The Big Dog Speaks
2012-08-02 - by
Hereâs why Iâm glad Bill Clinton will have a big role at the Democratic convention: Nobody in American politics today is a better contrast to how brain-dead American politics is today.
Clinton is the one national figure who can weave sensible policy proposals from the extremes of left and right, the one politician who can talk policy in a way that speaks to real peopleâs real problems.
David Brooks had it right in The New York Times this week:
âAmerican politics went through tremendous changes between 1900 and 1936, and then again between 1940 and 1976. But our big government/small government debate is back where it was a generation ago. Candidates donât even have to rehearse the arguments anymore; they just find the gaffes that will help them pin their opponent to the standard bogyman clichés.â
Itâs like the prisoners who know the jokes so well they just call out the numbers and everybody laughs. We know exactly what both sides are going to say, and they oblige us.
Republicans bear most of the blame, but Democrats arenât blameless. Nobody on either side dares depart from orthodoxy.
Clinton, in contrast, can be a breath of fresh air. Sometimes more a hurricane (remember his interminable 1984 convention speech).
Heâs a real person in a campaign that seems to be a contest between Android Obama and Robot Romney.
Feel our pain one more time, Bill.
The Big Dog Speaks
2012-08-02/
Hereâs why Iâm glad Bill Clinton will have a big role at the Democratic convention: Nobody in American politics today is a better contrast to how brain-dead American politics is today.
Clinton is the one national figure who can weave sensible policy proposals from the extremes of left and right, the one politician who can talk policy in a way that speaks to real peopleâs real problems.
David Brooks had it right in The New York Times this week:
âAmerican politics went through tremendous changes between 1900 and 1936, and then again between 1940 and 1976. But our big government/small government debate is back where it was a generation ago. Candidates donât even have to rehearse the arguments anymore; they just find the gaffes that will help them pin their opponent to the standard bogyman clichés.â
Itâs like the prisoners who know the jokes so well they just call out the numbers and everybody laughs. We know exactly what both sides are going to say, and they oblige us.
Republicans bear most of the blame, but Democrats arenât blameless. Nobody on either side dares depart from orthodoxy.
Clinton, in contrast, can be a breath of fresh air. Sometimes more a hurricane (remember his interminable 1984 convention speech).
Heâs a real person in a campaign that seems to be a contest between Android Obama and Robot Romney.
Feel our pain one more time, Bill.