Remember the
"Democratic Leadership Council," the DLC (officially dead, but hardly
forgotten)? It was a coming together of right-wing Democrats, beginning in the
1980s, to "lead the party to victory." And under the leadership of
the likes of Bill Clinton and Al Gore, they did just that. They turned their
backs on that awful "McGovern liberalism" and set the party straight
on the path to the White House. They also set it straight on the path, all
under Clinton, to, for example, "ending the era of 'Big Government' "
(as Clinton announced in his first State of the Union message), ending aid to
families with dependent children, to the massive shipment of capital and jobs
overseas that was begun with the North American Free Trade Organization and the
creation of the World Trade Organization, to the ending of the separation of
commercial from investment banking and the concomitant triumph of finance
capitalism, which led directly to the Great Recession that we now currently
live in, and so on and so forth.
Clinton also
established the modern Democratic Party pattern of not fighting the GOP much on
the political side either. Take "Whitewater," for example. There was
no there there, from the very beginning, and the Clintons knew it. But they
stood silent as the GOP yelled and screamed about it, supported in that one
even by the New York Times which at that time had an editor who had hated
Clinton ever since he was a local newspaperman in Arkansas. (No, the Times
doesn't always get it right. See, e.g., Iraq, Judith Miller, and the
non-existent "WMD.") The whole investigation gave us nothing except,
oh yes, Ken Starr and the perjury trap he illegally set for Clinton in the
Paula Jones case (1, 2). But did Clinton fight back through all the years of
GOP attacks? Ohhhh no! In fact Clinton let his own Attorney General approve the
appointment of the well-known right-winger and Clinton opponent Ken Starr by a
cabal of far right-wing Judges, after the first Whitewater Special Prosecutor,
a Republican, had found nothing. After all, "we have to work with these
folk to get something done for the country." And so we come to Obama. I
was not the only one who identified Obama as a DLC-er fairly early on (3, 4).
And by golly, he has not changed his stripes in the current flaps, about which
the GOP is making so much hay: no fight but much right-wing policy, either by
direction or indirection.
For the
record, on "Benghazi," it is indeed tragic that several US Foreign
Service officers and "contactors" were murdered there. As has been
pointed out by a number of observers, 13 attacks on US embassies and consulates
leading to approximately 60 deaths occurred under the Bush Administration
without a peep from Fox"News" or the GOP in Congress (or the
Democrats for that matter) (5). But no, Mr. President. The attacks on you and
your Administration that have been going on since right after the Benghazi
tragedy are not just a "political side-show." They are part of the
now five-plus year constant attack by the GOP and its Propaganda arm to not
only try to prevent you from getting anything on even your modest agenda done,
but more fundamentally to de-legitimize you and your Presidency. But heaven
help you that you might say such a thing, much less utter the words
"George W. Bush," except to say nice things about him at the
dedication of his library.
For the
record, the "IRS scandal" is a scandal alright, but as many have
pointed out, the scandal is the "Citizens United" decision and that
it has spawned, among other things, right-wing political action groups trying
to present themselves as social welfare agencies so as to protect themselves
from having to pay income taxes, but much more importantly for them so that
they can keep their donor lists secret. It is also a scandal that your
"Justice Dept." and AG Holder leapt into action with a criminal
investigation of IRS agents trying to do a very difficult job, which, in the
end, is about protecting the US taxpayer. Criminal action here, when there was
none on Bybee and Yoo, the writers of the infamous "torture memos,"
none on the CIA and other torturers themselves who broke US law and violated
Article VI of the US Constitution (6), none on the banks and the banksters who
are "too big to jail." From now on, do you think that any IRS agent
is going to do anything more than rubber-stamp any application for 501c(4)
status that comes in from any right-wing political fund-raising group? And the
President thinks (ho, ho, ho) that "being tough on the IRS" will win
him credits on the other side. Oh, Mr. President, do you have another think
coming. Just like (Bill) Clinton, he "stays above the battle" even
when he is the target. On our side, if you will pardon me, there is no dog in
the fight and no fight in the dog (even if it is a Portuguese Water Dog).
At the same
time we have: a "health care reform" that is primarily a major
subsidy for the private for-profit insurance industry, one that will also
maintain drug company profits at present levels; a much-too-small
"stimulus package" that disappeared much too quickly; a disappearing
infra-structure along with a disappearing water supply (7); banking regulators
who are already giving in to the banks to weaken even further the modest gains
of Dodd-Frank; a "mortgage rescue program" that did much more to
rescue the mortgage/bank consultants than it did to rescue underwater/defrauded
homeowners; a giving-in already on Social Security "reform" when
diminishing, much less destroying it, will do nothing to alleviate the Federal
deficit problem in the short term but will surely add enormous expenditures
down the road when the nation faces tens of millions of elderly with no sources
of financial support at all; nothing happening to deal with global warming;
and, in Clinton redux, a new Asian trade agreement which would further
facilitate capital export and job loss (the old Japanese Imperial "Greater
East-Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere," anyone), and, to boot, the President
wants to fast-track" that little piece of legislation. And so-on and
so-forth.
We might as
well have had Hillary because all we got was the "First Black
President" (Bill, as he was known in some parts of the African-American
community), all over again.
(Photo: Bob McNeely, The White
House )
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Dr. Jonas' latest book is The 15% Solution:
How the Republican Religious Right Took Control of the U.S., 1981-2022: A
futuristic Novel, Brewster, NY, Trepper & Katz Impact Books, Punto
Press Publishing, 2013, http://www.puntopress.com/jonas-the-15-solution-hits-main-distribution/ , and available
on Amazon .
References :
1. Alan Heinrich,
"Clinton's Little White Lies: The Materiality Requirement for Perjury in Civil
Discovery," Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review Law Reviews, 6-1-1999, http://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2190&context=llr .
2. http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-clintonstarr.html , " Myth: Ken Starr's investigation was ethical and fair. Fact: Ken Starr's investigation was filled with conflicts of interests, illegalities and improprieties."
3. Jonas, S., " Dr. J.'s Commentary: Iowa, Policy, and the Democrats, BuzzFlash," 12/27/2007.
4. Jonas, S., " Dr. J.'s Commentary: President
Obama and the Democratic Leadership Council ," click here;
5. Cesca, B. "13 Benghazis," May 9, 2013, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/13-benghazis-that-occurre_b_3246847.htm .
6. Jonas, S., "Why Torture Doesn't Work
Doesn't Work: Dealing with "Zero Dark Thirty," http://www.opednews.com/articles/Why-Torture-Doesn-t-Work-by-Steven-Jonas-121223-558.html .
7. Michael Wines,
"Wells Dry; Fertile Plains turn to Dust," New York Times, May 20, 2012, p. 1.
