Look who is supposedly coming to Washington, according to a recent article here, as if many of the leaders of this organization haven’t been there all along. No Labels is full of partisan insiders preaching Republican-style corporatism. It’s members of whatever party, long for “compassionate conservatism.” We learned there really is no such a thing. If anything the Bush years made a lie of the oxymoronic term.
Moreover, evidence disputing real bipartisanship is No Labels’ inclusion of the worst Democrats ever. If there is incivility in Congress, it is party their fault. If there is incivility toward the president, ditto. Consider just three of the Dems involved:
Joe Lieberman; Evan Bayh; Ben Nelson
These pretend Dems do not exemplify bipartisanship as much as capitulation to an unyielding Republican agenda. As the American Prospect article shows, the members are all right of center. You can count on Nelson to vote against everything Democrats propose. Bayh is married to a health care insurance executive (a vice president of one) and his work on health care “reform,” not surprisingly, favored insurance companies. It was a metaphor for everything Bayh has done while in Congress. He retired from the Senate in 2010. And now, here he comes to force his roll-over-and-play-dead message on we progressives by any other means. And, what do you say about Joe-Mentum (his nickname for momentum) except that his only momentum is in the wrong direction. Throw in such GOP stalwarts as Mark McKinnnon, Bush’s former go-to campaign media person. Now he’s the Global Vice Chairman for Hill and Knowlton, you know, the PR firm engineering the fake story of babies being thrown from incubators onto the floor in Pre-Desert Storm Iraq. It was a terrible lie to move Americans to support Desert Storm. (McKinnon is not responsible for that campaign but the campaign shows how H & K operates.)
Though once a Democrat who supported Ann Richards in Texas, McKinnon eventually became a good friend of George W. Bush. When President Obama appeared to be the Democratic nominee in 2008, McKinnon said he would sit out the election. He apparently did not want to be the linch pin in the expected GOP media assault on Obama. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that. However, it is not clear that McKinnon completely stuck to this pledge. If he did not, some reports suggest he chose to advise quietly, including reportedly coaching Palin for her debate with Joe Biden. No Labels only appears “moderate” contrasted to TeaPublican crazies (Bachmann, Perry, Gingrich, Santorum, etc) currently running for the president on the GOP ticket (and some who dropped out (Cain and Trump). McKinnon seems like a likable guy. But he was pivotal in bringing us George W. Bush and the entire sham that his “compassionate” side turned out to be.
Kiki McLean, who is often seen on cable “news’ channels, hails from Porter Novelli, co-founded by William D Novelli, the former CEO of AARP. This is troubling because of Novelli’s trojan horse role at AARP. Novelli infamously wrote the preface to a book Newt Gingrich wrote to end traditional Medicare and force the privatization of it. Read this article about what he was up to while pretending to care about members of AARP. While purportedly looking out for the interests of AARP, he was enmeshed with Peter Peterson, the Concord Coalition, and Koch-Brothers folks seeking to gut Social Security and Medicare. And he infamously suggested he could deliver AARP membership to the GOP. Given this background, I doubt Kiki’s “compassion” cred.
Bill Bloomfield, John McCain’s field director is involved too. How progressive can that be? Jonathan Cowan, founder of Third Way and former Congressman Tom Davis (R-VA) are No Labels members. Robert S. Kaplan, former VP of Goldman Sachs is another. There are some Clintonistas as well,but ALL of them are oriented toward the “practical solutions” being more favorable to corporations over people.
Additionally, as indicated above, any time there is clamoring for “civility,” you can bet the talk is directed toward getting Democrats to cave. Just be nice. Just be friends with Republicans. Go to lunch with them. Meet their families. Can’t we all just get along? Now just do what the Republicans say. If Obama negotiates beginning with what he thinks he can end up with, and that is how the President negotiates, they’ll say he didn’t practice enough give-and-take.
The Congressional stalemates threatening once again to shut down government are NOT equally both sides’ fault. The GOP puts numerous poison pills in a bill to simply continue to fund government and then it blames Dems for GOP designed obstruction. We live in a world of GOP scorched-earth campaigns and practices. Being nice in return just won’t cut it.
No Labels say they will begin with Congress and the candidates in 2012. They imply therefore involvement in a presidential race is yet to come. (Personally, I do not believe it. So the rest of this paragraph is admittedly speculation.) If they do get involved, The real question is whom, if anyone, will they advance for the White House? I’m guessing it is Jeb Bush, the son who lost out when brother GW pushed his way to the front of the Bush line. By enlisting Katherine Harris, Jeb helped to rig 2000 for the benefit of his bro. He therefore helped destroy the right to vote for tens of thousands of legally registered Americans, and almost single-handedly destroyed public education in Florida (ginning up for profit “education” and destroying teachers for the greater glory and enrichment of his other bros). Whomever the choice, you can count on one thing, it will not be a progressive. The person will have deep corporate ties and deeper pockets still. And BTW, McKinnon’s guy (GW) ran the government train into one giant train wreck. No matter how good McKinnon’s word-smithing sounds now, remember that much.
The “can’t we all get along” meme is just one more weaselly way to destroy progressivism and the 99%. They never ask the TeaPublicans to knock off their extreme statements. But they are quick to pretend Democrats even come close to the comparable incivility. Ultimately, though, you cannot remain “civil” when the other side is trying to destroy you. So the McKinnon poppycock is one more way to try to silence Dems from standing up for themselves.
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