Hypocrisy and the "L" Word

By Michael Kinsley

John Chancellor: Do you describe Michael Dukakis as a liberal?

Paul Kirk: I don't. I describe Michael Dukakis as a tough-minded, no- nonsense, take-charge chief executive.

Tom Brokaw: Would you agree that it's the working thesis of the Dukakis campaign this time that they have to . . . avoid at all costs phrases like "liberal"?

Susan Estrich: You know, the Republicans keep talking "liberal, conservative" . . . The point is that I don't think those labels mean a heck of a lot today.

-- NBC's Meet the Press, Sunday, July 17

Thus the Democratic Party chairman and Michael Dukakis' campaign manager defeated two barons of the press in convention week's favorite game: pin the tail on the donkey. The Democrats' renunciation of the word liberal annoys others besides journalists. It's annoying to believers in truth-in- advertising. Michael Dukakis, in most respects, is a classic postwar American liberal. It's annoying to Democrats who want their party to stand for something less bloodless than "pragmatism" and "competence."

It's annoying, most of all, to Republicans. Tarring Dukakis as a liberal is their main strategy for the fall. Don't be fooled, says President Reagan: the Democrats are just hiding their liberalism behind "trench coats and sunglasses." George Bush bragged to TIME's Hugh Sidey that he possesses, and intends to wheel out, an actual quote from Dukakis, saying "I'm a liberal Democrat." Gotcha!

Clearly the word is out of fashion. In the 1950s the term progressive was a euphemism used by Americans who didn't want to admit to being Communists. Today it's used by people who don't want to admit to being liberals. In the radical 1960s, when my ears got their political training, "liberal" was a semicomic term of abuse similar to the wonderful British political insult "wet." It meant wishy-washy, ineffectual, irrelevant. To those ears, today's sinister variants such as "ultraliberal" sound bizarre. In the 1970s conservatives were still claiming prissily that they were the "true" liberals, in the classic 18th century sense, and complaining that this esteemed label had been kidnaped by collectivists. Now no one wants the label.

If the widespread rejection of the term liberal mirrored a widespread rejection of the content of postwar American liberalism, the Democrats could be forthrightly condemned for their linguistic sleight of hand. But the Democrats' hypocrisy reflects the hypocrisy of American voters. And the voters learned their hypocrisy from the Republicans.

Just what are the Republicans accusing the Democrats of in this term liberal? Of Social Security? Of Medicare? Of farm price supports? Of civil rights? Of programs to clean up the environment? Of friendly relations with the Soviets? It's precisely because George Bush has no quarrel with the essence of the liberal agenda that he's basing his campaign on obscure irrelevancies such as prison-furlough policy and an ancient controversy over the Pledge of Allegiance.

It's widely noted that Reagan's revolution never took place. The Government is bigger than ever, doing most of the same things. In fact, the failure of his revolution is the reason for his electoral success: it was a revolution people didn't really want. And Bush, lacking Reagan's charm, is backpedaling furiously, promising new programs, renewed Government activism, "a new day."

What he's not promising is to pay for it all. In a historically ironic inversion, "liberalism" now essentially means fiscal irresponsibility. Republicans accuse Democrats of it; Democrats hysterically deny it. Reagan says Dukakis is "a true liberal who, instead of controlling Government spending, raises taxes." Of course Reagan also raised taxes, and certainly didn't control Government spending. But he hypnotized the voters into thinking they could treat "liberalism" like one of those magazine-subscription deals where you can write "Please cancel" on the bill and keep the first few issues anyway.

Well, it's only a word. If the essence of liberalism is secure even from Reagan, does it make any difference that no one wants to be called a liberal anymore? Yes. Politics has always contained a large dollop of hypocrisy. But under Reagan, hypocrisy has swollen to the point that it covers many of the most important questions politics is supposed to treat. And that has real consequences. America's mountainous debts are a concrete expression of the nation's determination to enjoy liberalism without acknowledging it, and therefore without paying for it.

But Middle Americans are paying more for their hypocrisy than they realize. Democrats are so afraid of appearing "liberal" that they rejected a platform proposal to increase taxes on people making more than $100,000 a year. They wince as Bush scores points off of Dukakis' recent 5 cents-a-pack increase in the Massachusetts cigarette tax. Meanwhile, the annual Social Security surplus is contributing $40 billion a year toward covering Reagan's deficits, thanks to a Reagan-endorsed 1983 increase in the Social Security tax -- a flat tax on wages that exempts dividends, interest, profits and all income over $45,000 a year.

It's hard to believe this year's mushy Democratic platform was written by the same man, Theodore Sorensen, who helped write J.F.K.'s "Ask not what your country can do for you." These days no politician of either party dares to ask people to do anything for their country.

Thanks to a sleepy incumbent and a seemingly lightweight rival candidate, the Democrats may succeed in recapturing the White House on themes of "management" and "competence," without invoking the dreaded "L" word or the ideas behind it. And after a decade of Republican hypocrisy -- especially after what happened to Walter Mondale's small experiment in straight talk four years ago -- the Democrats may be entitled to one hypocritical victory of their own. But the next one they should try to win fair and square.