Stand by Your Man
Progressives are betraying Obama, not the other way around.
By James Taranto
The Wall Street Journal
August 9, 2011
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904140604576498372637759658.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion
Amid President Obama's recent political difficulties, one recurring theme from unhappy lefties is that the president is either too willing to compromise his progressive principles or else never adhered to such principles in the first place. Former MSNBC host Cenk Uygur, writing at the Puffington Host, grouses that "Obama is the world's worst negotiator and has absolutely no interest in fighting for progressive principles." Tom Hayden, Jane Fonda's erstwhile lesser half, claims that in attempting to transcend the racial divide, Obama made himself a "centrist" and thereby "forfeited the ability to identify in a full-throated way with . . . progressive liberalism." And of course former Enron adviser Paul Krugman has described the president as a "moderate conservative."
This strain of criticism is distinct from the collapse of the Cult of Obama phenomenon, which we've been discussing in recent days. It comes from ideologues, many of whom never harbored any fantasies about Obama as some sort of transformative leader. Krugman, for example, has been consistently hard-headed in his view of Obama.
Left-wing progressives have abundant reason to be unhappy with the Obama presidency. If it continues on its current trajectory, it could be the greatest setback to progressive ideology since the Vietnam War. Uygur is also correct in reckoning the president an atrocious negotiator as we argued last week.
But the notion that Obama is not a progressive or has not been "fighting for progressive principles"--a very different activity from negotiating, we should note--is bunk. If you doubt it, reread this Peggy Noonan column from February 2010:
The president had a stunning and revealing exchange with Sen. Blanche Lincoln, the Arkansas Democrat likely to lose her 2010 re-election campaign. He was meeting with Senate Democrats to urge them to continue with his legislative agenda. Mrs. Lincoln took the opportunity to beseech him to change it. She urged him to distance his administration from "people who want extremes," and to find "common ground" with Republicans in producing legislation that would give those in business the "certainty" they need to create jobs.
While answering, Mr. Obama raised his voice slightly and quickened his cadence. "If the price of certainty is essentially for us to adopt the exact same proposals that were in place leading up to the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression . . . the result is going to be the same. I don't know why we would expect a different outcome pursuing the exact same policy that got us in this fix in the first place." He continued: "If our response ends up being, you know . . . we don't want to stir things up here," then "I don't know why people would say, 'Boy, we really want to make sure those Democrats are in Washington fighting for us.' "
In the recent budget negotiations, too, Obama was combative and unyielding. "Eric, don't call my bluff," he imperiously told the House majority leader. He said he would take his case "to the American people," and he did. He was still taking his case to the American people yesterday afternoon, repeating his demand for higher taxes against the backdrop of the plummeting stock market.
To be sure, in the interim he folded. But he did so only because the alternative--failing to reach a deal acceptable to the Republican House--would have risked catastrophe.
In short, Obama is a fighter for the progressive cause. Progressives are upset with him because he is a loser.
Bill Clinton, by contrast, was a winner. By all accounts he emerged victorious from the 1995-96 budget battles with Republicans, and he was easily re-elected. There are, of course, many differences between Clinton and Obama, and between those times and these. But one salient difference is that Clinton was ideologically flexible whereas Obama is rigid.
Unlike Obama, Clinton abandoned "health care reform" when it was clear it was politically untenable. Clinton drove a hard bargain with Republicans in the budget fights, but he never demanded that they raise taxes. And his signature legislation turned out to be welfare reform, a centrist initiative that drew bipartisan support but bitter opposition from the progressive left.
Yet the left not only stood by him but rallied behind him when he was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice in a sex scandal. If Barack Obama were caught in flagrante delicto with a White House intern, does anyone doubt the left would demand his resignation--and would be relieved at having a good reason to do so?
Progs loved Bill Clinton because he was a winner. They loathe Barack Obama because he is a loser. But Obama is a loser in large part because he is unwilling to do what Clinton did to make himself a winner: cast aside progressive ideology when it is expedient to do so.
Obama isn't betraying the left, the left is betraying Obama--and they are doing so precisely because he has done what they say they want him to do.
The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted. ~ D.H. Lawrence
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