Will Pitt Interview with Sidney Blumenthal

[La_Serpiente]

Interview: Sidney Blumenthal with William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Interview

Monday 8 December 2004

Sidney Blumenthal was a former assistant and senior advisor to President Clinton. He is the author of several books, including ‘The Permanent Campaign,’ ‘The Rise of the Counter-Establishment,’ ‘Our Long National Daydream,’ ‘Pledging Allegiance – The Last Campaign of the Cold War,’ and most recently ‘The Clinton Wars.’ This interview took place two days before Thanksgiving. – wrp

WRP: My editor and I had a series of discussions about this interview. He believes, as I do, that this administration will succeed in the upcoming election if they are allowed to use the divide-and-conquer tactics that were so successful in the 2002 midterms. He was concerned that discussing the Clinton administration would play into this tactic, since many Americans have been well-trained to hate Bill Clinton. In your opinion, how might an argument be framed that explains the reality of the Clinton legacy without playing into those divisions?

SB: The legacy of the Clinton administration serves as a marker to measure what Bush has done, his efforts to roll back the social gains made by the American people. In every single area, the accomplishments of the Clinton administration stand as a rebuke to Bush on the environment, in the law and appointments to the courts, on women’s rights, on labor rights – just yesterday, Congress voted to repeal overtime for workers, mainly the working poor.

The record of the Clinton administration should be made clear to people: Not only are we talking about 22 million new jobs, the longest expansion of economic prosperity in the country’s history, but we are also talking about the greatest rise in family income in real wages in a generation and a half, and a reduction of poverty by 25%, the greatest reduction since the Great Society brought the elderly out of poverty. This came largely through Medicare, a program Bush has begun to systematically unravel.

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Interview