Harold Meyerson

Echoes of another liberal turning point were felt at last week's Thinking Big conference.

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After surviving one of the worst presidencies in American history, liberals -- both emboldened and frustrated by the new Democratic president -- came to Washington for a conference where they laid out their visions and formulated strategies to push the new president in a more liberal direction.

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We are in some ways still a nation of Puritans, and we don't much cotton to people who can't take care of themselves and end up sponging off our generosity. We demand that welfare recipients do an honest day's work for their checks.

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The leader of the Republican Party was fulminating against the Democratic president's programs. All that government spending, and yet, he said, "the nation has not made the durable progress, either in reform or recovery, that we had the right to expect." The problem was that the president didn't trust the market to right the economy: "The energies of the American economic system will remedy the ravages of depression," he argued.

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The leader of the Republican Party was fulminating against the Democratic president's programs. All that government spending, and yet, he said, "the nation has not made the durable progress, either in reform or recovery, that we had the right to expect."

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By one measure, last Wednesday was that rarity of rarities for American labor: a good day. The measure was that of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which announced that union membership actually increased by 428,000 in 2008. After decades of decline, the uptick in union membership signaled that some unions, at least, have figured out how to organize, despite relentless employer opposition and toothless worker-protection laws.

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