The media dubbed 2008 the year of the woman because of Hillary Clinton’s and Sarah Palin’s historic runs for political office, but it really was the year millions of ordinary women from both parties were “rudely awakened” from their political complacency and found their voice. The backlash we received showed us the ugly underbelly of politics and our society at large in a way only some of us could suspect, but never fully imagine in the enlightened age of the twenty-first century.  And, in many ways, we are just now getting over the shocking depth and breath of that ugliness.

So here we are four years later with a new presidential election swinging into full gear and it is just now dawning on the powers that be that not only will women be the deciders, but women are still angry over what happened in 2008.  Why?  Because it was never addressed, never acknowledged and absolutely none of the behaviors have changed.  But 2012 may yet prove to be a vastly different election.  Women know the game now and we are nothing, if not fast learners.

And, thanks to author Anita Finlay, who lifts the rug off all the dirt thrown against women during our last presidential election and puts names to the dirt throwers, with Dirty Words on Clean Skin: Sexism and Sabotage, A Hillary Supporter’s Rude Awakening we have a written history with which to beat back the naysayers.  Most of us knew Ms. Finlay as “Ani” during the 2008 election and we rallied to her impassioned posts.  What we didn’t realize then is that Ms. Finlay was also a familiar face to many of us through her work as a film and tv actress in 24, Gilmore Girls, Judging Amy, and The Guardian.   Dirty Words on Clean Skin is her first book!

***
I first read the opening chapters of Dirty Words on Clean Skin back in 2010.  ”Ani” was sending out book proposals and sample chapters and getting feedback from agents requesting various substantial changes. Out of frustration, Anita sought perspective from a few of her fellow journeywomen during the 2008 election, of which I was one. My reaction was immediate and fierce.  ”You have got to publish this book!” But the publishing gods were frowning upon it and her.

There were agents who questioned Ms Finlay’s credibility and salability as an author of a political book.  As if it was somehow radical for an “average” American — a woman no less — who was not a politician or political operator, analyst, journalist or talking head to write and have opinions about politics.

Apparently, being an activist who was on the ground and in the trenches writing, calling and interacting with other “average” Americans during a historic election wasn’t enough credentials for her to have a point of view worth sharing.  Never mind that our government and, therefore, our politics are supposed to reflect the will “of, by and for” the people!

Then there were agents who wanted her to limit Dirty Words on Clean Skin to a catalogue of documented facts and quotes about the 2008 election. As if any, and particularly this, historic election was about mere facts.  Ms. Finlay packed Dirty Words on Clean Skin with research much of which she had written about or was aware of as the election happened, but facts are nothing without context.

The significance of the 2008 election wasn’t just that Hillary was the first women from a major party to run for the presidency in the US or that Sarah Palin was the first woman Vice-Presidential nominee for the Republican party.  Or even that both Hillary and Sarah lost.  It was how deeply vicious, visceral and widespread the sexism was and the willingness of others — including women, political party operatives, and a vast swath of the media — to not only accept this behavior but to unabashedly participate in it under the banner of “politics is a contact sport” while still others politely looked way.

Sure physical violence and coercion is no longer acceptable and will give you jail time.  But verbal and visual violence and its underlying coercion has become a cheap and easy substitute in the digital age.  And it came from every possible corner in 2008.

For Ms. Finlay, and many women I know, the 2008 presidential election wasn’t just political, it was deeply personal!  The attacks were personal, the wounds were personal. And none of what we experienced was without the filter of our own personal history as women.  So it makes perfect sense that Ms. Finlay would and should tell about a historic election within the context of how she experienced it.  How those jarring “awakening” moments of sexism, sabotage and the underlying threat of violence during Hillary Clinton’s presidential primary campaign and Sarah Palin’s Vice-Presidential campaign echoed those jarring formative moments of sexism, sabotage, and violence that she saw during her childhood.

I have now read Dirty Words on Clean Skin several times and each time am profoundly thankful that Ms. Finlay wrote this book — her journey is inspiring, her history deeply moving, her voice empowering and her research a must read for those who knew and seek confirmation, for those who suspected and want to learn, and for those who slept and need a wake up call.

