Hail the untidiness. Hail democracy.
Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2010 11:45 am
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articl ... 04739.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Written by Krauthammer (who I sometimes really like and sometimes really don't like). Good read with all the hand wringing about broken government. Not necessarily.
Written by Krauthammer (who I sometimes really like and sometimes really don't like). Good read with all the hand wringing about broken government. Not necessarily.
The rotation of power is the finest political instrument ever invented for the consolidation of what were once radical and deeply divisive policies. The classic example is the New Deal. Republicans railed against it for 20 years. Then Dwight Eisenhower came to power, wisely left it intact, and no serious leader since has called for its repeal.
Similarly, Bill Clinton consolidated Reaganism, just as Tony Blair consolidated Thatcherism. In both cases, center-left moderates brought their party to accept the major premises of the highly successful conservative reforms that preceded them.
This is not to say that the rotation of power is all about consolidation. It's also about challenge. Obama may have accepted (if grudgingly) much of the post-9/11 anti-terror policy -- even the wars -- but he's raised a fundamental challenge to three decades of Reaganite domestic orthodoxy.
This is also to the good.
