I have a new piece over at LRC about the trouble with the centrists. An excerpt:
Both parties advance legislation to win over the middle and most politicians govern from the center. The actual difference in policy between a Bill Clinton and a George W. Bush is smaller than many might assume, and, in any event, not the ideological chasm between left and right that some suspect it is. Both parties support foreign intervention, war, public education, forced retirement programs, government funding for health care, arts, science, and the needy, gun control, the war on drugs, the Federal Reserve, and so forth. To some degree, the particular nefariousness of the Bush administration can be attributed to his party, but much of it has been a result of the post-9/11 political atmosphere and the warmongering ideologues who have their tentacles on the levers of influence in both parties.
Although both parties govern from the center, there still persists the bizarre perception that what is needed is yet more centrism and less rightwing and leftwing ideology. Unfortunately, it is most often the libertarian inclinations of both extremes that are condemned.