It’s time to set the record straight on what happened in 2008 and have an honest conversation on what sexism costs our nation. Reading Dirty Words on Clean Skin is a good place to start.

***

It seems only fitting to share this particularly satisfying screen shot I happen to catch of the paperback version of Dirty Words on Clean Skin beating the media hyped, sexist gossip version of the 2008 election Game Change on DWOCS’s third day of sale at Amazon:

Brava Ms. Finlay!  May you always stand strong!   And now that your Kindle version of Dirty Words on Clean Skin: Sexism and Sabotage, a Hillary Supporter’s Rude Awakening is available, may you beat the Kindle version of Game Change too!

It is a real testament to the caliber of the writers, radio personalities and readers that Larry has brought together at No Quarter when one current and two alum have gone on to write books. And, in a happy coincidence, all three are being published within weeks of each other.

To celebrate these accomplishments of my NQ comrades-in-arms, I decided to dust off my reviewing skills and share their books with you in the coming weeks in the hopes you’ll show them a little love by buying their books or extending your good wishes.

* Suzie Ivy is the pseudonym of an Arizona police detective who debuted her “Bad Luck” blog series at No Quarter recounting her gritty testosterone-filled weeks at the police academy. While Ms. Ivy was not professionally involved in dealing with the aftermath of the Gabriella Giffords’ shooting, she provided telling insights in Senseless and Heartbreaking: The Tragedy in Tucson, Arizona.  She also wrote these wonderful pieces: Women’s History Month – Women and War and End of Watch 2010 .

After much urging by her fans, Suzie compiled and published her academy blogs … as an e-book Bad Luck Cadet and just last week followed up with Bad Luck Officer.  My reviews for both are below.

Review: Suzie Ivy’s Bad Luck Cadet

We women are still routinely underestimated and overlooked by both ourselves and the other half of the human species when it comes to our mental and physical capabilities.  In our youth we strap on our resiliency and bravado to help us face down the prejudices.  By the time we reach middle age, that resiliency and bravado has usually worn pretty thin.

And yet the power and strength of women is growing and spreading everyday across the world. We women are adaptors. It is in our DNA.  With age we manage to develop and increasingly rely on our internal fortitude and personal conviction to give us the strength to challenge ourselves and anyone else necessary to achieve the seemingly impossible.

But when it comes to physical challenges, we middle-aged women still feel too comfortable settling for the status quo.  Of course, there are always exceptions to every rule. Case in point,  Suzie Ivy — author, mother and middle-aged heroine of Bad Luck Cadet.

Not willing to settle into overweight, middle-aged bored housewife obscurity at age 44, Suzie rediscovers a long forgotten dream, and after a broken hip compliments of an unruly horse, uncovers her own well-spring of true grit to achieve it. With candor, humor, and unbelievable perseverance, she pursues (and entertainingly shares) her Herculean task of surviving a grueling eighteen-and-a-half-weeks of mental and physical boot camp at the police academy in order to claim the honor and the badge of becoming a police officer for her community of Smalltown, Arizona.

Author Ivy has an amazing gift for getting the reader to laugh, cry, sweat, swear and cringe right along with her own overwhelmingly physical experiences in Bad Luck Cadet. As a reader you will be thoroughly entertained as you gain a deep appreciation for the rigors of the police academy and the discipline required to be a law enforcement professional. But, best of all, Suzie Ivy will shock, awe and inspire you into re-evaluate your own impossibilities.

***

Review: Suzie Ivy’s Bad Luck Officer

If you love cop shows and cop novels and think the various CSI television series are how law enforcement actually works, then let me introduce you to someone who will set the record straight and tell it like it really is.  Suzie Ivy is a middle-aged mother who, in Bad Luck Cadet, chronicled with gritty humor and amazing candor her true life adventures and unbelievable perseverance while attending the police academy’s grueling, testosterone filled, eighteen-and-a-half weeks of boot camp — at the ripe old age of 44.

Now, Ms. Ivy is sharing her true adventures as a Bad Luck Officer.

With the police academy behind her, Suzie’s days as the Bad Luck Cadet are thankfully over, but her training and bad luck continues as she hits the streets as Small Town’s first female police Officer.

