Seduce the seducer
BROOKS, DAVID
Seduce the Seducer by David Brooks Have you ever seen a president so hungry for a notable place in history? Bill Clinton can't stop talking about how history will regard him, as if he wants the...
...This time the liberal groups seem to be going along with the Clinton cuts with nary a peep...
...The Republicans tried to beat Clinton into submission in 1995, but the power of the presidency is simply too strong...
...They are accustomed to thinking about politics as a warlike (or at least football-like) struggle...
...This seduction strategy does not come easily to Republicans...
...It's hard for a congressional party to intimidate a president in the best of circumstances...
...Senior Editor David Brooks is a commentator for National Public Radio's "All Things Considered...
...In short, if Republicans can give Clinton a stab at eternal popularity, he will ratify conservative beliefs ("The era of big government is over") and moderately advance the conservative agenda...
...Moreover, they are, like all politicians, partisans...
...But on matters amenable to compromise, the Republicans should be able to sweet-talk the president into climbing into the conservative bed...
...They're terrified of splitting the Democratic party lest it produce even a short period of Republican dominance...
...But they would set precedents (in this case that some sort of abortion should be illegal) and defrost opposition to more ambitious reforms that could come down the road...
...The AFL-CIO went ballistic, launching its radio and TV blitz...
...If Republicans make Clinton look historic, he will come a long way toward adopting their positions...
...Clinton is the enemy...
...So he has proposed slowing the growth of Medicare by $138 billion over six years—a slowdown exactly halfway between his proposal in 1995 and the Republican proposal...
...And the GOP leaders have accepted the offer as a first step, as they should...
...If you want him to adopt your policies, give the man a little love...
...Pound the other guys...
...They're still angry about his campaign against their Medicare savings plan, and they know they can never trust him...
...Clinton seems amenable to some act that would encourage adoption in place of abortion, and he would like some face-saving compromise on partial-birth abortion...
...But now Clinton doesn't want a fight...
...Bill Clinton can't stop talking about how history will regard him, as if he wants the affection of future generations as cravenly as he seeks the love of his own...
...Well, if he wants love so badly, the least the Republicans can do is give it to him...
...Without Clinton, the Republicans could never devise such an effective way to silence liberal opposition...
...That would allow Clinton to go down in history as the man who modernized the Democratic party and began to reshape government...
...But that strategy won't work over the next few years...
...For if there is one thing the past few years have taught us, it is that if Republicans hand Bill Clinton political victories, he will hand them policy victories...
...So let the Republicans offer him four years of historic accomplishments—on the model of the welfare-reform bill...
...Grannies would be thrown from their beds...
...There are many other policy areas in which Clinton could be given lavish credit for pushing moderately conservative reforms...
...Clinton is no longer the enemy...
...On taxes he could be the author of tax reductions for education and capital gains (the Republicans have been trying to get the latter for a decade with no success...
...Stay on offense...
...And given the current media environment, Bill Clinton's political skill, and Newt Gingrich's unpopularity, it's foolish to think the Republicans can consistently beat Clinton in head-on battles...
...Moreover whenever Clinton signs up for moderate reforms, the Left grows strangely silent...
...There are bound to be black-and-white disputes in which confrontation is the only strategy—on the balanced budget amendment, for example, which Treasury secretary Robert Rubin is committed to opposing...
...They've come to believe their own propaganda about how evil the Republicans are...
...The congressional leadership genuinely does not like the president...
...The Republican response to Clinton's new Medicare proposal is a small step in the right direction...
...But the last thing this Rush-more wannabe wants is four years of deadlock, because that would limit his "historic" achievements...
...He wants a historic accomplishment—a budget agreement that will end the deficit...
...If they allow him to appear statesmanlike and above the fray, he will undercut the congressional Democrats much of the time...
...Last year, some of you may recall, the Republicans and Clinton shut down the government in large part over the size of Medicare cuts...
...None of these measures sets conservative hearts racing, and some would be morally offensive to them: A Clinton-friendly partial-birth abortion bill would have huge loopholes...
...Play tough...
Vol. 2 • February 1997 • No. 20
