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Jim Clark: Saying nice things about my 3 favorite liberals

As the nation slides deeper and deeper into a hyper-partisan stalemate, it’s getting to be boring to hear both the right-wing and left-wing “spin” put on factual situations and policy issues.

It almost seems that President Obama requires his press secretary candidates to take a “truth-detector” test before he considers hiring them.

And we all remember Harry Reid, D-Nev,, claiming on the floor of the U.S. Senate that Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney hadn’t paid taxes for 10 years. Similarly, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., seems ever-ready to overstate the case on Benghazi or the IRS scandal or whatever else.



And so, after struggling through the Sunday paper and finding more of the same, I came up with an idea: Let’s start a “say-something-nice-about-someone-on-the-other side” campaign right here in Incline/Crystal Bay.

I’ll start off. My three favorite liberals are Kirsten Powers, Susan Estrich and Joe Lieberman. Powers and Estrich are syndicated columnists who I invariably read. Former Sen. Joe Lieberman (D, and later I, Conn.) was the Democratic vice presidential standard bearer in the 2000 election.



Powers is a former Miss America who is candid enough in her opinions to be an invited Fox News contributor. She is frequently selected to represent liberal thought and matched against conservative opinion leaders including Fox News show host Sean Hannity. Rarely does she engage in mindless, agenda-driven hyperbole, and unlike Obama’s spin doctors, she will admit it when her side screws up.

Estrich served as campaign manager for Democratic Presidential Candidate Michael Dukakis against George H.W. Bush and is currently a law professor at the University of Southern California in addition to being a columnist. She was at one time a victim of sexual assault and is not hesitant to support victims’ rights in her writings. Her strongest suit is the U.S. Supreme Court. Her commentary on that institution is objective and always interesting.

What can I say about Joe Lieberman? He’s the kind of guy that just doesn’t go around saying things that make people mad. He is an observant Jew yet never moralizes or preaches.

In connection with the pummeling the Obama Administration has lately taken from the U.S. Supreme Court Lieberman said: “The good thing to say for those who are worried is that we do have a Supreme Court … and the vision of the founders to exercise nonpolitical authority to keep our government within the bounds of the Constitution. It is not a perfect system but when you’ve got an ideologically split court and 13 cases saying 9-0 that the president or the administration exceeded its Constitutional authority, that says something very powerful.”

Turning to the crisis in Iraq Lieberman said: “You’ve got now a bunch of radical extremists who are essentially trying to knock down the borders between two countries and say: ‘we’re going to create our own Islamic state’; and woe to everybody there if they ever get to do that.

“And one of the main causes of the problem there is that the U.S. did not come to the side of the opposition to Assad in Syria when it took shape three years ago. As a result we created a vacuum into which this truly radical, anti-American group has come in from all over the world now.”

Good old Joe. Sock it to Obama!

As can be seen, it’s a lot easier to say something nice about the other side when they agree with you on the issues. Nevertheless, I think this is a lot more pleasant reading than the typical Harry Reid outburst or Darrell Issa indictment.

Give it a try.

Jim Clark is president of Republican Advocates. He has served on the Washoe County and Nevada Republican Central Committees.


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