OK to acknowledge that the Chimperor does indeed have no clothes, and hasn't since 2001.
Fucking pathetic. Bite me, Bartlett.
September 19, 2007 9:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Instead of asking why bad Republican policies are so successful politically, what he really needs to ask is why the good Democratic policies that he presumably favors have been so unsuccessful since 2000.
Are you kidding me, Bartlett? The reason Democratic policies have gone nowhere since 2000 is because that's the year George W. Bush won the presidency.
And you'll recall that Bush lost the popular vote in 2000. And in 2004, the election was entirely about the Iraq war, and the question was whether it was better to let the guy who drove the car into the ditch dig it out, or let somebody else dig it out. In what sense does this reflect the popularity of Republican ideas?
September 19, 2007 10:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Mr. Bartlett writes, "I think...Democrats...would be better off trying to figure out why the policies they believe to be good aren’t more popular politically and less time trying to figure out why the Republican policies they believe to be bad have been politically popular."
This is some nice sounding rhetoric, but meaning exactly what in real terms?
Mr. Bartlett is one of those who oppose "popular policies" he views as "entitlements", such as social security and national health insurance.
It wasn't "voters" who were opposed to Clinton's health care policies as much as it was corporate controlled politicians, especially Republican politicians.
The same is true for maintaining social security. It is the corporations who insist that ever increasing profits for those who can already pay their own way are more important than support for those who cannot pay their own way after their working days are over.
What the Republicans have over the Democrats are not better "popular" or "political" ideas, but a smoother running, self-serving political machine that fools the American people than the Democrats do.
You don't have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.
September 19, 2007 10:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
We need one of our real economic experts to join in, but I believe the recession of 1974 had something to do with an oil crisis -- that is, an external shock to the system.
I have also read that inadequate forecasting tools played a role. The Fed miscalculated, and the results were worse than intended.
September 19, 2007 10:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
When both "ends of the spectrum" - presumably soviet socialism on the one end and the thoroughly corrupted capitalism of Enron and Halliburton on the other - are awful, is virtue to be found by drawing a line straight between them and carefully measuring out the center point, and standing there? I'd propose: If you're on this spectrum - anywhere on this spectrum, you're part of the problem.
Perception and sanity can lead to pragmatic solutions - and no value is as American as pragmatism - that are off the spectrum. That's what being open to a better future is about. That's where Clinton's real strength was. And that's why Kucinich would be as awful as Bush - both are equally committed to the spectrum and their places on it. But Obama and Edwards - and even Huckabee - are significantly off the spectrum. The press can't deal with that, and reascribes them to spectral positions. But it's time to give up those ghosts.
September 19, 2007 10:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
"blamed inflation on failure of the anchovy harvest. (I’m not making that up.)"
Is 'anchovy harvest' an anagram for Vietnam War? I remember a lot of talk about how a protracted military conflict wrecks economies and led to the 'stagflation' of the 70's, but I don't remember too many references to anchovies. That Mr. Bartlett might find an example doesn't mean that it was a serious Democratic Party, or liberal, argument.
Mr. Bartlett also seems to be redefining the argument itself. Why Right-Wing Ideas Keep Failing refers to the policy effects, which -objectively- are failures. Unless we don't think higher infant mortality rates than other Industrial Countries is failure, or unaddressed deficiencies in basic infrastructure, or the wasting of FEMA and the abandonment of New Orleans residents, or increased gaps in income distribution, or any of the many failures that are a direct outcome of Right-Wing policies. Which he obviously does not consider failures. It actually clarifies the point that for the Right WINNING is what counts, and winning defines success. Positive outcomes of policy are not part of their worldview.
September 19, 2007 10:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Unlike Nixon, Clinton didn't break any laws
It's perfectly plausible to argue that Clinton's activities with Ms. Lewinsky, and his lying about them in court proceedings, didn't constitute an impeachable offense.
But "didn't break any laws" is simply false. He perjured himself in a deposition and before a grand jury. The last time I checked, that's illegal.
September 19, 2007 11:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Somewhere in the sands of the desert
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Only to be interrupted by the calling of its name...
What?
You drag me all the way back here from my Yeats, to read Bartlett's vacuous nonsense.
It's a form letter folks! Take another look. Bartlett barely acknowledges Anrigg's book, takes no substantive analysis.
