Challenged by the blogosphere and punditry alike
to stake out what new ideas the Democratic Party should stand for (as opposed to
those things that they stand against - we're quite clear on that, thank you) two
of the Party's luminaries have put their oars in the domestic and international
waters to talk about what the intellectual future should hold to ensure
political success. Their answer? In short, national
health insurance and international treaties
.
Rick Perlstein leads off in the
Village Voice on the domestic front, calling for additional middle class
entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security. These are, according to
Perlstein, the geese that lay golden eggs (Democratic voters) as well as being
"objectively good" for the electorate. One wonders which of these two he thinks
is the greater benefit, but a quick perusal of his oeuvre via
Google is revealing. Put aside the fact that no one really knows how
we're going to be able to afford to pay for either the new prescription drug
benefit under Medicare, or for Social Security as the Boomers pass into the
sunset: The country has ventured down this particular path before.
In fact if memory serves, it was the
current junior Senator from New York who held our hands down that particular
jaunt - you must remember - we had to all wait outside in the lobby while the
adults talked, they were having "closed-door" sessions. It takes a particularly
committed believer in the power of government to do good (as well as someone who
has never had to stand in line for federal government-provided medical care,
trust me) to believe that bureaucratizing the process of national health care
spending (projected to be nearly
one-fifth of the nation's economy by 2013) is a good idea. In fact,
Perstein's new program is even more of a radical reform than was Clinton's
failed 1993
proposal - he's calling for a Canadian-style single-payer system.
How anyone can cast their admiring
gaze to the frozen north and look upon the Canadian health care system as a
positive example, what with it's capricious standards of care and maddeningly
long waiting lists totally escapes me. To be sure, the Canadian system is
"fairer," if by lauding "fairness" you mean that you are the type of person who
glances approvingly upon the anonymity of the mass grave. I'd far rather leave
health care to people who are motivated by the market to provide services,
rather than those of whom it is required by a national health care insurance
program, with its set prices, schedules and government
audits.
Unless of course, you only care
about winning elections, and not all that much about what do once you've won
them, except, you know: Win some
more.
J. Peter Scoblic in the New
Republic makes a much more serious (if ultimately flawed) argument about how to
win the war on terrorism, especially terrorism of the nuclear variety. He paints
a suitably chilling portrait of what might happen if terrorists get their hands
around a nuke and manage to get it to US soil. He somehow manages to argue
himself into a corner which states that conservative politicians are
constitutionally unable to rise to the challenge of forestalling asymmetric
nuclear attack, while simultaneously putting forth that they ought to do things
more like President Clinton did them during the North Korean "Agreed Framework"
discussions back in 1994 - an agreement which the Norks breached as soon as the
ink was dry on the paper. And by the way, in case Mr. Scoblic thinks that no one
else was watching, the nation is acutely aware of what chickens came home to
roost from the Clinton administration's anti-terror
policy.
Much of Scoblic's criticism
hinges upon the fact that while President Bush (correctly, in Scoblic's view)
labeled Iran, Iraq and North Korea as members of an "axis of evil," the
Administration chose to invade Iraq rather than Iran or North Korea. Which, when
intersected with the nostalgia for maximum diplomatic effort spent getting
minimal return treaties with thuggish kleptocracies is exactly the point at
which the train of reason leaves the track of pragmatism and rumbles down the
embankment of fantasy: If you think Iraq was bad, wait until you'd seen the
butcher's bill that would have attended to either Iran or North Korea, God
forbid both (all three?) at one
time.
Unless Scoblic agrees, absent
dire necessity, that the costs of military action in either North Korea or Iran
were and are prohibitive, in which case it's hard to understand his criticism
of the Administration's use of force in Iraq. Since we weren't going to use
military force in either of the other areas, mightn't we as well have usedit to
plant the seed of democracy within the Arab Middle East, while simultaneously
going looking for state-supported WMD programs in the place most likely to a)
have them, and b) wish us ill? Of course we know now (or think we do) that
Saddam had no
active
nuclear weapons programs, but that was nothing like so clear in the Spring of
2003.
Could we not, while planting this
seed and shining a flashlight into all the darkest corners of a truly odious
regime, continue Scoblic's vaunted diplomatic track in both Iran (via the EU)
and North Korea (via Six-Party Talks)?
Yes, of course we could - we're doing
just that right now.
So, new thinking:
It's an attempt, for both Perlstein and Scoblic - I'll give them that. They
tried. Anyone who wants to line up behind "new thinking" that entails getting
your heart surgery scheduled by those same smiling folks who brought you the DMV
and the IRS, and anyone who swoons at the remembrance of Madeleine Albright
running down the Norwegian cobblestones in high heels, desperately waving paper
at Yassir Arafat after that particularly scummy character walked away from the
Oslo peace table in favor of a year or two of cleansing
intifada
is welcome to sign on.
Me? I'm hoping
for a better offer.
Posted @
04:27 PM
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Credo
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." - John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Ceasar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friederich Nietzsche
