Ahead of his time, again

Peter Beinart advocating a liberalism based on economic opportunity along with a freedom agenda, Sunday New York Times magazine:

Liberals don't have a script because they don't have a Reagan. Since Vietnam, they've produced two presidents: Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. Carter's foreign policy is widely considered a failure. Clinton's foreign policy is not widely considered at all, because he governed at a time when foreign policy was for the most part peripheral to American politics. Ask liberals to describe a Carteresque foreign policy, and they tend to wince. Ask them to describe a Clintonesque one, and you'll most likely get a blank stare.

Bill Clinton's State of the Union address in 1997:

Every dollar we devote to preventing conflicts, to promoting democracy, to stopping the spread of disease and starvation brings a sure return in security and savings.

Yet international affairs spending today is just 1 percent of the federal budget -- a small fraction of what America invested in diplomacy to choose leadership over escapism at the start of the Cold War. If America is to continue to lead the world, we here who lead America simply must find the will to pay our way.

A farsighted America moved the world to a better place over these last 50 years. And so it can be for another 50 years. But a shortsighted America will soon find its words falling on deaf ears all around the world.

Almost exactly 50 years ago, in the first winter of the Cold War, President Harry Truman stood before a Republican Congress and called upon our country to meet its responsibilities of leadership. This was his warning.

He said, "If we falter, we may endanger the peace of the world -- and we shall surely endanger the welfare of this nation."

That Congress, led by Republicans like Senator Arthur Vandenberg, answered President Truman's call. Together they made the commitments that strengthened our country for 50 years. Now let us do the same. Let us do what it takes to remain the indispensable nation -- to keep America strong, secure and prosperous for another 50 years.

In the end, more than anything else, our world leadership grows out of the power of our example here at home, out of our ability to remain strong as one America.

Read Beinart's proposals a few times and try to find one thing different from what Bill said nearly 10 years ago.