He spends all of thirty seconds spinning off a pseudo-clever riff on the title and announces like a proud five year old pooping on a carpet, that Anrig really should have written some other book. Which, by the way, is the same goofball notion that some other right wing nutbar came up with.
Well, here's a clue, boyos. Deal with the book that actually got written, rather than the book that might have been written if the writer had spent his career kissing your flabby butt.
But never mind that. I'm shocked and appalled by Bartlett's utter lack of effort. I see no sign that he actually read the book, and he certainly has nothing substantive to say about it.
Instead, what we get from Bartlett is his standard speech #356, plucked right off his rolodex.
You want the short version:
Vapid nonsense from an empty-headed egoist, who apparently can't eat breakfast in the morning without defending Richard Nixon, moralizing about Bill Clinton, and covering his ass on George W. Bush.
Here's a clue, Bartlett: Stop trying to convince anyone you are smart. It's not working. Oh, and if you're going to review a book, read the damned thing, and don't dust off some accumulating shpiel you've been working on since 1972.
As for David frikking Brooks calling Bartlett a man of 'Immense Intellectual Integrity.'
Well consider the source of that quote.
Now, if you all don't mind...
September 19, 2007 11:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
When Moynihan called the Republicans "the party of ideas," he lost what credibility he had left. The only idea the Republicans have had since about 1917 is to enlist the marketing departments of their corporate donors to do what those marketeers do so well: repackage last year's model as something shiny and new.
For several years I've had a bet open on any new Republican idea since the Hoover Administration. I thought I'd lost over SDI, Reagan's 'Star Wars' program, until the author of "Into The Blue" pointed out in an Op-Ed that it's just a technological update of our naval maneuvers around Hearst's war in Cuba.
Ultimately, the failure of all things Republican comes down to the fact that the reason why we do it the way we do it now (regulate air & water pollution, children's toys, food prep, labor conditions, financial oversight, and especially providing public schools/universities/hospitals/police/fire services, et al,) is because we tried their way, and in each case it was a failure.
Legislation and regulation does not spring from nowhere, as evidenced by toymakers' recent cries for help. It comes from the people's desire to deal with a problem. The complexities of most of these laws comes from lobbyists trying to get their clients out from under the solutions.
To expect solutions from a party that has neither ideas nor an interest in the function of government is to court disaster...as exemplified in the Reagan/Bush/BushJr assault on America.
September 19, 2007 11:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Clinton's affair with Lewinsky broke no laws, did not hinder the working of the government and did not in any way, shape or form affect the policies either foreign or domestic of this nation.
Nixon and his administration committed an act of burglary and then lied to congress, bribed and threatened witnessess, illegally sought to wiretap the phones of the DNC, laundered money, prevented an investigation by the justice department and tampered with evidence.
Last time I checked having an affair is morally repugnant but it is not illegal.
September 19, 2007 11:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
And the setup for that by Ken Starr and his cronies was immoral and unethical.
So when will they be disbarred?
By today's GOP standards, a little bit of word parsing that Clinton did is extremely mild form of "lying."
Last time I checked no one died with that particular media circus debacle and the Constitution actually survived intact, contrary to what the beltway insiders would have had us believe. If only we had a President today whose only fault was getting a BJ ...
September 19, 2007 11:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
This post is a little slippery. Its theme is much like that of Brooks in his review of the "emotions" book in the Times two weeks back: electoral victory proves your policies work. That's not at all obvious, and then it doesn't make it easy to reconcile his praise for Clinton's success and dismay at Bush with Bush's victory, which he also takes as evidence. Go figure. Perhaps it, too, is quarreling with Chait, unwisely, and in the process not doing a great job of defending a dismaying policy.
We can go through all of those terms and try to make them justifications for the policies that Bartlett never quite defines or defends. It'd have to include Reagan's early tax cuts and his later moderation. It'd have to include the actual fortunes of the economy under Bush. I'm afraid it'd also have to include the disaster Bush has left for the next president, regardless or his or her policies, just as Nixon's war spending, loose money, and price controls unraveled under Ford and, he forgot to mention, Carter.
But the main thing is that the argument is not really from evidence in a way we can deal with. It's almost a free market vision of the voting booth.
John
http://www.haberarts.com/
September 19, 2007 11:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Funny that liberals look to brag over policies that work (i.e. accomplish something) and conservatives look to brag about policies that either get passed or get them elected. Sounds like that illustrates Greg's thesis.
