Amusing Joe Scarborough anecdote about moderate Democrats

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

Paraphrasing...

"One year I was up against one of these Democrats who was running as a centrist. In our debate I got him to say he was against the Clinton health-care plan, and that he was against don't ask don't tell and that he was against the Clinton tax plan. Then I asked him whether he had even voted for Clinton in 1992. These guys that stand for nothing are incredibly easy to tip over."

[Larkspur]

1. Harry Truman figured that out long before Douche-borough was born

[wyldwolf]

2. Harry Truman was a moderate Democrat

[Larkspur]

6. Yesterday's moderate Dem is today's Progressive Dem

Harry Truman was also one of Howard Dean's political heros.

[wyldwolf]

8. Really? Surely you jest

Today's progressive Dem share Truman's internationalism foreign policy? His religious zeal? His endorsement of the NRA? And Truman was also a political hero of George W. Bush.

Is your point progressive Dems are more conservative today than they were on Truman's day?

[MissMarple]

9. Religious zeal? Harry was called "Give 'em hell" Harry for a reason.

"We have gone a long way toward civilization and religious tolerance, and we have a good example in this country. Here the many Protestant denominations, the Catholic Church and the Greek Orthodox Church do not seek to destroy one another in physical violence just because they do not interpret every verse of the Bible in exactly the same way. Here we now have the freedom of all religions, and I hope that never again will we have a repetition of religious bigotry, as we have had in certain periods of our own history. There is no room for that kind of foolishness here."

Harry S. Truman, 1960

While he may not reach the current standard of religious open mindedness, for 1960 he was not a wing nut about religion. He was and Jimmy Carter is Southern Baptist. So big deal. And was the NRA as crazy then as they appear to be now? And George Bush also claimed Teddy Roosevelt as a hero. Go figure.

And, yes, many progressive Dems today are a bit different from the ones of earlier times. The goals are pretty much the same though. Republicans are a whole lot different, though. At least the saner ones are. The deep pocket people don't really care about the working and middle classes, didn't then, don't now.

Additionally: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_S._Truman (The whole piece is interesting, especially the parts about
his family and the Civil War. I had no idea we had civilian internment camps back then.)


"As a Wilsonian internationalist, Truman strongly supported the creation of the United Nations, and included former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt on the delegation to the U.N.'s first General Assembly in order to meet the public desire for peace after the carnage of World War II. Faced with Communist abandonment of commitments to democracy made at the Potsdam Conference, and with Communist advances in Greece (leading to the Greek Civil War) and in Turkey that suggested a hunger for global domination, Truman and his foreign policy advisors concluded that the interests of the Soviet Union were quickly becoming incompatible with those of the United States. The Truman administration articulated an increasingly hard line against the Soviets.

Although he claimed no personal expertise on foreign matters, and although the opposition Republicans controlled the United States Congress, Truman was able to win bipartisan support for both the Truman Doctrine, which formalised a policy of containment, and the Marshall Plan, which aimed to help rebuild postwar Europe. To get Congress to spend the vast sums necessary to restart the moribund European economy, Truman used an ideological argument, arguing forcefully that Communism flourishes in economically deprived areas. His goal was to "scare the hell out of Congress."<87> As part of the U.S. Cold War strategy, Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947 and reorganized military forces by merging the Department of War and the Department of the Navy into the National Military Establishment (later the Department of Defense) and creating the U.S. Air Force. The act also created the CIA and the National Security Council."

I won't argue with you about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was controversial then and it is now.

[wyldwolf]

16. uh... yeah. He was quite religious...

From a fundamentalist Southern Baptist background, once told the Pope the US is a "Christian Nation," he memorized a prayer in high school and said it through most of his life. In a 1952 meeting in the White House, Harry Truman told visiting ministers, ""You can't go wrong if you found your principles on the fifth, sixth and seventh chapters of the Gospel of Matthew."

The NRA has always been about gun rights. Democrats of the time were for gun rights. The progressive movement had not yet latched onto gun control as an issue and the NRA today is at least partially a reaction to that.

Uh huh. Of course Truman was an adherent of Wilsonian Liberal Internationalism, what the DLC today calls Progressive Internationalism, which has been the essential rationale behind every war we've been in since WWI. He was staunchly anti-communist and pro-Israel.

