The Whining Pose
I think The Washington Post has managed to run an editorial that’s unfair to both presidential candidates, moaning about sundry points including the idea that “Though both candidates vowed to shake up Washington, neither offered bold or innovative proposals.” This is nonsense. I don’t think John McCain’s plan to try to unravel group insurance pools through various changes in the tax and regulatory treatment of employer-sponsored health care benefits will produce the kind of beneficial results that McCain claims for his proposal, but it’s certainly bold and innovative. They complain that “Obama’s agenda for the most part might have been lifted from Democratic stump speeches of four or eight years ago” as if it’s just inconceivable that John Kerry proposed anything bold. Meanwhile, the “for the most part” clause manages to waive away Obama’s entire suite of energy-and-climate proposals which are very ambitious and totally unlike anything Kerry or Gore put on the table.
Then back to McCain when they’re upset that he “offered little in substance that President Bush hasn’t been promoting for the past eight years.” Again, I think that’s true — the two political parties each draw from an enduring set of ideas so McCain’s proposals are similar to those of his GOP predecessor just as Obama’s are similar to his Democratic predecessors — but serves as a way of eliding the point that some of these ideas are nonetheless bold and innovative. Health care, as mentioned above, fits the bill as do McCain’s views on the need to cut entitlement benefits and introduce elements of privatization. It’s true that neither campaign has managed to generate a wholly original policy agenda, but why would they? And it’s definitely false to accuse either campaign of lacking any bold ideas.
24 Responses to “The Whining Pose”
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September 7th, 2008 at 9:39 am
Truly the WAPO wants it both ways and neither. They decry partisanship, orthodoxy, heterodoxy, and every other variation different than some theoretical perfection that is exactly like the status quo, only better in some unquantifiable way.
September 7th, 2008 at 9:42 am
How can a proposal that doesn’t work be “bold and innovative?”
September 7th, 2008 at 10:02 am
At the risk of being accused of concern trolling the conservatives, the Republican Party itself today is – for a conservative – not the solution but the problem.
The Sarah Palin wing of the Republican Party can no more govern this country than Al Qaeda in Iraq could govern Anwar Province – and for much the same reason.
We, in this country, need a new conservative party. Conservativism, in the broad sense – which has nothing to do with the current Republicans, is a well respected and profound part of the Western tradition which manifests part – but only a part – of the human condition. The Republicans today are merely a rancid leftover from the Reagan years.
So there needs to be a new Tory party. One that views making too much money as something vulgar. One that finds the term “Commonwealth” to be meaningful. One that views drilling oil as at best a dirty job that has to be done and that would celebrate any alternative.
September 7th, 2008 at 10:09 am
I don’t think that George Bush has been given credit for how radical many of his proposals are.
Ending the estate tax is radical. I wouldn’t call it innovative and I think it’s a terrible idea, but it is undeniably radical. Of course, due to its expense he didn’t “end” it, but just phased it out ending in a one year holiday. McCain’s desire to truly end the estate tax would be the culmination of Bush’s radical plan.
The media really do us all a disservice by labeling the Republicans “conservative” or by allowing the Republicans to label themselves in this way. The current administration is far from conservative. They don’t fit any meaning of the word. They have a radical foreign policy, radical domestic policy proposals, radical tax decreases, radical social security proposals. They created the Department of Homeland Security.
Allowing the tax cuts, including the estate tax holiday, to return to their pre-Bush levels is actually the more conservative proposal. The experiment has been a failure. The country cannot produce enough trickle down income to offset the tax cuts. It’s time to let them and other radical, but misguided, ideas wither on the vine.
September 7th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Is this the Washington Post’s way of saying they are bored? They need something new to gnaw on and ridicule? Is the editorial board of the Post a bunch of wannabe fashion editors disappointed that this year’s fashion week looked a lot like the one four years ago?
