quote for the day

BLOCK: I want to talk to you about a moment at the end of Bill Clinton's speech in 1993. He talked about the freedom of Americans to live without the fear that the health care system won't be there for them when they need it. Let's listen to what he said.

Pres. CLINTON: It's hard to believe that there was once a time in this century when that kind of fear gripped old age. When retirement was nearly synonymous with poverty and older Americans died in the street.

BLOCK: So drawing a parallel there with social security and how that transformed America.

Mr. BEGALA: Right. You know, President Clinton very much a student of Dick Neustadt's books about presidential power and how presidents lead. And one of the most powerful ways they lead is by reasoning from analogy. And the social security example was spot on. It was something people knew, they were comfortable with. And so being able to analogize to that, I think, had some real power

So, I heard this discussion on the radio the other day, and I think to myself: Is this the reason for so many Republican verbal attacks so many of our government institutions? To not only try and destroy (or privatize) them, but so that Democrats, who generally prefer to persuade with optimism rather than than using the GOP's Fear This method, can no longer present them as examples of things that work. Do Republicans poison the well not so much because they dont believe in the things they argue against, but because they would rather leave scorched earth for their rivals to work with, even if that scorched earth is the American people?