Talk/Talk: Socialism! Help Me!

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Below are excerpts from this week's Talk Talk, Socialism! Help Me! Every Sunday CUIP's president Jacqueline Salit and strategist and philosopher Fred Newman watch the political talk shows and discuss them. Here are excerpts from their dialogue on Sunday, September 28, 2008 after watching "The Chris Matthews Show," "Meet the Press", "The McLaughlin Group" and "This Week with George Stephanopoulos".

Salit: Since we're talking about introducing the word "socialism" into the public lexicon, I was struck by the range of reactions on The McLaughlin Group. McLaughlin asks Monica Crowley, the Wall Street conservative, about the bailout. 'Is this socialism?' he says. She's for it and she responds. But she doesn't use the word "socialism." Instead, she gives a description of the intervention. Then, a few minutes later, McLaughlin asks Mort Zuckerman, 'Is this socialism?' Zuckerman won't use the word either. He gives another description of the intervention. Finally, Rich Lowry of The National Review says, 'Hey, it's a socialistic style intervention to save capitalism.'

Newman: I'm always cautious about agreeing with something in which the key phrase to characterize the something is a "style." I don't think it's a style. And it's not as if the U.S. government hasn't been a major financial player in other situations, not to mention the extent to which that's true internationally. Socialism is a real thing. So, of course, is capitalism. The problem, from my point of view, lies in the fact that most everybody insists that those two things have to be understood as virtual opposites. And they're not, given the size of the world, the nature of the world, the shape of the world.

Read Talk Talk in its entirety here.