[Dialogue] Hate Springs Eternal

Harry Wainwright h-wainwright at charter.net
Mon Feb 11 12:48:18 EST 2008


 <http://www.nytimes.com/>  <http://www.nytimes.com/> The New York Times
<http://www.nytimes.com/> 


  _____  

February 11, 2008

Op-Ed Columnist


Hate Springs Eternal 


By PAUL KRUGMAN
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/pau
lkrugman/index.html?inline=nyt-per> 

In 1956 Adlai Stevenson, running against Dwight Eisenhower, tried to make
the political style of his opponent's vice president, a man by the name of
Richard Nixon, an issue. The nation, he warned, was in danger of becoming "a
land of slander and scare; the land of sly innuendo, the poison pen, the
anonymous phone call and hustling, pushing, shoving; the land of smash and
grab and anything to win. This is Nixonland."

The quote comes from "Nixonland," a soon-to-be-published political history
of the years from 1964 to 1972 written by Rick Perlstein, the author of
"Before the Storm." As Mr. Perlstein shows, Stevenson warned in vain: during
those years America did indeed become the land of slander and scare, of the
politics of hatred.

And it still is. In fact, these days even the Democratic Party seems to be
turning into Nixonland.

The bitterness of the fight for the Democratic nomination is, on the face of
it, bizarre. Both candidates still standing are smart and appealing. Both
have progressive agendas (although I believe that Hillary Clinton is more
serious about achieving universal health care, and that Barack Obama has
staked out positions that will undermine his own efforts). Both have broad
support among the party's grass roots and are favorably viewed by Democratic
voters. 

Supporters of each candidate should have no trouble rallying behind the
other if he or she gets the nod.

Why, then, is there so much venom out there?

I won't try for fake evenhandedness here: most of the venom I see is coming
from supporters of Mr. Obama, who want their hero or nobody. I'm not the
first to point out that the Obama campaign seems dangerously close to
becoming a cult of personality. We've already had that from the Bush
administration - remember Operation Flight Suit? We really don't want to go
there again.

What's particularly saddening is the way many Obama supporters seem happy
with the application of "Clinton rules" - the term a number of observers use
for the way pundits and some news organizations treat any action or
statement by the Clintons, no matter how innocuous, as proof of evil intent.


The prime example of Clinton rules in the 1990s was the way the press
covered Whitewater. A small, failed land deal became the basis of a
multiyear, multimillion-dollar investigation, which never found any evidence
of wrongdoing on the Clintons' part, yet the "scandal" became a symbol of
the Clinton administration's alleged corruption.

During the current campaign, Mrs. Clinton's entirely reasonable remark that
it took L.B.J.'s political courage and skills to bring Martin Luther King
Jr.'s dream to fruition was cast as some kind of outrageous denigration of
Dr. King.

And the latest prominent example came when David Shuster of MSNBC, after
pointing out that Chelsea Clinton was working for her mother's campaign - as
adult children of presidential aspirants often do - asked, "doesn't it seem
like Chelsea's sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way?" Mr.
Shuster has been suspended, but as the Clinton campaign rightly points out,
his remark was part of a broader pattern at the network. 

I call it Clinton rules, but it's a pattern that goes well beyond the
Clintons. For example, Al Gore was subjected to Clinton rules during the
2000 campaign: anything he said, and some things he didn't say (no, he never
claimed to have invented the Internet), was held up as proof of his alleged
character flaws.

For now, Clinton rules are working in Mr. Obama's favor. But his supporters
should not take comfort in that fact. 

For one thing, Mrs. Clinton may yet be the nominee - and if Obama supporters
care about anything beyond hero worship, they should want to see her win in
November. 

For another, if history is any guide, if Mr. Obama wins the nomination, he
will quickly find himself being subjected to Clinton rules. Democrats always
do. 

But most of all, progressives should realize that Nixonland is not the
country we want to be. Racism, misogyny and character assassination are all
ways of distracting voters from the issues, and people who care about the
issues have a shared interest in making the politics of hatred unacceptable.

One of the most hopeful moments of this presidential campaign came last
month, when a number of Jewish leaders signed a letter condemning the smear
campaign claiming that Mr. Obama was a secret Muslim. It's a good guess that
some of those leaders would prefer that Mr. Obama not become president;
nonetheless, they understood that there are principles that matter more than
short-term political advantage.

I'd like to see more moments like that, perhaps starting with strong
assurances from both Democratic candidates that they respect their opponents
and would support them in the general election. 

 

 <http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html> Copyright
2008 The New York Times Company <http://www.nytco.com/>  

 

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