David Shagoury: David Shagoury - Essays And Opines

Election jigsaw

We face what appears to be an unprecedented election in 2008: whixh when surveying the field can make one truly miss precedent! Let us briefly survey the existing field of contenders.

The Democrats
The contemporary Democrat Party has long abandoned a moderately conservative or centrist ideology, but at least it used to tease us with trojan horses and/ or second tier candidates who could legitamately profess some independance from the left wing special interests that wholly dominate it. The former category entailed Bill Clinton, who promised "middle class tax cuts"; Al Gore in 88 and Joe Lieberman in 04. The latter category included such candidates as Paul Tsongas, Bob Kerrey, Reuben Askew, Ernest Hollings, John Glenn, and even Gary Hart.

In the post civi rights era, there used to be something known as a Southern Democrat that often played a vital, moderating role on the candidates more aligned to liberal causes. These figures, who generally accepted the broad American poltical mainstream political construct, are fast becoming a remnant of a more innocent, simple time. Viable candidates who resembled this description such as Senator Bayh of Indiana and Governor Warner of Virginia capriciously withdrew from the race out of resignation that their national Party has become an unforgiving, orthodox monolith.

The three leading candidates for the Democrat nomination this year are all embedded with the instincts of the Left. Edwards, Obama and HRC all have their respective roots in agressive liberal activism. John Edwards as anti - business trial attorney, Obama as social advocate, and Hillary as doctrinaire left wing activist. From these three candidates, only Obama can legitimately claim a mantle of some distinction as an outsider who has not been dependent on the usual liberal interest groups. Yet his ideology is basically indistinguishable from the other candidates. Edwards continues his trek from southern political candidate towards his current strongly liberal persona. Ironically, it is HRC who is attempting to present herself as slightly less liberal and less partisan than her opponents. Yet there are few politicians of note who can claim a more unequivocal, ardent, Leftist pedigree than she can. Who in the 90s could have imagined that the Madame DeFarge of American politics could credibly attempt to position herself this way? Perhaps she deserves great credit for the effort, but all tactics aside, there is no substantive challenge to HRC's radical past or liberal establishment present from the center.

The reality is that the liberal monolith Democrat Party will go unquestioned from within in 08. It is this fact more than any other that, even in the wake of a very unpopular Republican Presidential tenure, could usher in another four years of a Republican White House.

Robert Rubin's inflated image

The following is a reply of mine to a column by Amity Shlaes regarding comments against maintaning the Bush tax cuts by the much lauded former Secy of the Treasury Robert Rubin

Dear Ms. Shlaes,
While I have not had the pleasure of hearing and reading your commentary too frequently, when I have had the opportunity to be in receipt of same, I am invariably impressed with the scholarship and gentility you bring to a discussion. It is with this prejudice that I am somewhat disappointed with your column on Mr. Rubin.

My concern is not founded upon the article as critique, but rather as an exculpatory brief for the former Secy of the Treasury. Perhaps my recollection of the 90s is suspect in this regard, but I have a different understanding of Rubin's affection for capital gains tax relief than your column implies. My recollection is of a man who used his considerable weight and prestige to discredit the macro - economic attributes of capital gains reduction when the Republicans proposed and passed that vital tax relief for the American people. He often challenged (to the point of ridicule) the pro-taxpayer, supply side notion that relief from onerous rates would propel economic growth or government revenue growth, thereby giving cover and credibility to the same extreme forces within the White House that Woodward plausibly cites him later restraining. Further, he certainly displayed little visceral understanding of the moral/ ethical truism of allowing American citizens to keep more of their hard earned money to invest, save or spend at their own discretion; unless they were large shareholders of Goldman Sachs who's acute concern over the repayment of high interest Mexican debt was eviscerated due to the handiwork of their former CEO and his generosity with U.S taxpayer credit!

I am not so naive or impractical as to not recognize that we could have done much worse in a Democrat administration than Mr. Rubin: and certainly I offer a begrudging acceptance that his mere reputation and lofty Wall Street stature did periodically provide a propitious affect on markets, and a moderating influence on democrat power - brokers including the President himself.

However, let us not purport this idea that deep in his heart, Mr. Rubin is an advocate of the American taxpayer, nor that he sought tax relief as a general policy imperative, or even as a general policy goal. Rather, with regard to your column's theme, allow me an ironic defense of Mr. Rubin against the charge that his rhetoric is inconsistent with his tenure as a public man, for to the contrary I believe his comments to be rhetorically consistent. His recent opine comports with past expressions of sentiment on taxation. So let us give this man credit for utilizing his reputation as Wall Street colossus to provide stability to an administration prone to the opposite, and for being most knowledgeable about intricate corporate, micro-economic issues. But being more politically pragmatic and more sympathetic to the GOP written budget/ tax cuts than Paul Begala does not warrant Robert Rubin being appelled as a pro-growth taxpayer hero...nor even as a friend!

Respectfully yours,
David J. Shagoury