A couple of weeks ago, Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria, for reasons that don’t appear to make a lot of sense, praised John McCain for his “new” way of thinking.
Political ideologies do not exist in a vacuum. They need to meet the problems of the world as it exists. Ordinary conservatives understand this, which may be why — despite the urgings of their ideological gurus — they have voted for McCain. He seems to understand that a new world requires new thinking.
Now, as far as I can tell, when it comes to McCain’s worldview, “new” is about the last adjective that comes to mind.
And to help prove the point, consider the senator’s comments today on drug policy.
John McCain went back to the future last night suggesting that an old anti-drug program should be revived to stem demand for illegal drugs.
“We’re creating a demand here in the United States. We all know that,” McCain said at a town hall meeting in Waco.
“Now maybe we ought to go back to — remember when Nancy Reagan used to have a program called ‘Just Say No’ and it had some effect?”
Yes, Mr. “New Thinking” looks back wistfully at ineffective domestic policies from 25 years ago, and wants to bring them back.
Now, to be fair, McCain had some other comments on drug policy, and not all of them were as silly as this one. (McCain, for example, expressed support for rehab programs for first time drug offenders.)
But the problem with his “Just Say No” comments wasn’t just that McCain wants to turn back the clock, it’s that Nancy Reagan’s program wasn’t nearly as “effective” as McCain seems to believe.
It’s not online, but Washington Monthly ran a good item way back in 1993 scrutinizing the efficacy of the Reagan program.
“I can’t get caught in the middle here — I’ve got my job,” the man whispers into the telephone, careful not to be overheard. “But I’ve seen data that this stuff doesn’t make any difference at all.” The “stuff’ is an educational product sold by this guy’s company. Is he peddling video games? Dumbed down textbooks? Nope: a Just Say No anti-drug curriculum taught in schools. Tums out that the effectiveness of the mantra of Nancy Reagan’s first ladyship may be about as durable as a caffeine buzz.
In the past 10 years, drug education has become a $ 2 billion industry, with companies selling expensive teachers’ seminars and anti-drug texts to schools across the country. At least $ 1.25 billion of that comes from federal block grants that schools can use for counseling, social work, and other “anti-drug” activities and paraphernalia–including posters, bumperstickers, t-shirts, and coffee mugs. At least an additional $ 750 million comes from local and state governments and corporate gifts. Money well spent if it keeps our children from inhaling, right? That’s the catch: There’s little evidence that these dollars do anything to keep kids from using chugs. It’s a new alphabet soup, all acronyms for messages of abstinence: STAR, DARE, ALERT, and dozens more. The nation’s schools have bought a bill of goods so large and so ostensibly worthy that it’s difficult to acknowledge disappointing results. And the money, now that it’s flowing, is subject to the oldest fact of bureaucratic life: Once a government subsidy starts, it’s virtually impossible to shut down.
Since the early eighties, Just Say No courses-classroom sessions, usually about a dozen, held over a few months in sixth, seventh, or eighth grade, sometimes supplemented by community and high school events–have quietly become commonplace. These programs have produced exorbitant claims of success: “More than 25 million kids will be impacted by the highly successful DARE program,” reads one glowing press release. “DARE’s impact on reducing drug use among young people is well-documented by numerous studies.”
That, of course, sounds encouraging; the only problem is that it’s not true.
Still waiting for that elusive evidence of McCain’s understanding that “a new world requires new thinking.” Barring that, I’ll accept evidence of McCain embracing quality thinking — new or old — on any major policy issue.