Bill Clinton vs Obama

[Rilgin]

I have often and probably will continue to often be critical of Obama's appointments and some of his policies. However Isaw and totally approved of his press conference today. His praise of governement raised something I have thought for a while as a big failure of the democratic party in general and Bill Clinton in particular.

Obama seemed to be responding to a long underlying theme in the fight between Republicans and Democrats over Government stemming from Reagan's assertion that "Government is the Problem". I think Obama (as the head of the democratic party) finally handled it right today by thanking government workers for their service (implicitly asserting their value).

In contrast, I believe that Reagan's statement was not countered by Clinton and that failure had some part in leading to where we are now in this Country. Instead of directly countering Reagan's assertion and the Republican meme, B. Clinton "triangulated" that statement by himself asserting that "The era of big government is over" as his opening speech. That gave cover for the Republicans and media attacks on government in general and all of our negotiations have been about reducing government rather than giving government tools to solve our problems.

In any event, I hope democrats follow Obama's lead and start building government up rather than triangulating or playing on the Republican's home field in debating policy.

[Uncle Joe]

1. Timing is everything and Obama has one major advantage, the Internet is much stronger now than

it was in the 90s.

The DLCers submitted to cultural opinion stoked in large part by the corporate media's total submission to the "liberal media" myth promoted by the Republicans.

The growing power and influence of the Internet has changed that political dynamic for the better.

Thanks for the thread, Rilgin.