A few bloggers (see Bo Cowgill, for example, who graciously has posted a clarifying addendum) thought our post on who's to blame for allowing our civil liberties to be infringed upon labeled Bill Clinton as an enemy of the Consitution. Not so.

Just to set the record straight, we admire Clinton. We voted for him, we wish he were president now and we'd vote for him again. What we criticized were his and his administration's policies on civil liberties, privacy and criminal justice--admittedly, areas of great importance to us.

We didn't say and we don't believe that Clinton was "an enemy of the Constitution. " We said he was too centrist and not liberal enough for us on privacy issues like wiretapping and on criminal justice issues. But we also pointed out that we admired his accomplishments in other areas.

We were striving to make a point with our criticism--the point being that it's the centrists we need to watch out for when it comes time for democrats to nominate a presidential candidate for 2004-- they are the real danger. Clinton was centrist in these areas, as is Bush (if he were a true conservative, he'd support privacy rights.) The left (among them the ACLU and many criminal defense lawyers) and the libertarians and the right have more respect for civil liberties and privacy rights than do centrists.

The right continues to lack credibility in areas other than privacy issues. For example, they are simply medieval in their views on crime--they always want to punish longer and lock more people up while refusing to address the root causes of crime or make an attempt to reduce recidivism through rehabilitation and treatment. With Clinton, drug offenders got overly harsh ten year mandatory minimum sentences, but if it were up to Bob Barr or Newt, they'd all be getting life--if not death.

We think the Democratic party needs to return to its true liberal roots of decades ago and the values our parents and grandparents embraced. Like individual freedom and privacy, fair treatment of immigrants, meting out just but not excessive sentences while stressing rehabilitation--and providing every child with an equal opportunity to succeed.

Update: Kip Manley over at Long Story, Short Pier goes further with the left/right distinction and asks, Would people support the same powers in the hands of a Democratic administration?