Why the Liberals need a Margaret Thatcher - Brian Crowley

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notahomer
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I personally would like all the knives, backhanded compliments and celebrating to be put aside for a period of time just after a country's leader (elected or not) dies. Stephen Harper had some comments made after the recent death of Chavez. If he had just said "our condolences" no one would have cared but he didn't. IOW, Harper's comments about Layton had the class/respect that he should have continued when making a statement about Chavez, IMO.....

That is the respectful and right way to handle these things, IMO. Politics should not matter. I would prefer we all give some time for some grieving and put the sniping away. My least favourite US President of all-time is George W. Bush but if I'm alive when he dies, I will not be celebrating and/or going on about why I didn't like the things he did as Governor/US President.
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Sir Purrcival
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South Pender wrote:I think you'll find that many, maybe even most, of the greatest political leaders were somewhat polarizing and were hated by many. Lincoln--judged generally to be the US's greatest president--was hated by millions, and FDR--judged generally to be the 2nd-greatest US president--was despised by pretty-well all Republicans. It's not how much they were loved that determines a leader's value and legacy, but what they did to advance the fortunes of their country and deal with national crises as they arose. Lots of the greatest leaders in history were complete bastards in person. In my opinion, whether Thatcher was sometimes prickly with her colleagues and opponents is pretty much totally irrelevant in the face of her hugely transformative (for the good) effects on the UK.
As I said, that really depends on who is doing the opinionating and how they choose to weight things. She had good points, she had bad points and some balance in remembering her as a person and a leader is not unwarranted. That's the whole point of remembering someone who is deceased. Not just what they did but who there were as a person. That''s a part of my considerations at least. You have your way, I have mine. Nuff said.
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TheLionKing
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notahomer wrote:I personally would like all the knives, backhanded compliments and celebrating to be put aside for a period of time just after a country's leader (elected or not) dies. Stephen Harper had some comments made after the recent death of Chavez. If he had just said "our condolences" no one would have cared but he didn't. IOW, Harper's comments about Layton had the class/respect that he should have continued when making a statement about Chavez, IMO.....

That is the respectful and right way to handle these things, IMO. Politics should not matter. I would prefer we all give some time for some grieving and put the sniping away. My least favourite US President of all-time is George W. Bush but if I'm alive when he dies, I will not be celebrating and/or going on about why I didn't like the things he did as Governor/US President.
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WestCoastJoe
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Ronald Reagan and Pat O'Brien as George Gipp and Knute Rockne ...

That old movie ain't bad. Reagan was well suited to the role of George Gipp. Not a fan of Reagan as a politician.

The Gipper and the Iron Lady ...
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WestCoastJoe
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And for some football content, a trailer from the movie ...

http://www.youtube.com/movie/knute-rockne-all-american
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WestCoastJoe
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ ... story.html
The right in U.S. gets Thatcher wrong

The lady was for turning, after all: How conservatives misunderstand Thatcher

By Matt Latimer, Published: April 11

Matt Latimer, a speechwriter for President George W. Bush from 2007 to 2008, is the author of “Speech-Less: Tales of a White House Survivor.” He is a founding partner of Javelin, a communications and media firm.

American conservatives see in the late Margaret Thatchera defiant, unwavering leader whom they would wish for themselves. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) was one of many who this week extolled the Iron Lady’s “uncompromising conviction” — words such as “unyielding” and “unrelenting” also proliferated across the political right. House Speaker John A. Boehner (Ohio) took special note of Thatcher’s famous “the lady is not for turning” line, while Republican congressman Steve Stockman of Texas invoked Thatcher’s legacy as a call to “crush liberalism.” Invariably, conservatives link her to Ronald Reagan, painting them as two icons who never yielded to concession or compromise.

Baroness Thatcher certainly built a formidable reputation as tough and unpersuadable, and she displayed more often than she didn’t. Yet there is something troubling about the Republican celebration of her political intransigence, and it is not just the fact that it’s largely a myth.

As Republican leaders undertake a desperately needed postmortem following their 2012 defeat, honest introspection is critical — not just of themselves, but of their erstwhile heroes. Instead, GOP leaders have issued unpersuasive declarations that they finally get it, rather than engaging in the harder work of crafting a coherent philosophy that sees the world as it is.