September 7th, 2008 at 10:22 am
“Bold” & “Innovative” = meeting the approval of the right wing fake bi-partisans of the Washington Post.
Actual bold & innovative ideas from liberals = Stale left-wing partisan dogma, see above.
September 7th, 2008 at 10:46 am
How can a proposal that doesn’t work be “bold and innovative?”
Do either of those words mean “successful”?
September 7th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Tomemos, in the American lexicon being bold or being innovative is, in fact, being successful at bucking the system and prevailing.
September 7th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
After graduating from Harvard Law School, where he was President of the Harvard Law Review, and where Barack Obama could have gone anywhere, Barack Obama took a job as a community organizer, a public servant, to truly help people where they were hurting, economically. Obama was a champion of justice as a civil rights lawyer. And, as a staunch lover of the United States and its rules and laws he taught constitutional law. He then ran and was elected to the Illinois state legislature for 8 years. He then ran and was elected to the U.S. Senate where he has been serving for the last 4 years, which experience, by the way, = Equals the same experience as Abraham Lincoln, America’s Greatest President. So when you think of Barack Obama’s experience you can think Abraham Lincoln or for more modern times, John F. Kennedy!
In the United States Senate, Barack Obama is a member of the Senate Foreign affairs committee with Joe Biden. As a member of that Foreign Relations Committee, Obama made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. In August 2005, he traveled to Russia, Ukraine, and Azerbaijan. The trip focused on strategies to control the world’s supply of conventional weapons, biological weapons, and weapons of mass destruction as a first defense against potential terrorist attacks.
Obama also holds assignments on the Senate Committees for Health, Education, Labor and Pensions; Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs; and Veterans’ Affairs, and he is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. There will be no Homeless Veterans in an Obama/Biden Administration!
National Security Issues: Barack Obama is the candidate most prepared to confront the 21st century threats to American security. Senator Obama Strongly believes that the single most important threat to national security that we face is loose nuclear weapons around the world. Working across party lines he co-sponsored a bill with Senator Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who is active on the nuclear security issue. Together in 2005 Senator Lugar and Senator Obama traveled to Ukraine to inspect weapons storage facilities saw “mortar rounds, land mines and artillery shells of all sizes stacked in huge piles and strewn carelessly about,” Lugar and Obama later co-sponsored a bill passed by Congress that led the U.S. to coordinate efforts with other nations to reduce weapon stockpiles and smuggling. In addition, Obama is strongly committed to destroying terrorist networks, rebuilding America’s alliances, and stopping the flow of oil money to hostile regimes.
Obama is against Dumb wars and is committed to speaking to our enemies in an attempt to work out problems through intelligent and peaceful discourse rather than through a war where blood will be split and countless lives lost or ruined. Senator Obama is very concerned about the troops, that is why he introduced the ‘Iraq War De-Escalation Act’, a bill to cap troop levels in Iraq, begin phased redeployment, and remove all combat brigades from Iraq before April 2008. And that is why Senator Obama fought so hard with other Senate Democrats to the pass “GI Bills for the 21st Century” sponsored by Senator Webb, which is the largest increase in funding for veterans health care in the VA’s 77th years history as well as providing a four-year college scholarship to veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Senator McCain Voted No to this new 21st Century Bill for GI’s.
Less we forget, in the most Important and Disastrous decision of our time, the Iraq War, McCain voted YES, which was a Pretend War and not the Real war which was in Afghanistan where Bin Ladin actually Lives!
And we must remember when they talk about Executive Experience, George Bush had executive experience too and look where that got us!
Ethics Reform: Obama worked with Russ Feingold to eliminate gifts of travel on corporate jets by lobbyists to members of Congress and require disclosure of bundled campaign contributions under the ‘Honest Leadership and Open Government Act’, which was signed into law in September 2007.
He joined Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in sponsoring S. 453, a bill to criminalize deceptive practices in federal elections, including fraudulent flyers and automated phone calls, as witnessed in the 2006 midterm elections.