From the craziness of wrangling an intact bull Beefalo, to the dangers in mundane traffic violations, and the heartbreak of domestic and child abuse cases, Officer Ivy learns how to conduct herself professionally and safely as well as get confessions and handle investigations with the help of some surprising mentors in her all-male police department.

But all is not wine and roses (or Glocks and pink handcuffs).  There are changing schedules, too little sleep, lab results that take months, sexual harassment, professional tragedies and personal foes to handle along with an increasing addiction to the adrenaline highs of working in the danger zone.

Suzie Ivy bares and shares it all with humor, passion and candor, making Bad Luck Officer a riveting read that you won’t be able to put down until the very end. Go Ms. Ivy!

*Bad Luck Cadet and Bad Luck Officer are e-books available through Amazon and readable on your computer or Kindle.

Dear Eleanor,

I recently had the opportunity to reread You Learn by Living and was surprised by its relevance for todays political environment.

You wrote it in the late 1950′s near the end of your life and dedicated it to your grandchildren. I read it for the first time, in the early 1970′s when I was a shy, adolescent idealist.  Back then, I was mesmerized by your candor in describing your less than idyllic childhood and what you saw as your “own deficiencies”.

I was heartened to realize that overcoming those deficiencies and life’s adversities lead you to achieve all that you did for the American people as First Lady, for all nations and peoples as a delegate to the U.N., and for women, children and minorities as a civil rights activist.

It is impossible for me to imagine how our country and the American people could have survive the Great Depression without Franklin leading the way as our President and you, his eyes and ears to the American people, as our First Lady. Twelve years in the White House and that was only the beginning of your legacy.

In my first reading of You Learn by Living, you unleashed a budding non-conformist:

“The standard by which you live must be your own standards, your own values, your own convictions … When you adopt the standards and the values of someone else or a community or a pressure group, you surrender your own integrity. You become, to the extent of your surrender, less of a human being.”

You emboldened a shy idealist:

“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop and look fear in the face.”

You tapped into the rebelliousness of youth and motivated me to develop “an unquenchable spirit of adventure”:

“There is no experience from which you can’t learn something. When you stop learning you stop living in any vital and meaningful sense. And the purpose of life, after all, is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience. …You can do that only if you have curiosity, an unquenchable spirit of adventure…”

You tempered that rebellion:

“What counts isn’t what you read; it is what you sift through your own mind.”

“Usefulness, whatever form it may take, is the price we pay for the air we breathe and the food we eat and the privilege of being alive.”

Going back to reread You Learn by Living more than 30 years later, I wondered if my memories had set the bar too high.  If my idealized impressions had become too rosy over time.

I needn’t have worried. The youthful me had taken your words to heart, but the middle-aged me was moved to reaffirm that commitment to live and learn with “a graciousness of the heart” and your “guide posts” in sight.

You reminded me that:

“Each time you learn something new you must readjust the whole framework of your knowledge… one is forced to make inner and outer readjustments all one’s life. The process never ends.”

But you also had a few surprises for me in this reading of You Learn by Living. Things I overlooked in my apolitical youth. How you talked strongly about the importance of political involvement for all.  Even while acknowledging the role and toll politics took in your own marriage:

“I think I sometimes acted as a spur, even though the spurring was not always wanted or welcome.”

To be a spur is a difficult and thankless role in any relationship, let alone a marriage. That it was for a people and nation that you loved deeply, did not make it any less painful I’m sure.

Your amazingly personal sacrifice seems all the more extraordinary now, when so few Americans even bother to vote.  As you acknowledge:

“One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. … we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.”

“…farther than mere responsibility for oneself… each of us, ultimately, is responsible in large part for the welfare of his community, for the kind of government he has, for the world he lives in.”

Maybe that is what we’ve been missing in our “we the people” marriage to our government. We, the people, stopped taking responsibility for the “we”.

We stopped spurring our government and ourselves to do better. We became lazy and neglectful of our government. And we allowed our government to become lazy and neglectful of us in return. We allowed politics to become a spectator sport — with us sitting on the sidelines.

“There is corruption in politics because there are human beings in politics. There is corruption in business and in law and in medicine. But when there is corruption it is because we allow it to grow and flourish.”

