Saturday, June 30, 2012

No war is won in a single battle

Nice to see one of our own in the NYT. Bill Scher of Liberal Oasis tells us How Liberals Win:
PRESIDENT OBAMA has endured much criticism of his legislative skills from his fellow progressives. His conciliatory approach has been compared unfavorably with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s gleeful pugnacity and Lyndon B. Johnson’s relentless arm-twisting. His willingness to strike deals with corporations has been tagged “business as usual.” Many progressives, frustrated over the past three years, have concluded that the political system is fundamentally broken because corporate power has been allowed to suffocate popular liberal policies.

But the Supreme Court’s upholding of Mr. Obama’s health care law reminds us that the president’s approach has achieved significant results. If his liberal critics paused to assess how he achieved such results, they would not see a system paralyzed by corporations; they would see that the most liberal reforms in more than 40 years have been brought about because Mr. Obama views corporate power as a force to bargain with, not an enemy to vanquish.
Read the whole thing because he's right. Let's not let historical amnesia get in the way of progress. Progress by definition is incremental and the historical equivalencies we draw all too often ignore the trade-offs that built to the better outcomes over time.

Adding, something is better than nothing, isn't it? [More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

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