Note Gore ran on this in the debates, talking about how federal employment was at an all time low. Seems to have been one of the big symbolic DLC-style conservative totems that Clinton used in making his bizarre pattern of good and horrible policy initiatives.
-- Nathan Newman
----- Original Message ----- From: "Max Sawicky" <sawicky at epinet.org> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Sunday, December 03, 2000 7:54 PM Subject: RE: Clinton screws federal workers
Clinton & the DLC are not the same thing.
Clinton has genuine power and refuses to use it on behalf of those who supported him (like Federal workers) or those to whom he professes support (i.e., welfare recipients).
The DLC is several different, other things.
There are elected officials. Some of them toe a conservative line because a Democrat would not be elected any other way. Others toe it because they think it's good policy. Others because it is profitable to do so. You could question the judgement of the first two groups, but you would not call them scum on that account.
Then there are apparachniks, writers, policy wonks. They fall into similar categories (essential for political survival, good policy, self-interest). The self-interest in this context may be the least important; you don't get rich in this line of work.
Then there is the corporate DNC, but please note, the DLC does not run the DNC. The DLC is subsidiary to it. The DNC is ideologically more diverse than the DLC and intrinsically opportunistic. Its job is to win elections, part of which entails raising money from those who have lots of it, and doing what they want in return.
Clinton is scum because even in his twilight time he can't find many good deeds to perform. He had surplus political capital, and he failed to use it for good. The others reflect a lot of different cases.
It comes down to what people think. What they think has a lot (not everything) to do with who is elected and what they do. It's still not safe to call oneself a liberal while running for president. That says a lot about where the country is.
mbs
Just to feed the opposition argument on why Clinton-DLC folks are in fact scum, here in the name of equal time is a recent article on Clinton screwing federal workers on pay. -- NN