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October 10, 2007
Justifications
The lies [of the Clintons] were not as bad as Bush's - WMDs and torture," writes Andrew Sullivan. "But the stakes were much lower. The arrogance and condescension of the healthcare debacle were revealing of a classically bad left-liberal mindset on Senator Clinton's part. She knows best; she always has; everyone else is part of the VRWC."
Check that passivity! As if the "healthcare debacle" was simply a result of the Clintons' "arrogance and condescension," and had nothing to do with a broad, coordinated attempt to smear, misrepresent, and, in Sullivan's own words, "torpedo" their health care plan.
I'm genuinely curious if this recitation of Clinton's personal failings is some sort of barely submerged explanation for why Sullivan published and championed a dishonest, fearmongering article meant to sink the Clinton health care plan -- and it was recognized as such even at the time. Thanks to The Atlantic's open archives, you can read the fairest man in journalism, James Fallows, take it apart in a feature article called "A Triumph of Misinformation." McCaughey's article, which Sullivan commissioned, published, and praised, was, Fallows said, "simply false." Yet Sullivan still touts it in his biography.
So what made that okay? The personal failings of the Clintons? Their "arrogance and condescension?" Sullivan now says that " I absolutely understand that the hard right was out to get [the Clintons]," and boasts that he "gave the hard right hell in the Clinton years." But that's not true. He was their ally, and an important one at that. He published an influential article which trampled the truth in order to sink Clinton's largest initiative -- an article so wrong, and so unfair, that the magazine he edited apologized for running it a decade later. And now he plays the innocent, and angrily attacks Hillary Clinton for acting as if there were, and are, people out to get her, and fears the return of the hateful polarization he helped cultivate.
Sullivan is, to be sure, a much better writer these days, possessed of sounder views and a more sober take on current events. But the past hasn't disappeared, and when talking about the Clintons, he owes his readers a more honest accounting of what took place. Maybe if articles like No Exit hadn't been published, and editors like Sullivan hadn't been out to get the Clintons, the Clintons wouldn't have acted as if articles No Exit were being published, and editors like Sullivan were out to get them.
October 10, 2007 | Permalink
Comments
Thank you Ezra. That needed saying. Sullivan's dodging and weaving on the subject of his raging hate-on for the Clintons is starting to look desperate.
Posted by: Ryan | Oct 10, 2007 12:17:52 PM
Every time I read Sully on torture and am tempted to think, hey, he's one of the good guys, I read him on Clinton and remind myself that Clinton derangement is still in full flower, even among "sensible" wingers. He is in deep, deep denial about that article. Has he *ever* acknowledged its blatant falsehoods and ideological agenda?
Posted by: Steve | Oct 10, 2007 12:21:59 PM
AMEN!
Posted by: JoeCHI | Oct 10, 2007 12:22:22 PM
Does anyone have a theory that explains Andrew Sullivan's intense and visceral hatred of Hillary Clinton? I have heard him talk about her in a number of TV appearances, and it almost seems as if she constantly deprived him of his lunch money in grade school.
Posted by: gregor | Oct 10, 2007 12:33:48 PM
Hey Ezra:
The Atlantic doesn't have an open archive policy. The link you posted brings me to a firewall and asks me to subscribe. If that's right, you may need to update the post.
NW
Posted by: Nate W. | Oct 10, 2007 12:48:42 PM
I too got the subscribers-only firewall, but try this link for the Fallows article:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/199501/hillary-clinton-health-plan
Posted by: Glenn | Oct 10, 2007 12:54:02 PM
While Sullivan overstates the case, attacks liberals in general for Hillary's screw up, I do agree that she blew it.
Let's not forget that her commission was closed to the public, hatched the plan in secret, had no PR plan, got rolled by the health care industry like that was some sort of surprise and, generally, she blew it. She blew it.
Yeah, the right and the health care industry also are to blame. But Hillary showed an elitism that we should avoid.
God I hope she's not the nominee!
