Beware the Bathwater

The forthcoming electoral deluge is already laying the groundwork for electoral reaction a few years down the road. The liberal commentariat has been chaffing under the burden of the center-right quality of the American electorate, since, oh, say, President Kennedy's short term of office, and even then it had to accept the idea of what looks today suspiciously like supply-side tax cuts. Johnson was pretty good, they usually say, except for that Vietnam War thingy he got tangled up in. On the whole, the Johnson Administration, from the liberal view point, was just about right on domestic policy and the great tide of social welfare programs it produced. Since then, even when Democrats won, they had to be satisfied with the half-measures of the Carter and Clinton presidencies. (By the way, is it just me, or does Bill Clinton's presidency look better by the minute? All that careful triangulation looks quite acceptable compared to what's coming down the road after January 20.)

E.J. Dionne looks at the coming November 4 wave constitutes an implosion of the GOP and a fundamental re-writing of the laws of American political gravity. The brave new dawn of American liberalism is at hand.

Maybe. But I would caution these folks that drinking one's own bathwater is disgusting and unhealthy. We are in the midst of one of the great economic dramas of American history and those who see anything but fog in this situation are kidding themselves. The American character, with its inherent skepticism of solutions emanating from central government, remains very much intact. Hence the public's decisive rejection of the bailout package by a 3-to-1 margin in opinion polling. And, is it just me, or do others have a growing sense the public policy toolbag might be just about empty? There has to be a limit to what government, whose asset is the American economy, can borrow and spend to ameliorate the condition of the financial system and, coming soon to a life near yours, the real economy of production and consumption. I suspect we are closer to end than the start of that amelioration process.

In this light, what, exactly is President Obama going to do? People can't eat his rhetoric, no matter how sweet and beautiful it is and the rest of the cupboard is bare. Raise taxes? No, that invites disaster and Hoover's lesson has not escaped even committed redistributionists. Higher spending? I think we have or will shortly reach some sort of ceiling in that department. What, then?

One thing is for certain. Look for a very hasty withdrawal from Iraq and a scaling back of the Afghanistan operations as budget imperatives meet philosphical predisposition. We are cursed to live in interesting times.