{"id":2695,"date":"2008-12-12T11:52:57","date_gmt":"2008-12-12T16:52:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=2695"},"modified":"2008-12-12T11:55:05","modified_gmt":"2008-12-12T16:55:05","slug":"silly-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2008\/12\/12\/silly-season\/","title":{"rendered":"silly season<\/em>…"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Worried on the Left?<\/strong><\/a>
The Disillusionment Story Line Is Overdone<\/strong>
By E. J. Dionne Jr.<\/div>\n

Oh, my: Barack Obama is still more than a month away from assuming the presidency, and already there are reports about "the left" being dispirited about change they no longer believe in. These fears – in this case expressed by a rather small number of bloggers and writers – are aggravated by praise for Obama’s transition choices from conservatives who seem relieved that the president-elect is neither Lenin nor Robespierre.<\/p>\n

There is nothing new about anxiety among progressives that the candidate they just elected is destined to break their ideological hearts. In his journals, no less a loyalist to John F. Kennedy than the late historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. expressed dismay during the 1960 transition period over Kennedy’s apparent attraction to "a collection of rather respectable and conservative names for the Cabinet." <\/p>\n

In a Dec. 1 journal entry, Schlesinger described a meeting in which he told Kennedy "that the liberals were concerned about having a spokesman in the Cabinet." Kennedy replied: "Yes, I know, the liberals want visual reassurance just like everybody else. But they shouldn’t worry. What matters is the program. We are going down the line on the program." Schlesinger concluded that Kennedy was seeking "an administration of conservative men and liberal measures," an intriguing notion to apply to Obama. <\/p>\n

As it happens, Obama’s team is by most reasonable tests somewhere to the left of the one Kennedy assembled. That’s because reality has moved left, particularly over the past six months. When a Republican administration presides over — let’s call it what it is — the partial nationalization of the finance industry, and when even conservatives are calling for large-scale deficit spending, the very definition of the political center needs to be revised…<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Somewhere in the Campaign, Obama referred to politics entering the "silly season." I liked the term, but his timing is off. We are currently in the "silly season" right now. People who talk frequently – bloggers, columnists, me – don’t have a lot to talk about. Bush is still Bush. And Obama is sensibly holed up in his Transition Headquarters trying to figure out what to do about this biggest possible mess in American history<\/em>.<\/div>\n

Having little else to say myself [Ha!], I’d like to weigh in on the Obama hasn’t picked enough Progressives<\/em> and has picked too many Clintonites<\/em> issue. We just lived through eight years of ideological government and a level of divisiveness unheralded since the conflagrations of the sixties. I don’t want any more of that. This Governor Rod Blagojevich episode tells us a lot. First, he’s a Democrat and all of us want him out of there yesterday. Message: We will not defend crooks – Progressives, Democrats, Liberals or otherwise. Second: Rush Limbaugh et al will attack no matter what. Failing to find Obama guilty of deal-making, they’re now on him for not talking about not deal-making<\/em> fast enough. What Obama does or doesn’t do doesn’t matter he’s damned if … etc. Third: Progressives, Democrats, Liberals are not of one mind by definition<\/strong>. That’s what the word Liberal<\/strong><\/em> actually means. Finally: I don’t want any more government filled with ideologues, of any kind. Clintonites<\/em> were Clintonites<\/em> because they were the best we had to offer. They did a pretty good job. Hire them all, except for Clinton.<\/p>\n

In case nobody’s noticed, the Bush Administration has decimated our government bureaucracy and bankrupted our economy and our position in the world. Progressive<\/strong> now means back to basics,<\/em> not forging ahead. It will be decades before we can get back to that agenda. Bush, as it turned out, was a Progressive. We’re driving less because of the oil bubble and we don’t have any money anymore. We aren’t cutting down trees because the building industry is defunct. And we can’t be "big spenders" because he spent everything we had. We’re worried on the Left and the Right [and in the Middle]<\/em>…<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Worried on the Left? The Disillusionment Story Line Is Overdone By E. J. Dionne Jr. Oh, my: Barack Obama is still more than a month away from assuming the presidency, and already there are reports about "the left" being dispirited about change they no longer believe in. These fears – in this case expressed by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2695\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}