So no surprise that there is not much left to “of the people, by the people, and for the people” in our government these days.  As you warned:

“If the seeds of growth are made sterile, if men become passive followers instead of developing qualities of leadership – and courage – we may find someday that our way of life has been superseded.”

And no surprise that we are now a nation in the midst of a Great Recession, too big to fail banks, too rigged to fail Congress, and a for-profit mass media.  We are fighting two wars, while our own government takes away our civil liberties, and the Supreme Court gives equal rights to corporations.

I imagine if you were here today you would be telling “we the people” to dust ourselves off and go to work actively spurring and participating in our government.  And you would be cheering on those that already are.

“For the chief duty of the citizen is to make his government the best possible medium for the peaceful and prosperous conduct of life.”

And we would take courage from your confidence:

“With each effort to shoulder a burden comes strength, and with strength comes confidence. With confidence enough, a nation is invincible.”

So thank you Eleanor, for writing You Learn by Living.  It’s been almost 50 years since its first publication, and it’s still teaching me.  And I’m sure I’m not alone.

You enter the tent and the first thing you see is a trainer with a group of dogs on one side doing amazing dog tricks. On the other side is a trainer with a group of ponies doing awesome pony tricks. And both trainers are vehemently arguing over which is the better act.

Well, regardless of whether you love dogs or love ponies or think combining the two acts would knock the socks off of most audiences, it is all beside the point. Because neither act has anything to do with the sign outside the tent which states “first-aid”. And neither the dog nor the pony tricks will help the deep gash in your leg or the pool of blood forming at your feet.

Yes, we’ve seen this old show too many times.  They played it with bankruptcy reform, credit card reform and health care reform.  And so it goes with the financial regulatory reform. Everyone makes it all about the fight between Democrats and Republicans. It is not.  It’s about an efficient and effective government that serves its citizenry.

Not that the MSM ever seems to worry about that.  The latest MSM meme is celebrating hints that the two parties might be coming together and could pass a financial reform bill soon and to seal the deal President Obama will give a speech in support of the Dodd bill on Thursday.

But before you let out that sigh of relief along with the financial institutions that are one of the biggest source of election campaign dollars for the president and congress, you might want to know that there is a sizable group of economic experts and even democratic supporters who think that what is being offered is at best a half measure that falls far short of what is needed to prevent another financial crisis.

In a April 15th letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) from thirty-six highly respected economic officials and advisers (including former SEC Chief Accountant Lynn Turner, former Lehman Brothers Vice Chair Peter Solomon, former S&L investigator Bill Black, and former Senate Banking Committee Chief Economist Rob Johnson), they place the blame with both parties and state in their opening paragraph (Full letter here) that:

“Nineteen months after the most devastating financial crisis since the Great Depression, our financial system remains at risk. Neither the bill passed earlier this year by the House, nor the one currently under consideration in the Senate would have prevented the crisis. Without serious restructuring, they will not prevent a future crisis.”

From Robert Reich April 16th Salon article (Reich is Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. Former secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. Author of  Supercapitalism):

The so-called “resolution” mechanism the Dems are pushing to wind down any big bank that gets into trouble is a step in the right direction. But it won’t work if two or more giant banks are endangered at the same time — which is likely to be the case when the next crisis occurs because every big bank uses whatever profitable financial ploys every other bank uses (as they did in the runup to the crash of 2008).

Furthermore, as I’ve noted before, as long as the big banks are allowed to be huge and become even bigger, their political clout in Washington will remain huge and become even bigger. And as long as they have this kind of clout, they’ll wangle a bailout from Washington the next time their bets get them into trouble regardless of any “resolution” authority.

From Simon Johnson‘s April 20th Baseline Scenario article (Johnson is Professor at the Sloan School of Management at MIT, former Chief Economist of the International Monetary Fund, and co-author of 13 Bankers):

The biggest banks in the United States have become too big – from a social perspective. There are obviously private benefits to running banks with between $1 trillion and $2.5 trillion in total assets (as reflected in today’s earnings report), but there are three major social costs that the case of Goldman Sachs now makes quite clear.

1) The megabanks have little incentive to behave well, in terms of obeying the law. There is fraud at the heart of Wall Street…

2) The people who run big banks brutally crush regular people and their families on a routine basis…. They are not inclined to treat their customers properly… Small investors also lose out…

3) Underpinning all this power is the ultimate threat: Too Big To Fail.

