Over at TPM Cafe is this post that surprised me if for no other reason than the fact that there are still people out there talking about the Clinton-Blair "Third Way".* One would have thought that the spectacular failures of neo-liberalism - in reforming the Russian and Eastern-European economies; in creating a global trade regime that was just, equitable, and recognized both environmental concerns and substantively protected workers' rights; to create serious, lasting fiscal and monetary policies that recognized the necessity for discipline and moderation; not so much "ending welfare as we know it" as "tossing people off the rolls and not caring what happens to them" - would have silenced those who still might want to push such an agenda. Of course, as the last six years have proven over and over again, our elites do not let little things like abject failure, political, public policy, and managerial incompetence, and moral vacuousness get in the way of a really good slogan, and apparently the Third Wayers are, like this as in much else, more like Republicans than Democrats.
The truth is, there really was no "Third Way"; it was a rhetorical device used by Blair, but adopted by Clinton to cover a whole host of policy initiatives that were not necessarily hard-core conservative but certainly not liberal in the traditional sense of the term.
The one area where I thought at one time there might be a success was on reigning in fiscal indiscipline and monetary tight-fistedness. The 1990's economic boom showed what can happen when sound tax, fiscal, and monetary policies combine to stoke the engines of the economy. If the Clinton years showed us nothing else, they showed us that anti-tax ideology is simply an illusion; even the slightly progressive readjustments made during Clinton's first term - raising the marginal rates on top earners, increasing the Earned Income Tax Credit for the working poor, and increasing incentives for middle-income wage-earners to save and invest - combined with a stern discipline on spending and a Federal Reserve that saw its role as staying out of the way of economic expansion - could create an economic juggernaut. Not only have these gains been lost, we are in much worse shape than we were six years ago, and the attempt to make the Bush tax policies permanent would be a horrific blow to any kind of serious economic recovery.
Having said all that, the author's point that such talk might have served us well 15 years ago but is irrelevant now is a good one. Part of the irrelevancy comes from simple historical comparisons - which Administration has served the United States better, Republican or Democratic? Which Administration pursued substantive policies in the interest of the country as a whole, reflected in the success of the country as a whole? Which Administration and its policies is supported by a larger percentage of the American people?
The Third Way leads down a dead-end road, and we are well rid of it. Right-wing Democrats who still quake in their boots over anything that might possibly be construed as "liberal" or (God forbid!) "progressive", and who insist that the left must be tamed if Democrats are to win elections again (this includes non-partisan pundit/hacks like Joe Klein) are just plain wrong, and should not be listened to at any cost. The times they are a-changing, and we need to move more of the Democratic Party with us.
*Apparently Bush's Poodle in Downing Street has discovered a Fourth Way, and its called "Do Whatever the American President Does, No Matter Who That Is". Thankfully for us, Blair's toadying is not appreciated by Britons. It is one thing to recognize that one is not a world power any more and defer to one's more powerful allies. It is another to take tht to the extreme of aping that more powerful allies' more stupid and destructive policies.