GOP is in fact the party of ideas, empty ones that sound good. Just like advertising agencies deal in ideas, the GOP has become skilled at finding the words with resonance. Newt's seminar and the list of a hundred or so words, and when to use them, is their only accomplishment.
September 19, 2007 12:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
"We would have to ask whether the whole idea of democracy is fundamentally flawed if voters were consistently fooled by those advocating bad policies." - Bartlett
No, we would have to ask if the way we FUND the electoral process of democracy, the way we inform the electorate, the way we include the electorate in the process, is fundamentally flawed.
Of course, Republicans believe the concept of democracy is fundamentally flawed, which is why they continue their 30-year assault on the Constitution, most recently on habeus corpus, freedom from unwarranted searches and of course, the right of non-Republicans to participate in the electoral process, as exemplified by the actions of the Bush "Just-Us Department."
Much as PTSD is the term of art for shell-shock, the "Unitary Executive" is the Republican marketing term for "King."
Old idea, modern marketing. As I remarked in an earlier post.
And just as anti-democratic.
September 19, 2007 12:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is there a single conservative out there who doesn't live in cloud-cuckoo land?
Huh? Not on planet Earth. Both Gore and Kerry ran campaigns straight out of the Clinton pro-free-trade, deficit-mania, end-of-big-government playbook (remember the social security "lockbox"?. Which is a big reason why they lost, since Clinton at least had the sense to leaven this loser message with a generous dose of "putting people first" populism. Which he of course jettisoned almost as soon as he got in office, which gained him plaudits of beltway insiders but cost the Democrats control of Congress in 1994.
Sure, if, for some unfathomable knee-jerk ideological reason, you define policies that produce better health outcomes at lower cost as "bad policies."
Whatever political successes Republicans have had over the last 40 years, they have virtually nothing to do with sound economic, social and foreign poicy making. Republican success has a lot to do, however, with divisive racial politics and character assassination campaigns which, unfortunately, seem to be more attractive tio much of the electorate than good policy-making.
Democrats have nothing to apologize for on these fronts. Their policies are popular and effective, far more so than those of their opponents. They mostly need to be more courageous and clever in advocating them.
September 19, 2007 12:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeats, my foot. :-)
It is the merit of a general to impart good news, and to conceal the truth. ~Sophocles
September 19, 2007 12:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Shorter Bartlett: Chocolate cake and high fat foods are popular, so they must be good for you. Eat as much as you want.
Obviously, Bartlett is someone who is utterly ignorant of human psychology or who is just blowing smoke.
Democracy means people, even the majority, are free to make bad choices, free to fail - which, from an objective perspective, they often do.
Democracy is not a guarantee that the majority will make good choices or even that the majority will control policy decisions - in virtually every election less than 50% of the nation's or a state's citizens elect their leaders; to suggest that democracy would be a failure to the extent it does not guarantee good choices or success, and that it should be replaced if that be the case, is disturbing to say the least.
Of course that is the problem with free market worshipers like Bartlett. They don't really understand free market theory and that free markets (and free market choices) do not actually guarantee the things that conservatives say they guarantee, because majorities do not always make good choices from an objective perspective, whether it be from lack of information regarding the available choices to simple human failings such as greed, fear, or gluttony.
No more so is the popularity of politicians a measure of the success, effectiveness, or morality of their policies.
The reason we choose democracy over other forms of government is not based solely on a belief that democracy produces better outcomes, a questionable conclusion to say the least, but for reasons that relate to how we view and value [the illusion of?] free will and the nature of humankind.
This is the most dimwitted commentary I've ever read on TPMCafe.
September 19, 2007 12:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: Nixon actually did what all of you nuts accused Clinton of doing during your Vince Foster obsessions.
Let's not go overboard here. Clinton was accused of outright murders. Richard Nixon, as far as I know, did not commit any murders. The worst his thugs did was some break-ins. Also, Mr Bartlett has not, as far as I know, ever espoused the nutty views of the Clinton Chronicles gang and I don't think it fair to tar him with that crap.
September 19, 2007 1:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Funny, I was just reading Eliot, and Bartlett made sense to me in a way . . .
Compare and contrast?
Well, maybe not.
CSPAN junkies visit http://spannerbackup.ipbhost.com
September 19, 2007 4:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, if it's good enough for CNN, MSNBC, et al, I guess it's supposed to be more than good enough for the nameless internet rabble. Right?