From US Senator Ted Kaufman (D-Del) April 19th letter to President Obama (full letter here):

Until Congress breaks these gigantic institutions into manageably sized banks and draws hard, clear lines for regulators to ensure that effective controls remain in place, we will have done neither that which is necessary to restore the rule of law on Wall Street nor that which will ensure that another financial crisis does not soon happen again.

What have we learned in just the past five weeks? On March 15th, I came to the Senate floor to discuss the Bankruptcy Examiner’s report on Lehman Brothers and said — as many of us have suspected all along — that there was fraud at the heart of the financial crisis. The examiner’s report exposed the use of so-called Repo 105 transactions and what appears to have been outright fraud by Lehman, its management and its accounting firm, who all conspired to hide $50 billion in liabilities at quarter’s end to “window dress” its balance sheet and mislead investors. And this practice does not appear to be unique to Lehman Brothers.

For a hard hitting ‘must see’ series of video interviews with Bill Black regarding how our government works - for wall street.  In the last video, Black suggests a way for dealing with the Supreme Courts ruling that expanded big corporations rights – apply the three strikes laws as they do for people. Of course, for that we would need a fully functioning government. (Black is Associate Professor of Economics and Law at University of Missouri teaching White-Collar Crime, Public Finance, Antitrust, Law and Economics. Author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One and former Savings and Loan investigator.)

Psychopaths and Sociopaths in Charge

_____

An Engorging Leech System

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No Protection & No Prosecution

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No Reregulation

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Political Gold Mine

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But what is not being focused on in this book, at least so far, is how clearly it asserts the fix was in AGAINST Hillary Clinton. In each piece thus far, there has been something about the DNC not wanting Hillary Clinton to be the nominee, or the senators with clout secretly backing Obama. In the NY Magazine article, “Saint Elizabeth and the Ego Monster,” there are passages like this:

Edwards never expected to be the third wheel in 2008. The race was going to be Hillary versus him. That was how he saw it from the start. She would be the front-runner, of course. But as sure as night follows day, there would be an alternative, an anti-Hillary, and he would be it.

The Democratic Establishment agreed that there would be—and certainly should be—a viable challenger to Clinton. The party’s pooh-bahs on Capitol Hill were privately terrified about the prospect of Hillary rolling to the nomination. They feared that she was too polarizing to win, that she would drag down House and Senate candidates in red and purple states; and they worried, too, about Bill’s putative affairs (emphasis mine). But while the Clintons themselves regarded Edwards as Hillary’s most formidable rival, there existed a deep wariness about the North Carolinian among his fellow Democrats. In the Senate, in particular, Edwards was regarded almost universally by his former colleagues as a callow, shallow phony. Quietly, the Establishment began a quest to find a different alternative, eventually settling on the unlikely horse that was Obama—with Harry Reid personally, and secretly, urging the Illinois senator to run against Clinton.

So much for the people choosing our nominee, right? I just love that the “pooh-bahs” decided that Hilary was too polarizing. THEY created this hype, along with the Republicans during Bill’s tenure, and with the MSM. But the people who listened to her, who read her policies, who saw how she worked, knew she was exactly who we wanted to run for president

This isn’t the only example out of this book. There is also the claim by the book’s authors that Chuck Schumer secretly supported Obama, though he publicly claimed to support Hillary Clinton. Needless to say, Schumer’s people claim this isn’t true, but again, even taking what the authors wrote with a grain of sand, this doesn’t sound good. The book goes on to claim Schumer encouraged a “get tough” policy against Clinton, and enlisted another senator to support Obama, presumably in his stead:

The book reports that in the summer of 2007, Schumer and others wanted Team Obama to get tougher on Clinton.

At one point, the authors contend, Schumer felt “Obama needed to take a two-by-four to Hillary,” the book says.

Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill was tapped as the messenger from the worried senators to the Obama campaign.

She denies feeling any such pressure.

“It wasn’t like he [Schumer] came to me and said, ‘Be for Barack Obama – I gotta be for Hillary,’” McCaskill told the Daily News Saturday. “He never, ever said a word to me that would give the kind of impression [this book seems] to be giving. He was never giving advice to the campaign on how to undermine her.”