Today’s Republicans risk censure for daring to depart from a rigid Reaganism or Thatcherism that never existed. Those who propose an alternate path risk expulsion from a political movement that was founded on diversity of opinion and an appreciation for thoughtful dissent. As the many Thatcher tributes demonstrate, the American right is ignoring its fundamental problem: a disdain for reality. Just like conservative leaders convinced themselves in 2012 that nearly every opinion poll predicting President Obama’s reelection was biased and wrong, so, too, they have convinced themselves that their heroes were who they wanted to them to be — not who they truly were.

Thatcher once dubbed herself a “conviction politician” and during her later life decried the virtual extinction of that species. But this term, and her use of it, remains widely misunderstood.

Thatcher did indeed bemoan leaders who reflexively sought out political consensus — “something in which no one believes and to which no one objects” — and pitied those who sought positions simply to be liked. Shrewdly, she seized the “Iron Lady” moniker as her brand, one needed in a country that during the late 1970s seemed feckless and adrift. Like any smart negotiator, she began discussions from a posture of strength, with the perception of inflexibility if not the practice. Such tactics were especially essential for a woman trying to prevail in what had largely been a man’s profession.

But the truth is that Thatcher, as well as Reagan, compromised all the time, in ways large and small. On tax rates, on spending, on their approach to the Soviet Union. Before she became leader of the Tories, Thatcher was considered in some quarters a rather run-of-the-mill middle of the roader. (Reagan, we often forget, was once a Democrat.)

As a leader, Thatcher always wanted her way — who doesn’t? — but she had a more sophisticated understanding of governing than many of her current admirers. In her book “Statecraft,” she demonstrated characteristic certitude and bravado. But along with those came a pragmatism and flexibility that allowed her to be one of the longest-serving prime ministers in British history. “In forging a coalition to defeat one enemy,” she wrote, “we may have, at least temporarily, to deal more closely with unsatisfactory regimes which we have otherwise been right to criticize.” In other words, no leader gets everything he or she wants. What a concept.

Another lesson can be found in her book’s subtitle, “Strategies for a Changing World.” The world changes? Conservatives sometimes need new strategies? Leaders can adapt? How novel.

Even when it comes to what is considered Reagan and Thatcher’s greatest triumph — winning the Cold War — their roles are conveniently rewritten. Largely forgotten now is that both leaders endured tough criticism from their most loyal supporters for daring to reach out to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and pursue arms control agreements deemed reckless and dangerous by hawkish factions.

Thatcher, in fact, was the first Western leader to recognize the opportunity Gorbachev offered to ease world tensions, convincing Reagan that the Soviet leader was indeed, in her famous phrase, a man with whom “we can do business.” It seems the Iron Lady, more anti-Communist than Reagan on his best day, was for turning after all.

The beatification of the Thatcher who brooked no compromise — St. Margaret the Rigid — fits nicely with the group think of contemporary Republicanism. It also threatens to do to Thatcher what Republicans have done to her political soul mate. In today’s GOP, Reagan is a mythological creature, unrecognizable to his many supporters and friends. In death, he has become a ghoulish loyalty enforcer whose memory is wielded against Republican free thinkers and to whose imaginary legacy every candidate for office must pledge fealty.

In the past two GOP presidential primaries, for example, Mitt Romney was vilified for his disdain long ago of the Reagan-Bush years and spent most of his campaign time trying either to apologize for it or cover it up. His opponents ran commercials against one another asking who was “Reagan” enough, as though this had anything to do with the needs and priorities of the 21st-century GOP. The modest and forward-looking Californian would have found this cultish devotion distasteful and embarrassing.

Thatcher is fated to become the latest ghost haunting would-be Republican leaders, with a reputation no human could ever match.

I imagine she would loathe this. Thatcher thought. She mused. She read. She considered. She sometimes changed her mind. She did not substitute mindless mimicry for the hard work of thinking. She was not purrfect. In fact, she could try the patience of even those who loved her. “She was a great leader,” an aide to Reagan once told me, “until she realized it.”

