November 26, 2003
Brad DeLong opines that the recent apex of the American political system was . . . Bill Clinton:
Andrew Sullivan despairs when he contemplates the future of America:www.AndrewSullivan.com - Daily Dish: I know I'm a broken record on this but we truly need some kind of third force again in American politics - fiscally conservative, socially inclusive, and vigilant against terror...
It was called the Clinton Administration, Mr. Sullivan.*
And you and your friends spent a decade trying (unsuccessfully) as hard as you could to wreck it.
*As Madeleine Albright has said, the lack of seriousness with which the incoming Bush administration took their briefings on terrorism in the winter of 2000-2001 was very disappointing.
As the Church Lady used to say, "Well isn't that special! Who gave you this deep insight? Could it be . . . Satan?!"
Remember when David Stockman, Reagan's OMB director, was predicting "$200 billion dollars deficits as far as the eye can see"? A little more than a decade later, he proved to be wrong, real wrong. I predict the critics who are now shouting "fiscal irresponsibility" will be in the same boat. And I further predict that if a Democrat is president then, he or she will take all the credit for it.
As for Madame Albright, she was quoted in a lot of newspapers--not that they get everything right--as asking, when she wanted us to get involved in the Balkans, "What's the good of having this huge military machine if we can't use it every once and a while?" But let a Republican president use it, with much better justification than we had in bombing Kosovo, and . . .
Never mind. It's almost Thanksgiving. One of the things I'm thankful for this year is that those people are not running our government now.