Other Official Trips: visit to the U.S. militaries in Kuwait and Iraq in January 2006, wherein he then visited Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian territories. He left for his third official trip in August 2006, traveling to South Africa, Kenya, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Chad. In a nationally televised speech at the University of Nairobi, he spoke forcefully on the influence of ethnic rivalries and corruption in Kenya.
These are just some of Barack Obama’s accomplishments and experience. He is more than qualified to bring 21st century change to people lives here in America and all across the world. Barack Obama is committed to bringing 21st century change to Health Care, Energy, Technology, Science, and Education. He is committed to building 21st century change to schools, roads and bridges.
There will be no more jobs going over seas in an Obama/Biden Administration. There will be no more unequal pay for women in an Obama/Biden Administration. There will be no more homeless Veterans in an Obama/Biden Administration and most importantly, there will be no more pretend wars in an Obama/Biden Administration. And, with Obama/Biden we will actually get an administration who will put their Money where there Mouth is and lead America, finally, from the 20th Century to the 21st Century, from the Past greed, waste, wars, us versus we mentallity to the Future of cooperation, unity and prosperity for all the people or at least oppourtinity for all and that is all we truly ask!
September 7th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
So, if Barack Obama’s energy policy (say) fails, it will in retrospect not have been bold or innovative?
September 7th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
And you didn’t even mention wage insurance. That’s pretty bold.
September 7th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
It’s likely that the Post is setting up a false equivalency–”See, both of these candidate’s platforms have serious flaws, so it doesn’t really matter who you vote for.”
That’s a rough approximation–they’re setting things up to make it acceptable among elites to support and vote for McCain.
September 7th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Oh, I have no doubt the major media are all preparing to endorse McCain. They don’t give the slightest sh*t how much more damage Republicans do to the country; they just hate anything that even suggests a real imposition of somewhat liberal policies, such as a Democratic President and a strongly Democratic Congress, that they want a Republican President just to blunt the Congress.
And they’ll all sell it as supposed bipartisanship, and tell us once again their favorite fantasy bedtime story about how John McCain used to be Jesus H. Moderate Maverick and how they will Choose To Believe Again In Him.
September 7th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
I commend you for having the stomach to read WaPo editorials. The paper is fortunate to have Dana Priest and Robin Wright on board as reporters. For the rest, they pretty much suck. And I guess any day now we’ll be treated to constant coverage of Woodward’s latest tome. Just in case we don’t get it.
September 7th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
El Cid, at least in the case of the WaPo, I think you’re right. Will this get Republicans to stop complaining about the liberal bias of print media? Stay tuned for the thrilling conclusion!
September 7th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
‘Innovative’ for the WaPo would mean ‘free arselicking for Fred Hiatt’.
Its unsigned editorials are, unlike the NYT, worse than useless. They’re malign. I propose a bold and innovative policy of repeatedly hitting the editorial board with sticks.
September 7th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
The reason for stories like that is pretty simple, isn’t it? There are plenty of obvious reasons why a paper like the Post doesn’t want to write about the candidates’ policy proposals: it would require some policy expertise on the part of the reporters, which they largely don’t have, it would usually require some comfort with numbers, and it wouldn’t lend itself to the mechanical constraints of balance that the press mistakenly equates with objectivity.
And so if the press has powerful structural reasons to avoid writing about candidates’ policy proposals, it also needs an excuse, a story to tell itself and its readers about that failure. And what better excuse is there than that someone else is to blame, that it can’t write about the candidates’ policy proposals because the candidates aren’t saying anything? The fact that that excuse is false is just a minor detail.
September 8th, 2008 at 6:15 am
Good point. I do think that McCain has a more difficult time presenting Republican orthodoxy as innovative because they have been in power for 8 years. Representing Gore and Kerry proposals that were obviously right all along seems in a different category from presenting more of the same of the last 8 years.
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