Conor Friedersdorf has an interesting — and in places unintentionally amusing — piece at The Atlantic, “‘Hillary 2016′ Has Never Made Sense For Democrats,” criticizing Democrats for annointing Hillary even though she has taken numerous positions at variance with the current inclinations of “the base.” She voted for the Iraq war, is cozy with Wall Street, and “on social issues like gay marriage and police misconduct her approach has been to lag public opinion rather than to lead it toward an embrace of progressive reforms.”
When did “police misconduct” become a “social issue”? Oh well, it is Democrats we’re discussing here.
Friedersdorf also notes — apparently with a straight face, no sense of irony, no fear that by so doing he is setting himself up to appear hypocritical, hyper-partisan, or oblivious (or some combination) — that “Democrats disdained George W. Bush for the Patriot Act, his expansive views on executive power, and his awful record on transparency.”
No, they disdained him for being George W. Bush and a Republican. If Democrats really objected to a president’s “expansive views on executive power” and an “awful record on transparency,” at least one or two of them or their journalists might have criticized our current president, whose “expansive views on executive power” makes both Bush’s and Nixon’s pale in comparison, as well as his administration’s unparalleled record of dodging public access to its actions.
