This story in The Nation is the best piece I’ve read yet on the Democracy Alliance–the group of wealthy liberals who are trying to create an infrastructure of progressive policy groups that mimics what conservatives did starting in the 1970s. The article, by Ari Berman, is well reported, interesting, and skeptical. (He interviewed me for it over the summer, though I’m not quoted.)
One graf in particular stood out–not because it’s about liberal philanthropy, but because it’s about Bill Clinton and it reminded me of his recent Fox interview:
A surprise guest at the meeting was Bill Clinton, whose agenda seemed to be protecting his wife. But things didn’t work out quite as planned. When Guy Saperstein, a retired lawyer from Oakland, asked Clinton if Democrats who supported the war should apologize, the former President “went [expletive deleted] ballistic,” according to Saperstein. Forget Hillary, Clinton said angrily during a ten-minute rant; if I was in Congress I would’ve voted for the war. “It was an extraordinary display of anger and imperiousness,” Saperstein says.