The Bold and the Blasé
America needs politicians who stake out interesting, politically-courageous positions on important policy questions. What it doesn’t need is politicians who occupy the safest possible ground on the great issues of the day, shift slightly left or slightly right depending on the state of public opinion, and then get congratulated by the press for being so independent-minded.
To which Erik quipped,
Reading this, it struck me that there really are two kinds of so-called “moderates” out there. Or maybe even more. Maybe the term “moderate” or “centrist” is just a blanket term used to either applaud or tear down people with whom we agree or disagree.
I love Erik, I really do, but we seem to be on very different tracks right now. Pivoting on Ross’ post by slicing and dicing the various ways in which one may or may not be a moderate is not really the point here.
February 17, 2010 13 Comments
There’s more than one way to skin a moderate
[Updated]
Writing of Evan Bayh, Ross Douthat opines:
America needs politicians who stake out interesting, politically-courageous positions on important policy questions. What it doesn’t need is politicians who occupy the safest possible ground on the great issues of the day, shift slightly left or slightly right depending on the state of public opinion, and then get congratulated by the press for being so independent-minded. [....]
Wherever the Beltway conventional wisdom settled, there was Evan Bayh — and he was rewarded for it with endless presidential and vice-presidential chatter, which has followed him, absurdly, even now that he’s announced his retirement.
In his farewell statement, Bayh complained that in today’s Washington, there’s “too much partisanship and not enough progress — too much narrow ideology and not enough practical problem-solving.” He’s right, up to a point, but his own record suggests that centrists as well as ideologues can be part of the problem, rather than part of the solution.
Reading this, it struck me that there really are two kinds of so-called "moderates" out there. Or maybe even more. Maybe the term "moderate" or "centrist" is just a blanket term used to either applaud or tear down people with whom we agree or disagree.
For instance, that line about occupying the "safest possible ground on the great issues of the day" rushed out at me. For the purposes of Beltway moderates, that really is the case. They occupy the safest ground. They take the positions which will earn them the most adoration, funding, or media attention. Perhaps Bayh was this sort of moderate. I know very little about Bayh, and care even less.
As a self-professed ideological schizophrenic, I can see how I might be lumped into this category as well. I wonder, though, if the ground I’ve been treading is so safe. And there are other so-called moderates who seem to be walking on similarly thin ice – like Bruce Bartlett for instance, who was all but exiled from many conservative circles, but who will never find a warm reception on the left nonetheless. Is he speaking his mind just to play it safe, or is he doing it because he has ideas that don’t fit nicely in any of these scripted narratives we’ve been given.
[Read more →]February 16, 2010 41 Comments
Fecking Brooks and the Moderates Up
I can’t help but think that Brooks dead-on when he writes,
Those of us in the moderate tradition — the Hamiltonian tradition that believes in limited but energetic government — thus find ourselves facing a void. We moderates are going to have to assert ourselves. We’re going to have to take a centrist tendency that has been politically feckless and intellectually vapid and turn it into an influential force.
What Brooks; however, fails to do is to outline what step number one in the moderate resurrection project must be. Namely, Brooks goes on to talk about all the things that moderates must do before first articulating what it is that has led the majority of Americans to see moderates as “politically feckless and intellectually vapid” and how moderates can effectively seek to overcome that barrier. [Read more →]
March 10, 2009 11 Comments
