Yesterday Michael Bersin pointed out that DINO Senator Claire McCaskill is so eager to make nice with Hillary Clinton that she’s decided to engage in a little red-baiting when it comes to the surprisingly popular Clinton primary challenger, Bernie Sanders. Seems McCaskill wants to remind us all that Sanders is – oh, the horror – a socialist! (I distinctly remember that when McCaskill first ran for the Senate she had the gall to talk about her progressive values. Well, we live and learn.) When asked to identify three specifically socialist policies advocated by Sanders, she reportedly hemmed and hawed, and finally came up with the following:

a) that Sanders wants to expand entitlements; b) that he supports universal health-care, and c) that he is unsound on The Debt.

Remember this next time McCaskill wants your support. These are the ideas that she thinks disqualifies Bernie Sanders. Too bad that they are also held by a majority of her fellow Democrats. When she joins with Republicans to cut Social Security benefits because of The Debt, don’t say you weren’t warned.

But to get back to that socialist shtick, it might prove useful to take a look at the Legatum Institute’s annual Prosperity Index which measures national prosperity. According to Business Insider, “the Prosperity Index measures countries based on 89 different economic analysis variables that measure success in industry, education, health, freedom, opportunity, and social capital.” The United States ranks at #10 on the index after the following countries:

#1 Norway

#2 Swizerland

#3 New Zealand

#4 Denmark

#5 Canada

#6 Sweden

#7 Australia

#8 Finland

#9 Netherlands

Notice something? Almost all of these countries could be characterized by the prevalence of overtly socialist or social welfare policies. Nor are the very prosperous Scandinavian countries in this list adverse to high, progressive taxation. Just the type of taxation that might do something about the growing inequality in the U.S. And let us enhance Social Security benefits. And educate our children. And fix our failing infrastructure. And deliver healthcare for all. And lots, lots more. We could have Happy days again.

Paying attention Senator McCaskill? Tell us again why we should be worried by Bernie Sanders? Especially since it’s likely that Hillary Clinton will know how to evaluate what the enthusiastic response to what Bernie has to say means for the direction she needs to take. Or so all of us who aren’t Democratic Senators from Missouri can only hope.

Lest you swoon at the possibility that Obama might turn out to be a socialist, let me just point out that any candidate with Robert Rubin of Citigroup as an advisor on economic matters is not a socialist. But even if Obama were such a scurrilous animal, so what?

A letter writer in the Tuesday Post-Dispatch puts the accusation in perspective:

Newspeak was made an art form by Newt Gingrich. Examples are “Clean Air Initiative,” “No Child Left Behind” and the “Contract with America.” A recent and disturbing twisting of the language to make a boogeyman of a political opponent is the word “socialist.”

All these anti-socialists do not like the roads they drive on. They don’t want policemen, firemen, Social Security, unemployment benefits or Medicare. These are all social programs run by the government.

“Socialist” is a code word for “communist.” But the truth is that the Bush government has brought the American people closer to socialism than most are aware. This administration outsourced the Veterans Administration, the penal system and the war. Now it is buying Wall Street and banks. When the government and corporations become one, that is national socialism, or corporatism.

Whoops. I did a Gingrich. I changed the meaning of a word. Corporatism sounds better than fascism.

So. No fainting required. Better a socialist than a fascist, n’est-ce pas?

M. W. Guzy, of the St. Louis Beacon agrees:

I am a socialist and have unwittingly been so most of my adult life. You see, I spent 21 years as an officer on the St. Louis Police Department and now work for the City Sheriff’s Office. Though most cops would bristle at the label, we’re all socialist to the core.

At the cop shop, salaries and benefits are standardized, seniority is rewarded through a graduated pay scale, health insurance is provided for by law and a fixed-benefit pension plan is in place. When City Hall gives the department a raise, green rookies and the chief of police get the same percentage. The chief, incidentally, makes only about 2 times the base salary of a veteran patrol officer.

Guzy exttrapolates from that:

Looking at the work force from this perspective, you find a lot of socialism out there. Fire-fighters, emergency medical technicians, public school teachers, judges, members of the armed forces and postal workers all work in professions where financial risk is virtually nonexistent and reward is guaranteed. In the current economic climate, these people share one commonality — they have jobs. The pay may not be great, but it’s steady.

But then he takes his argument one step further:

And now, a new hotbed of socialism has been unearthed in the most unlikely of places: Wall Street. Recent events have revealed that bastion of free market enterprise to be an elaborate scheme of privatized profit and socialized loss. When times are good, the cats get fat. But when reckless speculation runs the fiscal ship into the ice berg of reality, “we the people” get to pay for the lifeboats. The AIG bail-out is a case in point.

You really should read Guzy’s explanation of how AIG wiggled out from under its obligations. He succinctly clarified how we the taxpayer got the shaft. And once you understand that much, you’re likely to agree with him that AIG et.al. shouldn’t be allowed into the Socialist Club:

Q: Since most delinquent borrowers can pay at least a portion of their mortgage payment, wouldn’t it have been cheaper, and more effective, for the government to simply lend distressed homeowners the difference between what they can pay and what they owe on a month-by-month basis? That way, the debtors could keep their houses and with their mortgages now current, the securities based on them would again have value, thus eliminating the need to cash in the swaps.

A: No way. Bailing out lenders is patriotic. Bailing out borrowers would be socialism.