Posted by: AlphaLiberal | Oct 10, 2007 12:57:54 PM
Some choice chunks from the Fallows article, Nate:
Much of the problem for the plan seemed, at least in Washington, to come not even from mandatory alliances but from an article by Elizabeth McCaughey, then of the Manhattan Institute, published in The New Republic last February. The article's working premise was that McCaughey, with no ax to grind and no preconceptions about health care, sat down for a careful reading of the whole Clinton bill. Appalled at the hidden provisions she found, she felt it her duty to warn people about what the bill might mean. The title of her article was "No Exit," and the message was that Bill and Hillary Clinton had proposed a system that would lock people in to government-run care. "The law will prevent you from going outside the system to buy basic health coverage you think is better," McCaughey wrote in the first paragraph. "The doctor can be paid only by the plan, not by you."....
These claims, McCaughey's and Will's, were simply false. McCaughey's pose of impartiality was undermined by her campaign as the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor of New York soon after her article was published. I was less impressed with her scholarly precision after I compared her article with the text of the Clinton bill. Her shocked claim that coverage would be available only for "necessary" and "appropriate" treatment suggested that she had not looked at any of today's insurance policies. In claiming that the bill would make it impossible to go outside the health plan or pay doctors on one's own, she had apparently skipped past practically the first provision of the bill (Sec. 1003), which said,"Nothing in this Act shall be construed as prohibiting the following: (1) An individual from purchasing any health care services."
It didn't matter. The White House issued a point-by-point rebuttal, which The New Republic did not run. Instead it published a long piece by McCaughey attacking the White House statement. The idea of health policemen stuck.
Posted by: Warren Terra | Oct 10, 2007 1:03:06 PM
The true problem with Hillary's health care plan was that it was too easy to attack with cheap rhetoric.
Had it been a much simpler to explain and understand plan, like National Health Insurance, rather than the comlicated hodge podge it was, I think it stood a better chance of passing.
Posted by: Hesiod | Oct 10, 2007 1:03:07 PM
I come at it from tne left, but I actually have some common ground with Sullivan on Hillary's health care debacle.
Look, her plan stunk. Seriously, it stunk. It stunk because she and her husband are essentially conservatives who believe, either as a matter of principle or because they cower in fear of losing campaign contributions, that the primary purpose of activist government is to enrich business and only the secondary purpose is to help people. As a result, they decided that any health insurance plan that actually pays for care, rather than paying profiteering middlemen who might kick back some of the profits to the Clintons in campaign contributions, was off the table.
Once you do that, yes, a health care plan with the features Sullivan hates is inevitable. Either you have to have an employer mandate or an individual mandate. Either way, I can see how a Clinton-hater will read this as consistent with the general belief that the Clintons think they know what's best for us. And by the way, that is not an unreasonable criticism of the Clintons-- they wasted a lot of presidential effort on stupid local issues like school uniforms; they really do have a micromanaging tendency that can be very aggravating.
Posted by: Dilan Esper | Oct 10, 2007 1:03:12 PM
Let's not forget that her commission was closed to the public, hatched the plan in secret, had no PR plan, got rolled by the health care industry like that was some sort of surprise and, generally, she blew it. She blew it.
A lot of people could stand to read this article before they start repeating old myths about "secret plans."
Posted by: Steve | Oct 10, 2007 1:03:49 PM
AlphaLiberal, I suggest you read Fallows' article, or the recent one in TAP by Paul Starr, for a little factual reality check.
Posted by: Glenn | Oct 10, 2007 1:03:57 PM
AlphaLiberal, I'm not backing Hillary for the nomination and I agree with your characterization of the 90's health care struggle as a badly bungled political debacle.
But the point is that Sullivan acted and still acts as if the proposed policy was itself somehow unusually dictatorial and high-handed (the policy, as opposed to Hillary's demeanor), and this really wasn't the case. The plan, for all its multitudinous warts, was very much a compromise proposal, and (according to a recent piece on Ira Magaziner, in the Atlantic if I recall) the intent was very much for further dickering to occur in Congress.
Posted by: Warren Terra | Oct 10, 2007 1:09:03 PM
I stand corrected. I'm thinking of the article in the Prospect repeatedly cited above.
Posted by: Warren Terra | Oct 10, 2007 1:10:02 PM
The other day Sullivan attacked HRC for having Sandy Berger as an adviser - Sullivan buys the rabid RW take on Berger's letter-of-the-law crime. My guess is that he doesn't have the intellectual chops or honesty to systematically rid himself of his old views despite his slow realization of the awfulness of the hard right.
