On Thu, 23 Dec 1999, michael perelman wrote:
> I do not deny that the Clintons are creeps, but I suspect that the
> critics are correct that they are left wing Democrats.
What makes you think this, Michael? My impression is that Bill Clinton has always been a right wing Democrat. He was head of the DNC when it was the right wing of the Democratic party, and I remember him as the farthest right of the "7 dwarves" that competed for the nomination in 1988. He was for the death penalty, friendly towards business, and wanted from the beginning to "reform welfare." His performance in office seems to have pretty closely matched the expectations people originally had of him when he was campaigning based on his platform and his record in Arkansas. (Including, I should mention, the expectations of the Nation.)
The only deviation from this path was his first State of the Union speech, when, entirely out of character, he declared an ambition to introduce national universal health care insurance, plus a small, 16 billion stimulus plan. And a few months later, he piped up about gays in the military to the shock of everyone that had watched him avoid ever taking leadership on a contraversial issue. But in retrospect its clear that, wherever they came from, all those out of character moves were lacking in substance, and they all came to nothing or less than nothing. And except for that six month blip, he's consistently been what he's always been, a centrist, which by definition means a right-wing Democrat if you're a Democrat or a liberal Republican if you're a Republican.
No?
Another definition of a centrist is that leftists think you're a right winger and right wingers think you're a left winger. He fits that profile as well. As does his wife.
Michael
__________________________________________________________________________ Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com