... with conservative Republican senators Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Sam Brownback of Kansas and conservative Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut to tout their request for $90 million in federal funds for research on how the Internet, i-Pods, and other electronic media affect children's emotional and behavioral development. ... Hard-shelled cynics might portray her alliance with Santorum, Brownback and Lieberman as a Clinton shift to a more conservative stance, just as some have so interpreted her Jan. 25 speech which stressed the need for teenage sexual abstinence.
Not to mention her recent advocacy of compromise on the abortion issue (see my earlier post The Case for Abortion Compromise).
Senator Clinton's position on children and the media is mentioned in a recent TIME cover story, The Decency Police:
... earlier this month, Clinton took the stage with Santorum and Brownback to decry indecency in pop culture and call for a federal study of its effect on children.
There are two reasons why oldstyleliberal says three cheers for Hillary.
The first reason is that he agrees with social critics: TV (along with other media) has reached a tipping point and gone over an invisible line into hyper-raunchiness.
Now, oldstyleliberal does not favor censorship when it comes to what some call smut and others call free expression of sexual ideas (or of any other so-called "dangerous" ideas). oldstyleliberal has even been known to enjoy outright sleaze occasionally. He is, after all, a normal, red-blooded American male with definite prurient interests. (And by that statement he does not mean to exclude normal, red-blooded American females from having their own prurient interests, also.)
But when raunch and sleaze invade just about every program that is broadcast, of whatever category, at whatever time of day, oldstyleliberal says Whoa! Time out! Hold the mayo!
So he thinks Hillary is right to at least try to set up a federal commission to look into what can be done and why it needs to be done.
But there's a second reason he is in Hillary's corner on this one. To wit, he thinks the Senator from New York's reaching across the aisle, as it were, on issues like abortion, teenage sexual abstinence, and media sleaze makes her an ideal Democratic candidate for the presidency in 2008.
This country needs its liberals to "shift right" somewhat, if they are to elect one of their own to the White House ever again. Entrenched positions at the left extreme of the ideological spectrum don't cut it these days. Compromise and accommodation are the order of the day.
As oldstyleliberal mentioned in You Go, Hillary!, Senator Clinton not long ago lectured on "Women and Leadership in the 21st Century" at the Panetta Institute. In taking questions from host Leon Panetta and from the audience, she bemoaned the loss of a spirit of compromise and bipartisan consensus in Congress today. It appears she has decided to not only talk that kind of talk, but to walk the walk as well.
Imagine it is 2008. Hillary continues to be the hands-down favorite for the Democratic nomination, actually gets the nod ... and then goes on to win the Oval Office. Given Americans' recent penchant for divided government, the Republicans will very likely retain control of both houses of Congress. What kind of liberal Democratic president would be better-suited to working with a right-wing GOP legislative branch than one who, like Senator Clinton, has established her bona fides as credibly "shifting right" when the occasion demands it?
That's oldstyleliberal's second reason for lining up with Hillary on the topic of what media sleaze does to our kids: it bodes well for her anticipated presidential bid in 2008!
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