http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2008114720/media-parable-center
A Media Parable For "The Center" By Norman Solomon
November 20th, 2008 - 10:44am ET
It's been 16 years since a Democrat moved into the White House. Now, the fog of memory and the spin of media are teaming up to explain that Barack Obama must hew to "the center" if he knows what's good for his presidency.
"Many political observers," the San Francisco Chronicle reported days ago, say that Obama "must tack toward the political mainstream to avoid miscalculations made by President Bill Clinton, who veered left and fired up the 1994 Republican backlash."
This storyline provides a kind of political morality play: The new president tried to govern from the left, and Democrats lost control of Congress just two years later.
But, if facts matter, the narrative is a real head-scratcher.
During the 1992 election year, Clinton had campaigned for the White House under the mantra "Putting People First." But as economic analyst Doug Henwood was to comment, President-elect Clinton swiftly morphed into the champion of an austerity plan that could have been called "Putting Bondholders First."
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