I had no idea what a sense of humor Ron Elving has. He was talking politics with Andrea Seabrook on Sunday's ATC. Here's what he had to say about Sen. Obama and former President Clinton:
"...on the other hand when he starts talking about Barack Obama being in the best moderate tradition, that's going to be a tougher sell. The numbers are just not there to make him look like some kind of a, well even a Bill Clinton style moderate, and of course many people would suggest that Bill Clinton was more of a liberal than a moderate, certainly a center left kind of Democrat. It's not really going to be possible to sell Barack Obama as a center left."Oh yeah, Bill Clinton that "liberal," "center left kind of Democrat." Boy do I remember those times; he was a regular Eugene Debs when it came to NAFTA, bombing Iraq, bombing Sudan, bombing Serbia, demolishing welfare, and pushing that single payer health care program. And God knows, compared to Clinton, Obama's a regular Marxist, ready to send leftist missiles into Iran and Pakistan, turn his attention to Latin America, and take us to the New Jerusalem.
Hee, hee...funny guy!
5 comments:
Indeed, I always thought Clintonism was a significant percentage of Republican policy in disguise. Conversely, there are many examples of Nixon's liberal tendencies, no matter how many times he said 'I am a conservative (and not a crook)'.
Obama would appear to be a more traditional Democrat, before the pervasive Clintonian effect. That's why Ted Kennedy and others endorsed him. That's why Obama annoys those who have ridden on the coattails of Clintonism's success.
NPR is obviously in denial of all these factors.
RMN: the EPA
WJC: don't ask, don't tell
I never voted for WJC because during his 1'st campaign he made a trip to Arkansas specifically to sign a death warrant, then played sax on Arsenio's show the same day.
Anyone remember Loni Guanier? Too much heat in that kitchen for little WJC. (still, I liked his wife better than I liked him)
Another example of the recalibration of political terminology that has taken place under Republican rule, with the enthusiastic help of the media. Ideas and policy positions that were considered perfectly mainstream thirty or so years ago have been shifted leftward into the “liberal” category and thereby rendered extreme, off-limits; ideas that were thought radical and dangerous have been moved from the far outer-right fringe into the very center of the political spectrum and now are considered to be mainstream. The Right defines our political terminology and frames the terms of every political debate; the lapdog media (NPR right along with them) eagerly adopt its ready-made vocabulary and political categories and reinforce our skewed sense of what is moderate, liberal, or conservative. This is how a deeply conservative Democrat like Bill Clinton is now seen, through today’s distorted political lens, as a “liberal Democrat,” and how a perfectly mainstream, moderate Democrat like Barack Obama is suddenly labeled “left-wing,” his leanings towards U. Chicago-style free market economic theory and hesitance to use government power to ensure universal health care coverage notwithstanding. Oh—and it’s also how a Republican who holds freakishly extreme positions about executive power and torture and foreign policy (McCain) is miraculously reconfigured as a “mainstream” Republican.
One might expect an NPR “editor” like Elving to be able to think outside the ready-made conceptual boxes that the Right has prepared for them. Not Ron and Cokie and Mara and Juan (and Steve and Renee, Robert and Melissa and Scott), though—-they like these little boxes just fine.
Turned on NPR this morning to hear happy bubble talk about Bush's "sense of nostalgia" in Slovenia. Turned off NPR before I killed my radio.
Another razor-sharp post, mytwords.
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