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From & Friends...Failing upward at the Democratic Leadership Council with Al From
http://www.thenation.com/article/178337/friendsAl From makes two assertions in his new memoir. The first is announced in its title. The New Democrats and the Return to Power argues that the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), the group he founded in 1985 to push the Democratic Party to the right, has won: the party has been reformed, and there is no going back to the dark days when, according to From, Democratic presidential candidates suffered humiliation after humiliation at the ballot box for the partys thralldom to protectionism, isolationism, constituency groups and the dread leviathan Jesse Leo Jackson.
The second point is that From and friends deserve all of the credit for the Democratic Partys transformation. Again and again, our hero narrates his arrival, just in the nick of time, to save the day: My interjection had stopped the headlong dash into social democracy . Hillary came over to me and said she and Bill had discussed what I had said and had agreed I was right. And again: In a cab crossing the Triborough Bridge in New York, I flipped open my cell phone and called the President of the United States . [W]hen Clinton and I finished our discussion, I was confident that he would sign the bill. According to Al From, if you favor NAFTA, tougher laws on crime, welfare reform and, above all, an economic policy focused exclusively on growth instead of distributional fairness, you can thank Al From.
Yet this memoirist has an imposing problem on his hands. In each and every case, the triumphs he trumpets have made America a worse placeobjectively, empirically and on their own terms. But From is among the small minority of people they havent hurt. No one in the crowded field of Washington insiders has ever failed upward with such skill and aplomb.
The second point is that From and friends deserve all of the credit for the Democratic Partys transformation. Again and again, our hero narrates his arrival, just in the nick of time, to save the day: My interjection had stopped the headlong dash into social democracy . Hillary came over to me and said she and Bill had discussed what I had said and had agreed I was right. And again: In a cab crossing the Triborough Bridge in New York, I flipped open my cell phone and called the President of the United States . [W]hen Clinton and I finished our discussion, I was confident that he would sign the bill. According to Al From, if you favor NAFTA, tougher laws on crime, welfare reform and, above all, an economic policy focused exclusively on growth instead of distributional fairness, you can thank Al From.
Yet this memoirist has an imposing problem on his hands. In each and every case, the triumphs he trumpets have made America a worse placeobjectively, empirically and on their own terms. But From is among the small minority of people they havent hurt. No one in the crowded field of Washington insiders has ever failed upward with such skill and aplomb.
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From & Friends...Failing upward at the Democratic Leadership Council with Al From (Original Post)
antigop
Feb 2014
OP
Scuba
(53,475 posts)1. Worst thing that ever happened to the Democratic Party is this abandoning of the People ....
... in favor of the same oligarchs who fund the Republican Party.
yurbud
(39,405 posts)2. Maybe the Reagan Revolution would have imploded sooner
If DLC Dems weren't doing their "me too" shtick when they managed to win.
Also voters might have rejected it sooner if they heard an alternative besides Reaganism minus the religious Window dressing.
Chan790
(20,176 posts)3. Aw shit, Al From.
That's one guy I wouldn't be sad to see driven to switch parties. Why is it never the assholes so far outside the tent as to be in the GOP camp that ever defect to become Republicans?
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)4. just about the time the repukes started gaining steadily
Thanks al. You're a legend in your own mind.