Reply #2: It's the enlightened, fashionable way to go. "Pragmatic" liberals. [View All]

[No Elephants]

Aka, Republicans.

First, the DLC said, "Vote for Democrats! They're just like the Republicans you've been voting for.

Anti-poor fiscally responsible, no tax increases, etc. But also pro-choice and pro-civil rights.
You'll love them."

Then the Republicans went further right, to prove there was a difference between them and Democrats.

Then, Democrats pursued them to the right; and Republicans got even more extreme.

Then, a Bushite started No Labels, soon joined by lots of Clintonites.

They declared both Tea Partieers and liberals "toxic." Because, after all a uniparty is the sensible, non-toxic way to go.


Now, more and more uniparty think tanks are cropping up.

But, to get back to the original point: not long ago, I posted how Kennedy, who was supposed to be THE affordable health care advocate in Congress admitted that he had blocked Nixon's health care plan because he (Kennedy) wanted a Democratic President to get credit for it.

Inasmuch as we now know that Kennedy wanted to be President one day, maybe Kennedy himself was the Democratic President Kennedy had in mind when he blocked Nixon's plan. And then, Carter said that Kennedy also blocked his (Carter's) health care plan. By that time, we know that Kennedy himself was the Democratic President Kennedy had in mind.

Meanwhile, people without Kennedy's inherited wealth and/or privlege were suffering, going bankrupt and dying--and the country was going further and further right, so that we eventually got a health care plan that was well to the right of the one proposed by Nixon (and I suspect Carter, though I have not investigated what Carter had in mind). That is quite a price for America to pay for one man's desire to make history as President.

Now we learn that people who wanted to be Commander in Chief opposed a surge in Iraq because of their personal political ambition.

Both examples go well beyond "mere" politics in my mind. Either example makes Macbeth's personal ambition look like a philanthropic, IMO.

I wonder what else has been done by Governors, members of Congress, Presidents, etc. because of personal ambition that they have not confessed, like Kennedy, or have not been ratted out, like Hillary and Obama. We did suspect that Bush started the Iraq War at least in part because war time Presidents have always been re-elected. What else? The mind cringes.