If he were alive today, some progressives would call him a Dino. Some on DU have called him neocon (though Ken Burch once said he couldn't technically had been a neocon because didn't have a past on the left)

[MissMarple]

23. I think it hard to paint yesterday's Democrats with today's paintbox.

I've never had harsh feelings about Truman. Being a Democrat or progressive then is different from what it is today, I agree. I don't know how progressive he was at that time, but he does appear to be more pragmatic than idealistic progressives are today. I'm guessing we wouldn't have Social Security or the later Medicare if he had been president instead of Roosevelt, which of course, he wouldn't have been. I think he was a guy from Missouri who was of his time, who had some very big shoes to fill. Looking back is easy, I just don't know how to put myself in that milieu without doing a great deal of research, and probably I still wouldn't get it right.

About neocons, they tend to be control freaks, social engineers, manipulators and power hungry fanatics of the worst sort. I'm not seeing Truman as one of them. To term him a DINO, we would have to put him in his own time with his peers and judge him there, not here. Was party purity such a vaunted thing then, among Democrats?

Truman was a Freemason, to be so indicates the acceptance of religious tolerance. We can all disagree with things personally about religious belief, but overall, I don't think recommending the chapters of the bible as a guide is too over the top, especially then. But, having said that, I suppose I should actually read those chapters before committing myself irrevocably. I also need to read a book that has been on my "to read" shelf for way to long, Witcover's "Party of the People". Maybe I'll know a bit more about what I'm trying to say. Hopefully, it may be of use in the perspective department. ;)

[wyldwolf]

24. point being

... Truman was a pro-military anti-communist religious southern baptist. Ideologically, he'd be more like Joe Lieberman (the Joe Lieberman of old) than Dennis Kucinich.

[MissMarple]

25. Well, all right, then.

:)

[Larkspur]

26. My mother was Catholic and a Democrat and she loved Harry Truman

She was proud to vote for him in 1948. My mother also served in the US Army in World War II and supported the dropping of the Atomic bomb on the Japanese until the day she died. The Japanese started the war, employed the use of Kamikazee pilots even though they knew that they were going to lose the war, and the military commanders didn't want to surrender to the Americans anyway. It was the Emperor who forced them to surrender after the 2nd bomb was dropped. The Japanese military commanders were willing to play chicken with the US military over the atomic bombs.

My mother considered herself a liberal. Because of her Catholic beliefs, she opposed abortion, but she supported other feminist causes, like equal pay for equal work. She also supported unions.

World War II turned a lot of Democrats, like Truman, into hawks. Fascism was a serious threat and after World War II, they saw Communism filling in the vaccum created by the collapse of Fascism. The Communists, like Stalin, were no angels themselves, so they needed to be treated as a serious threat.

[wyldwolf]

27. so?

:shrug:

Regardless of who your mother loved, and regardless of why you believe Truman was as he was, Truman was a pro-military anti-communist religious southern baptist. Ideologically, he'd be more like Joe Lieberman (the Joe Lieberman of old) than Dennis Kucinich.

[MissMarple]

29. More like Lieberman, not like Lieberman. Israel could be a sticking point.

Times change, I wonder what Truman would think of Israel today.

[Larkspur]

34. Or more like Al Gore

who is also a Southern Baptist and was considered a hawk.

Lieberman is a douchebag who loves fascist Republicans. Truman proudly rebuked Republicans and Democrats like Lieberman who masqueraded as Republican-lite.

Truman would despise Lieberman today.

[wyldwolf]

35. sure, but you did gloss over something I said

The Joe Lieberman of old (like I specifically said) was very much like Al Gore.

[Larkspur]

36. Lieberman was always a douchebag

William Buckley supported Lieberman's first campaign for US Senate in 1988 because Buckley wanted Lowell Weicker ousted. Weicker support the impeachment of Prez Nixon. Lieberman has been a Repub patsy from Day 1. Truman was never a Repub patsy.

[wyldwolf]

38. Then Al Gore was quite the douchebag early on, too

Lieberman has been a Repub patsy from Day 1

Lakespur, you're not entitled to your own facts.

[Larkspur]

39. And you are not entitled to your facts

Al Gore started out as a very conservative Southern Bapatist senator from TN, but unlike Lieberman, he evolved some of his positions, like on his opposition to abortion. Gore also opposed the Bush-Lieberman war against Iraq, and in Sept. 2002 gave the elder statesman reasons why to oppose it.

Lieberman was chosen by Gore as kind of a PR gimmic. If Gore won the presidency he'd be credited with choosing the first Jewish VP. Lieberman was also suppose to help with winning over Jewish voters in FL and being a olive branch to Al From and the DLC leaders who hated Al Gore.

