No, this place is not dead. Well, almost. It's on life-support. I plan to be back soon.
Monday, May 24, 2004
Surprise! I'm posting. The previous link is something that caught my eye in response to a remark that someone made in my presence last week. That person was a teacher, and she told me, quite feelingly about how terrible George W. Bush was for education in this country, because of the "No Child Left Behind Act". She was spouting off the standard bullshit from the NEA newsletter, but not being an expert on education or the NLBA, I couldn't very well rebut her. In fact, I couldn't even be sure she was wrong, except for a well founded scepticism about the political knowledge of public school teachers. So anyways, this little entry over at Volokh caught my eye.
David Bernstein discusses the widespread inability of people of a leftish persuasion to give Bush any credit for pursuing ostensibly liberal goals. NLBA, which was penned primarily by Ted Kennedy, and barely contains a soupcon of material that would interest a conservative is but one example. Where is the widespread acclaim for Bush for pursuing a prescription drug benefit? Or for increasing funding for the NEA? Or for making the wealthy pay an even greater percentage of the tax burden? Or for in general, increasing federal spending on so many different programs that he has tied whole entire swathes to the federal nipple for the foreseeable future?
Hell, even the invasion of Iraq is more of a liberal endeavour than a conservative one. Most conservatives have severe idealogical problems with trying to remake other countries. The idea of "exporting democracy" was primarily a liberal refrain.
Bernstein likens this selective blindness to the inability of conservatives to give Clinton credit for doing ostensibly conservative things, though I remember things just a bit differently. Clinton would have gotten more credit for signing the Welfare Reform Act if he hadn't vetoed it twice before, and even his signature was only given grudgingly.
Also Clinton didn't restrain spending, as Bernstein credited him as doing; a divided government did. And on free trade, Clinton did get a lot of nice things said about him by Cons for that, and he garnered some goodwill that he quickly frittered away.
But all the less and never the same, some good, progressive (in the conservative sense) things happened in the Nineties, and I for one am grateful, and to the extent Clinton deserves credit, I'm willing to offer him some belated thanks (and on free trade, I was always vocal in my support for the man). So let's bury the hatchet on Bush, eh?
David Bernstein discusses the widespread inability of people of a leftish persuasion to give Bush any credit for pursuing ostensibly liberal goals. NLBA, which was penned primarily by Ted Kennedy, and barely contains a soupcon of material that would interest a conservative is but one example. Where is the widespread acclaim for Bush for pursuing a prescription drug benefit? Or for increasing funding for the NEA? Or for making the wealthy pay an even greater percentage of the tax burden? Or for in general, increasing federal spending on so many different programs that he has tied whole entire swathes to the federal nipple for the foreseeable future?
Hell, even the invasion of Iraq is more of a liberal endeavour than a conservative one. Most conservatives have severe idealogical problems with trying to remake other countries. The idea of "exporting democracy" was primarily a liberal refrain.
Bernstein likens this selective blindness to the inability of conservatives to give Clinton credit for doing ostensibly conservative things, though I remember things just a bit differently. Clinton would have gotten more credit for signing the Welfare Reform Act if he hadn't vetoed it twice before, and even his signature was only given grudgingly.
Also Clinton didn't restrain spending, as Bernstein credited him as doing; a divided government did. And on free trade, Clinton did get a lot of nice things said about him by Cons for that, and he garnered some goodwill that he quickly frittered away.
But all the less and never the same, some good, progressive (in the conservative sense) things happened in the Nineties, and I for one am grateful, and to the extent Clinton deserves credit, I'm willing to offer him some belated thanks (and on free trade, I was always vocal in my support for the man). So let's bury the hatchet on Bush, eh?
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