Doyle McManus: Obama Gets Tough -- with Liberals
[Doyle McManus, Washington columnist for the Los Angeles Times, has reported on national and international issues from Washington for more than 25 years.]
For months, anxious Democrats have been asking why Barack Obama couldn't be more like Bill Clinton, their last successful president. Now Obama has gone and done something Clintonian by striking a compromise with Republicans to extend high-income tax cuts, and his own party's liberals are furiously accusing him of betraying their ideals.
That should come as no great surprise. Liberals often accused Clinton of the same sin — a bit of history many Democrats appear to have forgotten.
Clinton declared the era of big government over, cut spending on domestic programs, called for a balanced budget and compromised with Newt Gingrich on a welfare reform program that put a deadline on benefits for the poor.
"Ideological purity is for partisan extremists," he lectured his own party in 1995, sounding very much like Obama this week.
The result, back then, was an economic recovery and a handsome reelection — precisely the outcome Obama has in mind....
Read entire article at LA Times
For months, anxious Democrats have been asking why Barack Obama couldn't be more like Bill Clinton, their last successful president. Now Obama has gone and done something Clintonian by striking a compromise with Republicans to extend high-income tax cuts, and his own party's liberals are furiously accusing him of betraying their ideals.
That should come as no great surprise. Liberals often accused Clinton of the same sin — a bit of history many Democrats appear to have forgotten.
Clinton declared the era of big government over, cut spending on domestic programs, called for a balanced budget and compromised with Newt Gingrich on a welfare reform program that put a deadline on benefits for the poor.
"Ideological purity is for partisan extremists," he lectured his own party in 1995, sounding very much like Obama this week.
The result, back then, was an economic recovery and a handsome reelection — precisely the outcome Obama has in mind....