Bill Kristol: Fucking you over for political gain since 1993
Well this is fun. From Greg Sargent comes a strategy memo written by NeoCon architect and all-around douchebag Bill Kristol back during the 1993 war to defeat Clinton’s Healthcare agenda:
Well, I have obtained a PDF copy — you can read the whole thing right here. And it’s really a striking read, because it demonstrates two things. First, how much the current GOP strategy seems to echo the strategic objectives Kristol articulated 15 years ago. And second, how much worse off the GOP is now than it was then in terms of being able to achieve those objectives. Here’s the crux:
Passage of the Clinton health care plan, in any form, would guarantee and likely make permanent an unprecedecented federal intrusion into and disruption of the American economy — and the establishment of the largest federal entitlement program since Social Security. It’s success would signal a rebirth of centralized welfare-state policy at the very moment we have begun rolling back that idea in other areas…
The long term political effects of a successful Clinton health care bill will be even worse — much worse. It will relegitimize middle-class dependency for “security” on government spending and regulation. It will revive the reputation of the party that spends and regulates, the Democrats, as the generous protector of middle-class interests. And it will at the same time strike a punishing blow against Republican claims to defend the middle class by restraining government…
Its rejection by Congress and the public would be a monumental setback for the President, and an incontestable piece of evidence that Democratic welfare-state liberalism remains firmly in retreat.
As Greg says (and his post is good and succinct so you should probably check it out), this is amusing mostly because liberal ideals are anything but “in retreat”.
The issue is now, as it was then, much more about thwarting the President and making Democrats look ineffective than it is about real ideology. Healthcare is a winning issue, not because it’s a craven “chicken in every pot” giveaway, but because people need it and only government can assure that it’s provided properly. Believing that government can’t do healthcare is akin to believing that truly good healthcare can never be achieved by average people.
Republicans like Kristol also know that for them to win, Democrats need to lose, and lose big, on core issues like this, regardless of what the actual outcome will mean for you and I. It’s scorched earth politics.