What a bunch of back-stabbing conniving Brutus’ these senators are. And the DNC, too, if you ask me.

The glaring fallacy with the logic of the DNC and its minions are the number are Republicans who crossed over for Hillary Clinton. Former dyed-in-the-wool Republicans becoming caucus captains for Hillary in Texas, for example (an example relayed to me by the person who crossed over). All of the post voting showed Hillary Clinton got the majority of Democratic votes AND a large number of Republican votes. Yet the DNC in its infinite “wisdom” decided Hillary Clinton could NOT be the nominee, and worked their asses off to break every rule necessary to make that so.

No doubt, there will be more to this book after it is released this week, but there are some glaring omissions mentioned thus far. Ben Smith noted that Obama was pretty much the same throughout the campaign, thus most of these revelations are about the Clintons, the Edwards, et al. But as one commenter noted:

Where are the stories of how the campaign handled Jerimah (sic) Wright?

Where are the stories about how they had to put a muzzle on Michelle Obama?

Where are the stories about ‘sweetie’ and calling his grandmother a ‘typical white person’?

And who did Obama think he picked when he picked Joe Biden? He must be stupid if he is surprised by how he has acted!

The secret to Obama winning was the media and frankly Mark Halprin doesn’t want to blow that gig.

No kidding. Don’t forget the “Obama and Biden Can’t Stand Each Other” part of this book referenced above, which is sure not getting much play by the MSM:

The relationship between Barack Obama and Joe Biden grew so strained during the 2008 campaign, according to a new book, that the two rarely spoke and aides not only kept Biden off internal conference calls but refused to even tell him they existed.

Instead, a separate campaign call was regularly scheduled between the then-Delaware senator and two of Obama’s top campaign aides – “so that they could keep a tight rein on him,” write journalists Mark Halperin and John Heilemann in “Game Change,” a long-awaited account of the 2008 campaign.

Uh, yeah. So, the bottom line as far as I can tell from this book so far is this: the Democratic Party committed massive fraud in 2008, costing voters millions of dollars in campaign donations to candidates they had already determined were not going to get the nomination. That is fraud, pure and simple. Not only did I give donations (in the beginning to John Edwards), but I gave a LOT to Hillary Clinton.

If the DNC knew they were never going to let her get the nomination no matter how she performed, no matter how many people voted for her, no matter WHAT, that, to me, is fraud. And they damn well better be held accountable for that, don’t you think?

"Clintonomics: How Bill Clinton Reengineered the Reagan Revolution" by Jack Godwin Ph.D.

Bob Dylan was right on target back in the early 1960s: The times, they are a-changin’.

Those of us who were politically savvy in the 1990s knew that President Bill Clinton was a shrewd politician, and a great leader as president. He’s still revered by most moderate Democrats, although his image has been tarnished by partisan attacks. But maybe not so much as you might think.

On May 1, 2009, Christopher Ruddy, the Editor in Chief of Newsmax.com, a website devoted to conservative Republican issues, completely blew my socks off by publishing an article with the title “Obama Needs Clintonomics – and Soon.”

He opened with this comment:

CIA Director Leon Panetta has some urgent advice for President Obama: Read “Clintonomics” and use it!

Panetta’s advice is no secret. He is referring to a new book just out, “Clintonomics: How Bill Clinton Reengineered the Reagan Revolution,” (AMACOM) by Dr. Jack Godwin, a political scientist.

Ruddy’s piece is basically a book review, adding his political editorializing. Herewith is my review of his review. Feel free to review my review of his review.

The “vast right wing conspiracy” that Hillary blamed for the political persecution of the Clintons was quite real, and some Republicans have admitted openly that is was so. The Republicans of the 1990s hated the Clintons, and most still do. That’s one of the reasons why I can never embrace the Republican Party, no matter how much the current Democratic Party sickens and frightens me, for reasons any reader of NQ knows all too well.

This is not to say that I hate Republicans, nor what they stand for. Many Republicans are good people with good intentions, just like normal people. I think the Republicans are absolutely necessary to forestall the creeping Socialism of the Democrats, just as the liberal Democrats are necessary to keep Republican authoritarianism in check.

