At Big Journalism, Frank Ross spots a howler from Robert Reich:
Former Obama economic advisor, Clinton Secretary of Labor, and Berkely Prof. Robert Reich claimed yesterday in his column at Salon.com that Fox News played a role in the conservative resurgence of 1994:
In December 1994, Bill Clinton proposed a so-called middle-class bill of rights including more tax credits for families with children, expanded retirement accounts, and tax-deductible college tuition. Clinton had lost his battle for healthcare reform. Even worse, by that time the Dems had lost the House and Senate. Washington was riding a huge anti-incumbent wave. Right-wing populists were the ascendancy, with Newt Gingrich and Fox News leading the charge. Bill Clinton thought it desperately important to assure Americans he was on their side.
But Prof. Reich overlooked one minor detail: Fox News Channel’s first broadcast wasn’t until October 7, 1996.
The plan for FNC wasn’t even outlined until January of 1996, so what could explain such a patently false claim? Is the professor suggesting that even in 1994, Fox News’ imminence did in fact play a role in the political upheaval of that year? Or is this a moment where Fox Derangement Syndrome enters the realm of full-blown paranoia?
Either way, where was Salon on this one to save Reich from himself? And would Prof. Reich tolerate fact-checking this poor from his college students?
Possibly — if Reich holds their view of history to the same standard as his own. As I wrote a year ago:
Reich has always had a way with words, as Jonathan Rauch spotted in a 1997 Slate article when he compared what Reich wrote in Locked In the Cabinet, Reich’s memoirs of his days as Bill Clinton’s labor secretary, with videotapes and transcripts of the actual events. Reich describes himself, as Jonah Goldberg wrote in Liberal Fascism (where I first discovered Rauch’s Slate article), as trapped in a Thomas Nast cartoon, “in constant battle with greedy fat cats, Social Darwinists, and Mr. Monopoly.” The actual transcripts and tapes describe a reality that’s far more pedestrian.But then such fantasies of the Reich Stuff make him right at home with Bill Clinton’s “meaning of is” postmodernism, Hillary Clinton’s fantasy snipers in Tuzla, and also President Obama, who as a candidate similarly misremembered at least one meeting with big business.
Or as Reich wrote in his memoirs, “I claim no higher truth than my own perceptions. This is how I lived it.”
Even if the rest of us remember things more than a little differently.
Here’s what I remember from 1994:
1) A world at relative peace, wondering where the hell all the communists went all of a sudden.
2) Lots and lots of debates about how best to spend “the peace dividend”. (Yes kids, in 1994, people really talked like that).
3) Lots of people scratching their head on how to make money with this new fangled inter-web thingy that was left over from the cold war.
And yet with all of that “salad days” crap and a lock on the House of Representatives, President Clinton didn’t quite make health care happen. Did he misspeak, mismaneuver?
No, old Bill was no slouch at the telepromter. That man knew how to lie and make you want it to be the truth, unlike the current President. Strategy? Frankly, the 1994 was pretty darn good by comparison to the train wreck of this iteration.
There was a plan, well written and publically published, and you know what – it was understandable( the fact that it was a crappy plan is not at the core of my argument).
Smartly and deftly, Bill had Hillary lead the effort and be the public face of the plan. I say “deft”, because had it worked, he would have gotten credit, but since it didn’t, she took the heat leaving his political capital largely intact( and for extra added karmic value, the shins she kicked on that gig is the main reason why she isn’t president right now).
Socialized medicine, in the best of conditions not only went nowhere, when it sank, it sucked a coalition under the waves that had ruled the country since Eisenhower. Nice work Bill!
Reich now wants to tell us that its the “evil fellows on the other side” who kept it from happening( as if that were even remotely possible! and yeah, I would love it if it were.), but I suspect that Reich knows full well who stopped it and it bugs him to know end. Its the big elephant in the room but no one wants to point it out. its not political parties, people or the media, its the American people and their basic good old common sense that did in both plans.
I want to be in the hotel room next to Reich when he wakes up in the middle of the night a fever sweat screaming as realizes that the populace of the country is more conservative than he ever thought possible.
The evidence is right there for all to see;two big hitters, two at bats and struck out each time. Socialized medicine is in effect, the “third rail” of Democrats as Social Security is to Republicans. its not that they cant have what they want, but Americans don’t trust them to do it, and since neither party is likely to trust the other side with key details ( see “Credit”) long enough to collaborate, then we are likely to remain in this situation for sometime to come.
And to that I say: Good.
RE: “Or as Reich wrote in his memoirs, ‘I claim no higher truth than my own perceptions. This is how I lived it.’ ”
This marvelous quote came sort of as a response to people noting that Reich’s recalling of his testimony before Congress conflicted with… the actual videotapes of the event!
I will never forget Bill kristol’s response to this on one of the Sunday’s –
“Well, there is one higher truth — and that is….. what actually happened!!”
I remember Reich on a TV interview when Bush was pitching Social Security Reform. Bush had made the claim that Social Security was in a “crises”. Ok, Crisis is a subjective word so there could be some disagreement. He then went on to say that there was no problem at all with Social Security funding, none, it was a all a myth. When he said it he glanced away and looked just like a little kid caught lying about the cookie jar.
He told that whopper while basically calling Bush a liar on the subject. Whatever you think about SS reform, whatever you think about Bush, it can be fairly objectively determined who was telling the truth about whether SS has/had a “problem” with long term funding. It doesn’t even depend of what the definition of “is” is.
This guy has no trouble at all flat out lying. Check out this speech where he admits what an honest politician would say about government run healthcare. Ask yourself, which side of the aisle has discussed the issues in such an honest manner. It is pretty revealing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJmpdboQcdU