NYT Op-Ed by Paul Krugman

The NY Times printed this today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/11/opinion/11krugman.html?hp

February 11, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
Hate Springs Eternal
By PAUL KRUGMAN

In 1956 Adlai Stevenson, running against Dwight Eisenhower, tried to
make the political style of his opponent’s vice president, a man by
the name of Richard Nixon, an issue. The nation, he warned, was in
danger of becoming “a land of slander and scare; the land of sly
innuendo, the poison pen, the anonymous phone call and hustling,
pu****ng, shoving; the land of smash and grab and anything to win. This
is Nixonland.”

The quote comes from “Nixonland,” a soon-to-be-published political
history of the years from 1964 to 1972 written by Rick Perlstein, the
author of “Before the Storm.” As Mr. Perlstein shows, Stevenson warned
in vain: during those years America did indeed become the land of
slander and scare, of the politics of hatred.

And it still is. In fact, these days even the Democratic Party seems
to be turning into Nixonland.

The bitterness of the fight for the Democratic nomination is, on the
face of it, bizarre. Both candidates still standing are smart and
appealing. Both have progressive agendas (although I believe that
Hillary Clinton is more serious about achieving universal health care,
and that Barack Obama has staked out positions that will undermine his
own efforts). Both have broad sup****t among the party’s grass roots
and are favorably viewed by Democratic voters.

Sup****ters of each candidate should have no trouble rallying behind
the other if he or she gets the nod.

Why, then, is there so much venom out there?

I won’t try for fake evenhandedness here: most of the venom I see is
coming from sup****ters of Mr. Obama, who want their hero or nobody.
I’m not the first to point out that the Obama campaign seems
dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality. We’ve already had
that from the Bush administration — remember Operation Flight Suit? We
really don’t want to go there again.

What’s particularly saddening is the way many Obama sup****ters seem
happy with the application of “Clinton rules” — the term a number of
observers use for the way pundits and some news organizations treat
any action or statement by the Clintons, no matter how innocuous, as
proof of evil intent.

The prime example of Clinton rules in the 1990s was the way the press
covered Whitewater. A small, failed land deal became the basis of a
multiyear, multimillion-dollar investigation, which never found any
evidence of wrongdoing on the Clintons’ part, yet the “scandal” became
a symbol of the Clinton administration’s alleged corruption.

During the current campaign, Mrs. Clinton’s entirely reasonable remark
that it took L.B.J.’s political courage and skills to bring Martin
Luther King Jr.’s dream to fruition was cast as some kind of
outrageous denigration of Dr. King.

And the latest prominent example came when David Shuster of MSNBC,
after pointing out that Chelsea Clinton was working for her mother’s
campaign — as adult children of presidential aspirants often do —
asked, “doesn’t it seem like Chelsea’s sort of being pimped out in
some weird sort of way?” Mr. Shuster has been suspended, but as the
Clinton campaign rightly points out, his remark was part of a broader
pattern at the network.

I call it Clinton rules, but it’s a pattern that goes well beyond the
Clintons. For example, Al Gore was subjected to Clinton rules during
the 2000 campaign: anything he said, and some things he didn’t say
(no, he never claimed to have invented the Internet), was held up as
proof of his alleged character flaws.

For now, Clinton rules are working in Mr. Obama’s favor. But his
sup****ters should not take comfort in that fact.

For one thing, Mrs. Clinton may yet be the nominee — and if Obama
sup****ters care about anything beyond hero wor****p, they should want
to see her win in November.

For another, if history is any guide, if Mr. Obama wins the
nomination, he will quickly find himself being subjected to Clinton
rules. Democrats always do.

But most of all, progressives should realize that Nixonland is not the
country we want to be. Racism, misogyny and character assassination
are all ways of distracting voters from the issues, and people who
care about the issues have a shared interest in making the politics of
hatred unacceptable.

One of the most hopeful moments of this presidential campaign came
last month, when a number of Jewish leaders signed a letter condemning
the smear campaign claiming that Mr. Obama was a secret Muslim. It’s a
good guess that some of those leaders would prefer that Mr. Obama not
become president; nonetheless, they understood that there are
principles that matter more than short-term political advantage.

I’d like to see more moments like that, perhaps starting with strong
assurances from both Democratic candidates that they respect their
opponents and would sup****t them in the general election.