But sometimes the streams merge, with exciting effect.

Check out Ruddy’s fascinating take on Bill Clinton’s economics [emphasis mine]:

Here’s what Panetta said about “Clintonomics”: “This book is a must read for those struggling to figure out the present economic crisis.”

As we all know, Obama is one of those struggling.

Before Panetta assumed his CIA post, he had served as President Bill Clinton’s chief of staff. Panetta is a pragmatic man, not an ideologue.

So his praise for this new book should come as no surprise.

But what is surprising is that, as a Republican of the Reagan type, I couldn’t agree more with Panetta’s assessment.

OMG! I could hardly believe my eyes! Conservative Republican Newsmax.com promoting Bill Clinton’s economic policies! I had to put my head between my knees to keep from fainting! That’s when I noticed my socks were gone.

Christoper Ruddy continues:

Author Godwin’s basic point is that, contrary to widely held opinion, Clinton did not seek to turn back the economic policies of Ronald Reagan, dubbed “Reaganomics.” Instead, he embraced them and perfected them.

Godwin’s point of view is even more interesting because the foreword to the book is written by John Garamendi, who served in the Clinton administration as deputy secretary of the Department of Interior.

When Clinton came to office in 1993, the economy was in a downturn.

“Clinton attributed the country’s less than optimum economic performance to low productivity, low growth, stagnant wages, unemployment, budget deficits, and high healthcare costs, among other things,” Godwin observes.

“He outlined the essential components of his economic plan: shifting our emphasis from consumption to investment; making public policy friendlier to workers and families; reducing the federal deficit and cutting government waste; reforming the tax code; and, of course, creating jobs.”

Clinton, in short, sought to put a happy face on Reaganomics. [Godwin points out that Reagan himself disliked the characterization that it sounded like an “aerobic exercise or fad diet.”]

OK, now that made me laugh! Reagan did have a good sense of humor, I’ll give him that.

But now we see the author of this article is starting to give President Bill Clinton some of the respect he deserved as the steward of our economy.

He goes on to say:

Reagan strongly believed that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” Though Clinton did not agree with that view, he did believe that government needed to be both improved and downsized.

Both Clinton and Reagan grasped the notion that the private sector, not the public one, is the primary productive engine of the economy.

Thus Clinton offered a “New Covenant,” which Godwin writes “was indeed based on an old idea — the idea that with opportunity comes responsibility. Clinton wanted to create a leaner, not meaner government . . . In practice, this meant downsizing the federal government, cutting unnecessary and wasteful spending, and bringing down the deficit.”

I can hear the Gipper applauding Clinton’s sentiment.

And I can hear a million Republicans gasping! “Sacrilege!!” they scream as they fall to the floor, rending their garments and gnashing their teeth in anguish!

This is one courageous Republican writing here! He must have Titanium balls! And I’m not talking walnuts here, I’m talking zeppelins!

As the Republican ideologues writhe in partisan apoplexy, Ruddy twists the knife deeper:

Clinton is even quoted as saying that he was “the man who downsized the government more than President Reagan did.” This is true.

Democrats have long complained that Reagan gave us huge budget deficits and grew the national debt dramatically.

This also is true.

Some on the left even saw a conspiratorial overtone to the Reagan deficits. Reagan ran up huge deficits to prevent the Democrats from funding new entitlement programs, so the theory went.

Although Reagan did run up the national debt wildly, it had nothing to do with entitlements. Reagan repeatedly stated, before and after his election in 1980, that he would opt for large deficits if he needed them to bankroll his military buildup to counter the Soviet Union.

Indeed, Reagan’s plan worked. The massive military buildup not only helped defeat the Soviet empire but also left the U.S. a sizable “peace dividend” in the 90s.

Ronald Reagan set the stage for Bill Clinton. Clinton’s brilliance was in realizing the gift he had received from the Reagan years. He easily could have moved to shift the “peace dividend” from declining defense expenditures to social programs. But he didn’t.

Instead, he reduced the growth of government, ultimately leaving his successor, George W. Bush, a budget surplus.

“A budget surplus.” Wow! What was that like? Surplus! To quote Bob Dylan again, from the song My Back Pages, “I spoke the word as if a wedding vow. Ah, but I was so much older then. I’m younger than that now.”