Her careful consideration of every detail could be burdensome. Once, when visiting a battlefield after the Falkland Islands war, Thatcher took interest in a box of live ammunition, asking a military escort what it was. “For heaven’s sake, woman,” her husband, Denis, replied, speaking to her as no one else could, “don’t get out and count it.”

Thatcher, like Reagan, was open to new ideas. They governed based on core convictions but were tolerant of 80 percent solutions — of trade-offs, negotiation, even the occasional heresy. When William F. Buckley Jr. parted company with the policy objectives of his two friends, they did not disavow him. They did not exclude him from gatherings. They did not question his conservative credentials. They simply disagreed.

What a contrast to the so-called conservative GOP that followed them. A few years later, when Buckley questioned the wisdom of the Iraq war and George W. Bush’s 2008 surge, he was all but drummed out of the conservative movement. “If you had a European prime minister who experienced what we’ve experienced, it would be expected that he would retire or resign,” Buckley once said of Bush. For such apostasies, Bush aides threatened to ban Buckley from the radio airwaves. (I know because I was there.)

Today, Republicans who think and scrutinize and muse out loud are punished. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) are pilloried as apostates for championing immigration reform, as they chastise conservatives with a different view. Yet, would it surprise Republicans to know that Reagan supported tough border enforcement as well as amnesty?

Boehner made headlines in December for purging from plum House committees those who didn’t toe his line. GOProud, a Republican gay rights organization, reaped endless, and needless, publicity because some conservatives wouldn’t let it sponsor this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference. Such maneuvers deviate from the “big tent” philosophy Reagan and Thatcher championed.

To this day, Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) draws jeers from the Republican establishment for an approach to foreign policy whose caution and restraint is closer to Reagan’s and Thatcher’s than today’s GOP ever was. “Don’t fall into the trap of imagining that the West can remake societies,” Thatcher wrote after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. “Anyone who really believes that a ‘new order’ of any kind is going to replace the disorderly conduct of human affairs, particularly the affairs of nations, is likely to be severely disappointed.”

Had Thatcher invoked such sentiments as a Republican senator during Bush’s presidency, she would have lost her primary.

New Jersey’s Chris Christie, one of the party’s best blue-state governors, still suffers ostracism from national Republicans for daring to praise and work with Obama. Yet Reagan periodically praised Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy; and in her memoir, Thatcher even lauded Jimmy Carter.

Thatcher and Reagan showed that core convictions and compromise were not at odds — indeed, that the two impulses reinforce each other. Somehow, today’s GOP leadership has pulled off the impossible: discomfort with both.

The party’s allergy to spirited, but civil, disagreement has become a debilitating disease. It also is a disservice to the political legacies of Thatcher and Reagan, who would never have wanted rigidity and thoughtlessness to be hallmarks of the conservatism they championed. “I love argument,” Thatcher once said. “I love debate. I don’t expect anyone to just sit there and agree with me. That’s not their job.”

When the acclaimed 2011 film “Iron Lady” was released, the studio issued a promotional poster of a stern-faced Meryl Streep under the slogan “Never Compromise.” Hollywood, it seems, got her wrong, too. Thatcher’s career was a testament to the fact that principle and pragmatism can coexist. That if you base a position on conviction and logic, people will respond — even in those times when you disagree with your political base. Even in those times when your view happens to be wrong.

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http://www.brianleecrowley.com/2013/04/ ... -thatcher/
Why the Liberals need a Margaret Thatcher

Posted by Brian on April 12, 2013 · Leave a Comment

Appearing in major newspapers across Canada, the Macdonald-Laurier Insitute’s Brian Lee Crowley reflects on the true legacy of Margaret Thatcher and the meaning of “Thatcherism”, and why the Liberals need their own Margaret Thatcher.

Why the Liberals Need a Margaret Thatcher

Brian Lee Crowley, Ottawa Citizen, April 12, 2012

She was a liberal in the classical sense.

Having lived in the United Kingdom for the first half of Margaret Thatcher’s time in office, I saw her handiwork up close, just as I saw the electrifying effect she had on the British people, for both good and ill.

