This from Huffington Post.
Finally, I do take pretty strong exception to Senator Obama's evenhanded denunciation of "the same bitter partisanship" of the nineties. It is true that American politics became much more partisan in the nineties, but that was primarily the result of the successful right wing takeover of the Republican Party, embodied at the time--he has since become a little more moderate for some tactical purpose--by Newt Gingrich. Again I do not think those of us who fought back against Gingrich's poisoning of the atmosphere should apologize for that. If anything, the apologies should come from those who were too slow to respond. . . .
I think the best way to summarize my concern is that if you tell people that we should not be willing to refight the battles of the nineties -- including many very important ones that we are far from having won -- and if you tell people to refuse partisanship, you may be inviting people to leave the battlefield to those with whom we have the biggest differences. Racial fairness, reproductive rights for women, an end to discrimination against sexual minorities, universal health care, the right of working men and women to bargain collectively with employers -- these battles we waged in the nineties remain essential to our vision today, and I do not understand why we should either be embarrassed about having fought hard for them, ten, fifteen or twenty years ago, or why we should not be determined to keep fighting until we have achieved success.
1 comment:
Frankly, I'd rather not refight the fights of the '90's. Fighting about bimbo eruptions, stained blue dresses, the defintion of "is", the appropriate standard for what is or is not a high crime and misdemeanor, whether renting out the Lincoln bedroom or one's congressional office is a greater offense, and how far one must triangulate and kneecap the members of one's own party in Congress in order to save one's own behind from yet another self-created crisis, well, fighting those fights just seemed to distract a bit from the real work that needed, and still needs, to be done.
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