Posted by: rilkefan | Oct 10, 2007 1:14:05 PM
I think Dilan Esper is on the right track.
I always say the Clinton was the best Republican president we've had since Ike.
Posted by: Jim | Oct 10, 2007 1:15:12 PM
The problem with Andrew Sullivan is that, even after all of these years in Washington, he has a teenager’s level of political naivete. Shovel him some lofty rhetoric and Lincolnian ideals and he’ll buy into anything you say: Clinton’s ‘92 Charm, The Iraq War, Obama’s Audacity of Hope. But once scorned, Sullivan has no time for differences in degree. If you let him down, you’re going to be eviscerated, regardless of whether your misttep was an Oval Office blow job or a catastrophic invasion that has cost nearly 4,000 lives.
Posted by: sean | Oct 10, 2007 1:18:11 PM
I agree with Atrios.
Posted by: kindness | Oct 10, 2007 1:18:11 PM
Looks like the name should be "AlphaWinger"
Posted by: Jenna's Bush | Oct 10, 2007 1:22:26 PM
Hillary's health care plan was ridiculously complicated and she mis-managed the politics horribly. And I hope she's not the nominee.
But that in no way justifies the personal, misleading and sneaky attacks that Sully launches in this case. Just because he happens to dislike torture doesn't mean that he hasn't had a long and dishonorable track record of getting facts wrong both as a writer and an editor. And a long and sleazy track record as a cheap shot artist. And as one of the "fifth column" I'd prefer that he'd be treated as a pariah.
Posted by: Samuel Knight | Oct 10, 2007 1:24:11 PM
Look, read Sullivan's post, and you'll see he recommends her for a place on the SUPREME COURT of the United States. That's not a deranged Hillary-hater right there; rather, he's using his facts to support his opinion that she'd make a tedious president. Debating him on that message is fine; but Ezra goes overboard here and instead attacks the messenger (Sullivan) himself. Here's my view: those who are constantly attacking Senator Clinton's critics as "Hillary haters" are themselves lacking a kind of psychological probity that they accuse others of lacking; that is, they are themselves so sold on her that they're exhibiting the rational deficiency that they casually accuse Hillary's critics of harboring. What I can't figure out is if they're just on her dole, or starstruck by her glamour.
Posted by: DC | Oct 10, 2007 1:25:01 PM
Um, wait. People still read Sullivan?
Posted by: Garrigus mac Gháiríog | Oct 10, 2007 1:40:38 PM
Sullivan truly is irrational on the subject of the Clintons. Why? I'm sure there's a reason, but I can't figure it out.
Several months ago, Sullivan was on Matthews, and stated, "Hillary has the cooties." Seriously. That's an exact quote. If you saw tape of yourself saying that on national tv, during a serious discussion, wouldn't you feel shame? embarrassment? The need to examine root causes of your illogical feelings?
Posted by: Barry in MIA | Oct 10, 2007 1:42:56 PM
NEVER forget that wanker Sullivan wrote:
"decadent left enclaves on the coasts [that] may well mount a fifth column."
I did not know this (from Salon by David Talbot Oct. 20, 2001):
"Earlier this year, Sullivan was exposed by the gay press for advertising for "bareback" sex (unprotected by condoms) in an AOL chat room and denounced as a hypocrite by his liberal gay critics for engaging in risky sexual practices after attacking President Clinton for his own incautious behavior."
The guy has severe asshole tendencies.
Posted by: Hypatia | Oct 10, 2007 1:44:49 PM
NEVER forget that wanker Sullivan wrote:
"decadent left enclaves on the coasts [that] may well mount a fifth column."
I did not know this (from Salon by David Talbot Oct. 20, 2001):
"Earlier this year, Sullivan was exposed by the gay press for advertising for "bareback" sex (unprotected by condoms) in an AOL chat room and denounced as a hypocrite by his liberal gay critics for engaging in risky sexual practices after attacking President Clinton for his own incautious behavior."
The guy has severe asshole tendencies.
Posted by: Hypatia | Oct 10, 2007 1:45:41 PM
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