[wyldwolf]

40. One only has to look at the voting records of the two to see what the facts are.

And they are most definitely not in your favor. :)

ignored: standard "progressive" irrelevant rant against the DLC

Al Gore circa 1999 (senate votes included):

http://web.archive.org/web/20000815071536/issues2000.org/Al_Gore.htm#Headlines

Joe Lieberman circa 1999:

http://web.archive.org/web/20001201212300/issues2000.org/Joseph_Lieberman.htm

Like I said, but you can't admit - virtually identical. :)

[demhistorian]

41. archive.org is a gem. Case closed!

late 80s - 2000 - Gore and Lieberman were two peas in a pod.

[MissMarple]

28. Thank you. My mother and step dad were big D Democrats. They never said a word against Truman.

Daddy was a physician on a hospital ship in the Pacific. Mama said his ship helped the very few survivors from the ship the Sullivan brothers were on. I think that affected him. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were never mentioned. Mama was a WAC as a nursing student at the University of Kansas, but aside from a picture, I have no information on that. The only thing mama ever said about the war, except for conditions at home, was she still couldn't like or trust the Japanese. I think it was a visceral thing. My step dad didn't talk about it excepting for some of his experiences in Shanghai just after the war ended, and about a fellow physician friend. They did not raise any of us to be prejudiced, quite the contrary!

Tragic times, much different times, but human decency and understanding run true and strong. Yes they do. :)

[Enthusiast]

20. +1!

[demhistorian]

42. -2

[Odin2005]

32. the DLC would call his domestic policies "Extreme Fringe Left"

[SoxFan]

37. +1

Three quarters of DU would scream that he's a warmongering cracker and vow to support Henry Wallace.

[wyldwolf]

3. Interesting someone would go to Scarborough for leverage against moderate Democrats

Try as he did, he didn't tip over Bill Clinton.

[winstars]

4. TIP OVER EASY??? ARE YOU KIDDING SCARFACE!!!

Those are not the words I would choose after A FUCKING DEAD INTERN WAS FOUND DEAD IN MY OFFICE!!!! Lori Klastuis (sp) slipped and hit her head by accident right JOEY SCAR???

[depakid]

15. No, he and others just got Clinton to go along with their dysfunctional policies!

which puts responsibility for much of what has happened since squarely on his administrations shoulders.

[wyldwolf]

17. many of those policies Clinton ran for office on

[depakid]

18. Yep- he ran on financial, media and energy deregulation

:eyes:

Like Obama ran on Romney care with health benefits taxation!

[wyldwolf]

19. regardless of how you feel about the policies

many of them you don't like (welfare reform, for example), he ran on. :shrug:

[depakid]

21. "Feel" has nothing to do with it...

[wyldwolf]

22. umm... ok

[polichick]

5. Yep - if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything. nt

[11 Bravo]

7. The Scar went on to say, "Then one day I killed an intern, and after that it all went to shit."

[Cali_Democrat]

10. I stopped reading at "amusing Joe Scarborough anecdote"

nt

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

11. Your inability to read for nuance is noted.

[Cali_Democrat]

13. Thanks!

:)

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

12. A comment on the replies here...

The point of the anecdote is not that Joe Scarborough is a good guy.

The point is that we are in a similar situation to the mid-1990s and that a lot of Democrats are seeking the supposed magical powers of the "Republican Lite" talisman as if that is how you avoid defeat in this sort of climate.

The anecdote is offered as an example of how non-terrified Republican assholes are of the self-styled Democratic centrist.

(I think it was Bill Parcells who said it is usually smart to do what your opponent is afraid you might do because your opponent often knows his weaknesses better than you do.)

We are going to have a few hundred races against Joe Scarborough types and they are not going to be quaking in their boots at the prospect of running against Dems who are afraid to admit they're Dems.

[MissMarple]

30. You've got that right. Dems need to be clear on what their role needs to be.

Republican Lite, no such thing, or Dem Lite, again, no such thing. You either know what your goals are...or not. The GOP is certainly working for theirs. How the Dems do this is divisive among the democratic faithful, and the elected Dem Lite need to take one for the team or be benched. How we do this is important. Getting it right is important.

[demhistorian]

43. The anecdote is offered as an example of how (continued)

non-terrified OUT OF OFFICE Republican assholes are of the self-styled Democratic centrist and the self-style progressives.

[depakid]

14. +1000

That's the problem right there in a nutshell.

[winstars]

31. Completely agree!!!

We need people who are not afraid to take a strong stand on the Dem side...

[Doremus]

33. Scar's going to be talking about his few years in Congress the rest of his pathetic life.

It's a broken record: "When I was in Congress.... yadda yadda...."

:puke: :puke: