Eugene McCarthy
By Allison Hayward Posted in User Blogs — Comments (5) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
From the diaries...
Cross-posted at Skepticseye.com
Eugene McCarthy left us yesterday. Washington Post coverage here. Many news outlets, like the Miami Herald and Voice of America, remember him as an anti-war symbol. Be he was also one of the litigants in Buckley v. Valeo, and stauchly critical of campaign finance reform.Here's some McCarthy quotes from No Fault Politics, his 1998 book:
Pride, not money, is usually at the center of any story of the fall of a nation, a government, or a leader. Moreover, there is clear historical evidence that large contributors have been highly important in supporting controversial and maverick political movements and in challenging established ideas, practices, and institutions. (p. 20)
Even if more serious corruption because of money could be demonstrated to exist, that fact would not justify the broad attack on political traditions and on constitutional guarantees contained in the 1975-76 Federal Election Campaign Act, a law that violates -- in some cases directly, in other indirectly -- almost every personal and political right guaranteed by the Constitution. (p. 20-21)
There are three or four things on which the Progressives ought to be committed, but they seem indifferent. One is abolition of the federal election law . . . because it actually legalized the two-party system. ... The federal election law denied political freedom and set up the process by which the corporations and corporate PACs have become the dominant force in American politics. (p. 246)
As many of you know, a small band of wealthy donors provided needed support for McCarthy's 1968 campaign. From George Thayer's Who Shakes the Money Tree (1973) at p. 92:
About $11 million was spent at the national and state levels on behalf of McCarthy, roughly what Richard Nixon spent to win the Republican nomination . . .The bulk of McCarthy's campaign funds came from a wealthy few. Stewart Mott, a young General Motor's heir, for one, contributed approximately $210,000 after having vainly spent $100,000 trying to persuade Nelson Rockefeller to run. Another large contributor was Jack J. Dreyfus . . . He and his wife are listed as having given more than $100,000, although he may have given as much as $500,000, partly as "loans" which were forgiven. . . . Other $100,000 contributors included Martin Peretz . . . Ellsworth Carrington . . . and Allan Miller
It's too bad that aside from his ideas on CFR and party politics so much of what the man stood for in 1968 emboldened 35 years of countercultural, anti-establishmentarian lefty activists who are now virtually inextricable from the American university system. Although, to be fair, I think in the long run others were even more influential than Gene McCarthy in that regard, and I have to say it would have been entertaining to hear McCarthy on the same stage with Lenora Fulani in 1992. And his quip on bureaucracy is timeless:
"The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty." -- Time Magazine, 1979.
My only response to this aphorism is to ask the following question of postmodern, internet-era Democrats: how are you planning to make the federal bureauracy exponentially more inefficient so that our liberty can be defended even as pervasive information technology and Moore's Law increases its potential productivity? My sense is that they are up to that challenge, and I really would like to hear Al Gore's answer to that question, or have Jim Lehrer ask it during the next round of pre-convention Democratic debates.
He helped enslave more people than Lincoln freed, and abetted the slaying of millions, he helped extend communism another 20 years and he gave Jihadists the recipe to defeat the United States.
That the memorial party is as classy as the Wellstone one was.
McCarthy was more than a "commie sympathizer" as noted by some.
Here is a comment by Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota:
"At a time when many were turning on and tuning out, Senator McCarthy inspired an entire generation of young Americans in the sixties, including myself, to get involved in the political process and make a difference. His commitment, conscience and idealism made a lasting impact on me and set a high standard in many ways for those of us in public service to meet."