September 19, 2007 4:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nixon was never accused of outright murders. On the other hand, according to G. Gordon Liddy's biography, the Nixon team actually plotted murders, including of columnist Jack Anderson.
Interestingly, Liddy could 'confess' to conspiring to commit murders that never occurred because he was past the statute of limitations. On the other hand, there is no limitation period on actual murders. There are certainly inferences to be drawn there.
I note that during Nixon's era, there were several suspicious 'political murders' put down to the distorted climate of the times, or attributed to police or other right wing entities.
The Nixon team was also heavily involved in the overthrow of Allende in Chile and the subsequent death of Allende. He almost certainly authorized assassinations outside America's shores.
September 19, 2007 4:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Apparently. So in addition to being a vacuous idiot, he's a media whore? If only he had charm, he could be Arsenio Hall.
September 19, 2007 4:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
And our clients, Pinochet et al, blew up Orlando Letelier in my town, on a street I drove commonly. Nice bunch.
September 19, 2007 6:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is a Wicker Man an acceptable alternative?
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]
September 19, 2007 7:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Check again. Morally, it is a bad thing to tell an untruth or express an evasion under oath and on the stand, and a Judge is entitled to draw adverse inferences.
On the other hand, perjury is an offence of two parts. The key elements are making a knowingly false statement under oath, and materiality of that statement. There's no real case that the statement was material to the case. It was a simple trap.
The proof is in the pudding. Despite Star's histrionics, there was never a criminal charge brought in a criminal court.
September 19, 2007 10:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Regardless of which deposition you are talking about (there are two that Clinton critics often refer to when they speak of "lying under oath") Clinton did not lie under oath. This is a case of establishing a "fact" merely by repetition.
That Clinton was a notorious liar regarding his sexual picadillos made the "lied under oath" contentions quite plausable to those who were more concerned with the sins (and with the all too apparent audacity of the sinner) than they were about the law.
Picadillos and public lies over picadillos, these were Clinton's great crimes against America. tsk, tsk.
Are we to suppose they were as damaging than the steady steam of manifestly obvious assaults on the constitution that have been going on for better than 6 and 1/2 years now?
Kevin Russell Cook
September 19, 2007 10:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
O.K. Howard.
As long as it isn't that "all-weather" stuff.
;-)
CSPAN junkies visit http://spannerbackup.ipbhost.com
September 20, 2007 4:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, government IS the problem, after all.
September 20, 2007 9:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm so old that I remember the ERA getting defeated with cries from the conservatives that this would mandate "unisex bathrooms" and other BS. There is a touch of irony that Bartlett talks about Republican succes in terms of winning the votes, when since the 70's they have been evolving into a massive mis-information machine that dwarfs anything the other side has.
September 20, 2007 1:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
JFK assassination researcher John Judge once pointed out, if they will kill people overseas to protect their power, why wouldn't they do it here where it would likely make even more of a difference?
September 20, 2007 5:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
There's no real case that the statement was material to the case.
The judge was present at the deposition. If it were truly not material, Clinton could have asked for a ruling.
Further, in a discovery proceeding, materiality is a very broad concept. Unless you want to argue that an accused sexual harasser's prior history is never discoverable, I don't think you have much of a case.
Finally, Clinton's lies to the grand jury (falsely denying that he had any contact with Lewinsky intended to arouse her sexually) clearly were material to Starr's investigation.
Despite Star's histrionics, there was never a criminal charge brought in a criminal court.
Strange claim. First of all, a President cannot be criminally tried for crimes in office until he is impeached and convicted. So when the Senate refused to convict, there was no way to bring the charge.
Second, unless you want to tell me that nobody has ever committed a crime that has not been charged, I fail to see how this is relevant. Indeed, Nixon was not charged with Watergate crimes in court; he was merely named as an unindicted co-conspirator.
Look, just stick to the arguments about Ken Starr and the importance of Clinton's lies. But if you think he didn't lie under oath, you really drank the Kool-Aid.
September 27, 2007 6:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
religious sect may degenerate into a political faction,' wrote James Madison, but the new American nation would nevertheless be protected against the ungovernable combination of religious fervor and political power as long as the Constitution prohibited the federal government from establishing any particular creed as preeminent.
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March 7, 2011 5:30 PM | Reply | Permalink