But in all the commentary I have read very few writers have, in my estimation, rightly understood her politics. And no one has mentioned how very relevant the Thatcherite legacy is to the Liberal Party of Canada, whose new leader is about to be chosen.

To begin with, anybody who thinks Margaret Thatcher was a ‘conservative’ mistakes packaging for substance. What were her signature policies: the individualism of middle class aspiration and opportunity; a mistrust of monopoly and unaccountable institutions; free trade; a muscular and moralistic foreign policy; moderate taxes; and responsible public finances.

These are not the policies of British conservatism, which is the party of privilege and class, of deference to established institutions and authority, of paternalism, trimming and compromise. Truth be told, the Tories shared responsibility with Labour for the sad decline of Britain during the years before Thatcher. Long known in British politics as the stupid party, they allowed Labour to generate the ideas, with the Tories simply promising to run things better than the socialists. That produced a rudderless leftward drift.

Thus it was that Margaret Thatcher’s rise to the leadership of the Conservatives was resisted by the party establishment. She wasn’t just a woman, and a conviction politician. She represented a liberal insurgency that ripped the Tories from their moorings. The Conservative Party was the first British institution to be pummelled by her famous handbag.

Margaret Thatcher’s ideas were unambiguously those that had animated the British Liberals for generations. Her father, whom she revered, was a prominent Liberal and she learned her politics at his knee.

If Thatcher had heroes in Britain’s political past, they were not Benjamin Disraeli or Stanley Baldwin. They were Edmund Burke and William Gladstone. Her Conservatism, she said, “would be best described as ‘liberal’, in the old-fashioned sense. And I mean the liberalism of Mr Gladstone, not of the latter day collectivists.”

The British Liberal Party, however, abandoned Gladstonian liberalism, a transmogrification that began under David Lloyd George. The party sank to third party status where it remains mired today, albeit in coalition with the Conservatives. By losing the balance between Gladstonian and big government Liberals, the party’s forces were scattered to the winds, with most, like Churchill and Thatcher, ending up as an influential minority within the Tories.

But when, by force of personality and moral conviction, Thatcher imposed her views on the reluctant mainstream of the Conservatives, she revealed that while classical liberal ideas might no longer dominate in any party, they continued to resonate with the great British public. When offered real liberalism after years of socialist-Tory drift, they embraced it with enthusiasm. When Mrs Thatcher strayed, as she did with the poll tax that helped bring her down, they would not follow.

The real measure of her success was that the Labour Party became unelectable until it too embraced the basic tenets of liberalism. They jettisoned anti-liberal policies like nationalization of industry and overweening trade unions that had been Labour orthodoxy. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

As for the Liberal Party of Canada, prior to the Sixties they were enthusiastic Gladstonians. Virtually every tenet of Thatcherism they would have claimed as their own. They were the party of liberty, the individual, responsible finances, middle class aspiration and opportunity.

In the 1960s the party became divided between classical liberals who celebrated individual freedom and those who thought the burgeoning state could solve all our ills. The tension was a creative one for a while, but ultimately gave way to a party less moved by ideas and more preoccupied by the management of client groups clamouring for the state’s largesse.

Classical liberalism’s last hurrah within the party was the fiscal reforms of the 1990s that tamed the very state whose growth they had so assiduously cultivated since Lester Pearson. That was no break with tradition, but a return to the party’s roots. Like Thatcherism, it was highly popular at the time. But since then they have reverted to post-1960s type.

Perplexingly for Liberals, the Tories are now where classical liberal ideas are most welcome, while the NDP is the more convincing advocate of the big government alternative. Can the centre hold?

If the Liberal Party of Canada is to have a hope of revival, it must have a leader capable of holding those opposites together again, staking out that distinctive middle ground and promising to be more than just the least offensive dispenser of the state’s munificence. That’s a job that calls for a doughty handbag-wielder; alas, there are none on the horizon.

Brian Lee Crowley (twitter.com/brianleecrowley) is the Managing Director of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, an independent non-partisan public policy think tank in Ottawa: www.macdonaldlaurier.ca.
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