The Lanny Davis disease and America's health care debate (Feel The Sleaze)

Glenn Greenwald
Tuesday Aug. 18, 2009 06:19 EDT
The Lanny Davis disease and America's health care debate

After Tom Daschle was selected to be Barack Obama's Secretary of Health and Human Services and chief health care adviser, Matt Taibbi wrote: "In Washington there are whores and there are whores, and then there is Tom Daschle." One could easily have added: "And then there's Lanny Davis." Davis frequently injects himself into political disputes, masquerading as a "political analyst" and Democratic media pundit, yet is unmoored from any discernible political beliefs other than: "I agree with whoever pays me." It's genuinely difficult to recall any instance where he publicly defended someone who hadn't, at some point, hired and shuffled money to him. Yesterday, he published a new piece simultaneously in The Hill and Politico -- solemnly warning that extremists on the Far Left and Far Right are jointly destroying democracy with their conduct in the health care debate and urging "the vast center-left and center-right of this country to speak up and call them out equally" -- that vividly illustrates the limitless whoring behavior which shapes Washington generally and specifically drives virtually every word out of Lanny Davis' mouth.

Davis' history is as long and consistent as it is sleazy. He was recently hired by Honduran oligarchs opposed to that country's democratically elected left-wing President and promptly became the chief advocate of the military coup which forcibly removed the President from office. He became an emphatic defender of the Israeli war on Gaza after he was named by the right-wing The Israel Project to be its "Senior Advisor and Spokesperson." He has been the chief public defender for Joe Lieberman, Jane Harman and the Clintons, all of whom have engaged his paid services. And as NYU History Professor Greg Grandin just documented:

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Davis' new piece in The Hill and Politico demonstrates how this works. Presenting himself as the Responsible Liberal-Centrist, he warns of what he calls "The Dangerous Joining of the Far Right and Far Left." He argues that "the extreme left and extreme right share more in common than those on their own side of the ideological divide when it comes to the issue of health care." In order to defeat the extremists on both sides "who threaten our democratic traditions and institutions," he pompously assumes the voice of Thomas Paine and issues this call to action: "When the far left and the far right join in the Politics of Hate and Demonization, it is time for the vast center-left and center-right of this country to speak up and call them out equally. Silence is no longer acceptable by responsible liberals towards the reckless far left or by responsible conservatives towards the reckless far right. Silence is complicity."

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Lanny Davis is just a face that reflects the grime and sleaze that lies at the core of our political culture. But it's a rather vivid face for what is typically meant by Centrism (i.e., it's shrill and irresponsible to suggest there's anything fundamentally wrong with our political culture); Civility (it's rude and disrespectful to highlight the oozing conflicts of interests and paid whoredom which animate our leading political luminaries); and Bipartisanship (the same narrow set of corporate forces always prevail no matter which party is in "control" by constantly paying those who control those parties). As unpleasant as it is, that's why there's value in casting one's eyes on how Lanny Davis functions.

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http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/08/18/davis/index.html
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The August 7 broadcast of Democracy Now! featured a debate on the Honduras coup where Lanny Davis represented the pro-coupster side, because he was paid to.

At this link you can watch the video or download an mp3:
http://www.democracynow.org/shows/2009/8/7