Tom Watson
Why the Scandals Matter
The liberal blogosphere is having itself a terrific time, and who can blame 'em? Karl Rove back before the grand jury. Bill Frist subpoenaed in a probe of possible insider trading. Tom DeLay under twin indictments for illegal contributions. Payback is sweet, the Democrats must privately agree, and when the nectar of political retribution flows - well, it's time to belly up to the juice bar.
But it's such a simple, fleeting pleasure, really. Beyond seeing political enemies reduced, what good do these myriad cases bring? For the true progressive, is this victory or just a cheap political reality show payback moment? Is it really good for the country to see the Bush Administration and the Republican Party reduced to laughingstocks, derided as corrupt crony-mongers, limping along to history's scrap heap?
My answer is this: yes, it is good for the country.
It's good because along with the corruption charges comes the realization that the so-called purity of the conservative movement was just a mirage, the product of over-funded, lazy think tank conservatives who mass-produced small government, originalist Kool-Aid to a thirsty media and a badly-informed electorate. When it came to power through "revolution," the conservative dogma melted away in the pursuit of power and riches; cheering Democrats, I hope, understand this because it's happened to them.
Rove and Libby, and Frist and DeLay, and all the rest were the architects of the faux convergence of Republicanism and hard-core conservatism; once in power, they spent with the best of 'em and used their "social agenda" for votes and little else. These scandals erase any last semblance of the "revolution" - whether it was the Contract with Amerca or Reagan's Revolution - and remind us all that democratic government is a fragile thing, too often entrusted lightly to sloganeers.
And then there's this: what is our agenda, now that the field is being laid clear?
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Posted at 11:30 AM, Oct 14, 2005 in Progressive Agenda
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Tempting as it is to just keep beating the drum on cronyism and reinforcing the message that these guys are shysters and crooks, the left has to figure out how to use the current GOP meltdown to gain ground in the ideological debate, both within the party in the broader public sphere. Otherwise DLC Democrats who actually agree with some of the conservative economic principles that Bush espouses (but only follows through on when it's politically convenient) will team up with the corporate money types who will do business with whoever is in power, and we'll be back to fighting privatizing, tax-cutting, social safety net slashing, free-trade treaty pushing Democrats (instead of Republicans, pushing for same).
So Tom DeLay isn't just a crook for circumventing campaign finance laws to funnel corporate contributions to state races in Texas. Ideologically, he believes that corporations should be able to spend as much money as they want however they want to buy the political process and get corporate-friendly legislation passed.
Bush appoints cronies to government positions, at least in part, because ideologically he believes that government is irrelevant at best and "part of the problem" at worst. So... so what if incompetent people run it? Cronyism in government is the natural outgrowth of the conservative campaign to denigrate and devalue government since Reagan. It's not a betrayal of their movement's purity. This is what their movement is about.
Posted by: Dem wing of the Dem party | October 14, 2005 01:57 PM