These words have mystified many listeners over the years, but put simply, Dylan was trying to convey that he had grown up, abandoning the arrogance of know-it-all youth. With maturity, he gained the humility of knowing that he didn’t know it all as a student and was now embarrassed by his youthful idealism. I can definitely relate to that, as a formal liberal who is now a staunch Centrist.

To paraphrase: I was so much more arrogant then, I’m humbler than that now.

How little we, as a nation, appreciated the incredible economic gift bestowed upon us by Clintonomics. The national deficit run up under Reagan, then more so by G.H.W. Bush, was the highest the country had ever seen at that point. Bill Clinton came into office, and eight years later, the deficit was turned into a surplus. Eight years after Bush II, the deficit was the worst in history. But that’s nothing compared to what Obama has managed in a little over 100 days.

I’m reminded of Groucho Marx as President Rufus T. Firefly in Duck Soup, as he sang about the plans for his administration.

“The last man nearly ruined this place
He didn’t know what to do with it
If you think this country’s bad off now
Just wait till I get through with it.

The country’s taxes must be fixed
And I know what to do with it.
If you think you’re paying too much now,
Just wait till I get through with it.”

As much as I love digressing, I’ll now force myself back on topic, and back to this wonderful piece of editorializing, allowing Newsmax Editor Christopher Ruddy to finish his thought-provoking article in its entirety:

When Clinton came into office, he tinkered with nationalizing healthcare with the so-called “Hillarycare” program. But Congress thwarted his plans.

It was the best thing that ever happened to Clinton.

Well, one little interjection here. I know some of you will be seething at this remark, but please, allow yourself to admit that the time, 1993, wasn’t right yet for such a sweeping change, as much as we all support Hillary’s healthcare reform ideas. Now, with the wisdom of maturity, many of us realize that a national health program may never be right for America, but that we still support reforms that will ensure proper medical treatment for all, without driving families to bankruptcy.

I speak for myself only. And those that agree with me. You know, the majority!

And now I’ll let the man finish:

After the healthcare debacle, he moved to the center. He adopted a bipartisan approach and even worked with Newt Gingrich in some areas, including welfare reform and cutting the capital gains tax.

“Bill Clinton launched his campaign to end welfare as we know it because he . . . believed millions of people were trapped in the system,” Godwin notes.

“When Clinton signed welfare reform legislation in 1996, he passed the greatest test of federalism, according to the standard set by Ronald Reagan himself.”

Clinton argued that entitlement programs do not work if the government does not require something in return from the recipient. He often referred to “the politics of entitlement” as a way of criticizing his own party.

“Some, but not all, in the national Democratic Party have placed too much faith in the whole politics of entitlement, the idea that big bureaucracies and government spending, demanding nothing in return, can produce the results we want,” he said in a speech.

“We know that is simply not true. There is a limit to how much government can do in the absence of an appropriate response by the American people at the grass-roots level.”

Clinton’s approach is starkly different from President Obama’s. With strong majorities in the House and the Senate, Obama has brushed aside a bipartisan approach. And unlike Clinton, he clearly favors the public sector over the private sector in restoring economic growth.

As Godwin says, Clinton’s governing philosophy was the logical corollary to the Reagan Revolution, stressing fiscal discipline and the end of big government.

“In public, Clinton positioned his governing philosophy as the antidote to Reaganomics,” Godwin writes. “In fact, Clinton and Reagan are fellow travelers separated more by party affiliation than political ideology.”

Barack Obama does have something to learn from Bill Clinton and “Clintonomics.”

Many Republicans have been reevaluating the Clinton years and realizing, as I have, that the country prospered under a more centrist approach. Obama should take the advice of his CIA director.

I’m staring at this revelation, slack-jawed in awe! Read that last paragraph again while I catch my breath!

Is it possible that even conservative Republicans now appreciate Bill Clinton’s policies? Have they now, like Dylan 44 years ago, realized that the times they are a-changin’? Have they come to realize that they were so much more arrogant then, but they’re humbler than that now?

I, for one, applaud this fresh outlook with enthusiastic optimism. Let’s hope it’s contagious! That would be one pandemic I could look forward to spreading!