Chris Matthews loves replaying the scene from his show 2 weeks back in which Hillary’s strategist, Mark Penn, brought up Obama’s cocaine use. Matthews wants to keep the story alive–he’s a junkie, remember?–so he keeps holding debates on the subject of Hillary’s negativity. There’s an interesting pattern to these debates: Hillary’s surrogates have been establishment Jews. Congressman Anthony Weiner the other night. The night before, Mark Green (who hasn’t endorsed, but was standing up for Hillary). And in the first instance, Mark Penn. Each was squaring off against a populist or lefty representing Obama and Edwards, notably David Bonior for Edwards, somebody Axelrod from the Obama campaign, and Joe Trippi (Edwards again).
This pattern is emblematic of sociological trends I am citing all the time here. Jewish Clintonites, generally from New York, are the centrist "sensible" wing of the Democratic party against the populist hordes in the very same way that Rockefeller Republicans were the bulwark of the Republican establishment through the 60s and 70s, as the Reaganites swarmed the battlements. In both cases, a New York political figure went national as the representative of a ruling class. In the previous instance Rockefeller represented the blueblood establishment. This time around it’s the meritocracy. In both cases, the foundation for the rise was the same: New York finance. (They didn’t call them Rockefellers for nothing.) Even the pinstripe suits are the same. Clinton’s ascension in the 90s had this foundation too. An outsider himself, he put his chips on the new meritocratic class and as David Frum has observed, created the most philosemitic presidency in history. Two Jewish appointments to the Supreme Court, a virtually all-Jewish braintrust at the Camp David debacle in 2000.
Someone’s got to name this group. Watch this space.
