E. J. Dionne, Jr.: Echo Chamber

[babylonsister]

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=7987126a-7ff9-41c0-a6d0-9f0e44ffbc8c

Echo Chamber by E.J. Dionne Jr.
Bill Clinton used to sound a lot like Barack Obama, which makes his recent outbursts all the more disheartening.

snip//

None of it justifies the counterproductive behavior. Does anyone doubt that if Hillary Clinton wins the nomination, she will need the votes of the young people and African-Americans who have rallied to Obama--and that what she's doing now will make it harder to energize them? Doesn't calling in Bill Clinton as the lead attacker merely underscore Obama's central theme, that it's time to "turn the page" on our Bush-Clinton-Bush political past?

And with both Clintons on record saying kind things about Reagan, why go after Obama on the point? Honestly: If Obama is a Reaganite, then I am a salamander.

Yet there was Hillary Clinton's campaign, unveiling a radio ad on Wednesday implying that Obama bought into such ideas as "refusing to raise the minimum wage." Come on, guys.

The worst thing about all this is what both Clintons are doing to their own legacy as pioneers of an approach that rejected, as Bill Clinton said in a 1991 speech, "the stale orthodoxies of left and right." The great asset shared by both Clintons is their willingness to bring fresh thinking to old problems.

"Our new choice plainly rejects the old categories and false alternatives they impose," Bill Clinton added in that 1991 address in which he offered a long list of new ideas. "Is what I just said to you liberal or conservative? The truth is, it is both, and it is different. It rejects the Republicans' attacks and the Democrats' previous unwillingness to consider new alternatives."

Pretty good stuff, still. Why should either Clinton attack Obama for facing some of the same truths that both of them taught their party so long ago?

[depakid]

1. Echo chamber is right

and E.J. Dionne exemplifies the very worst of it- in a beltway sort of way.