Paul Begala: An Honest Liberal

You might remember Paul Begala as the dorky half of the Carville-Begala team that served as political advisors and hit-men in the Clinton administration. During their frequent appearances on talk shows, Carville was always Clinton’s vicious attack dog, while Begala was Clinton’s whiny intellectual apologist. Both shared the common liberal trait of rudeness, rarely letting their opponents speak without interruption.

Well, Begala’s back with an honest but scary column in the Washington Post entitled Progress Over Perfection. Here he explains that the Democrats’ current health industry reform movement is not just one moment in time, but is another stage of the progressive (i.e., liberal or socialist) movement that has been spreading like a stain through our country for many years.

He’s concerned that modern liberals are forsaking the pragmatic, incremental, “nose under the tent” approach that has worked so well for them over the past decades. Instead, he says, they are gambling that they can win it all, presumably because of Obama’s charisma and their strength in Congress. He frets that their attempt to achieve total victory will leave them with nothing, as happened 15 years ago during the HillaryCare tussle when citizens, insurers, and health care providers revolted against that blatant attempt to socialize medicine..

Begala says he learned an important lesson with HillaryCare, which is to not overreach. Instead, get as much socialism as you can in the legislation, and then nurture and extend it with add-ons over the subsequent years. He obviously believes that this approach will lull most moderates and some conservatives into a somnambulant state during which the socialist stain (my characterization) can spread.

And you know what? He’s right!

I don’t know if anyone in the Obama administration listens to Begala at this point, but I think they will move to his incremental approach if their current bills get derailed by citizen protests like we’ve been seeing in the town hall meetings. Certainly Rahm Emmanuel prefers to cultivate the congressional garden with a bulldozer rather than a hand shovel. And Obama is arrogant enough to believe he can charm Congress and the American people into supporting his cockamamie ideas. Unfortunately, many in Congress who would naturally resist the blatant socialism in the current bills are neither smart enough nor strong enough to resist an incremental approach, especially if it has the “bipartisan support” of RINOs like Snow and Dukakis et al.

That’s why every conservative, as well as moderates who are concerned about the march of socialism in our country, should read Begala’s article. He honestly spells out the liberal (he says “progressive”) goal, which is to restructure our excellent but flawed health care industry into a socialist monstrosity.

It’s important for us to remember that even if we block the current version of ObamaCare, the fight against socialism must continue. As Begala admits, progressives never tire in their attempt to reduce our freedom and strengthen government’s grip on our lives. Neither can we tire of the struggle to hold onto our liberty.