Economic insanity

[K. A. Pital]

You really think Obama compromised for the sake of compromise? Oh the naive. Obama "compromised" because there are interests which may not be infringed on fundamentally, only to a certain degree. There are dark waters where you may only tread so far; if you go further, your political life is ruined.

Or maybe your life, period.

[Lord Zentei]

I doubt he's terribly fearful. Remember that this guy shed his political milk teeth in Chicago, one of the most corrupt cities in the US; and when he joined the Senate, he was mentored there by none other than Joe "Turncoat" Lieberman. Personally, I don't think he's "compromising" at all. He wants this. It's just that he can spin a good spin, and is not as bad as the Republicans on several issues (such as DADT).

[K. A. Pital]

I doubt he's terribly fearful. Remember that this guy shed his political milk teeth in Chicago, one of the most corrupt cities in the US; and when he joined the Senate, he was mentored there by none other than Joe "Turncoat" Lieberman. Personally, I don't think he's "compromising" at all. He wants this. It's just that he can spin a good spin, and is not as bad as the Republicans on several issues (such as DADT).

Well, that also works. He's not acting in someone else's interests; those are just his interests as well.

[bobalot]

You really think Obama compromised for the sake of compromise? Oh the naive. Obama "compromised" because there are interests which may not be infringed on fundamentally, only to a certain degree. There are dark waters where you may only tread so far; if you go further, your political life is ruined.

Or maybe your life, period.

He had his window during the first year (perhaps year and a half). There was real anger against Wall St. With his numbers in the Senate and House of Representatives, he could have really pushed through a big agenda such as ending the Bush tax cuts and a massive public works program. Hell, George Bush never had 60 senators in the Senate and still pushed through his bullshit.

But he didn't and the rest is history.

[Simon_Jester]

Stas, I think you're taking your argument "a bridge too far" with that last bit: "Or maybe your life, period."

US politics doesn't feature much in the way of shadowy assassination-by-cabal for senior political figures, practically none if you don't buy into the Kennedy conspiracy theories (which are poorly supported, and which include mutually exclusive versions).

Now, it's an open question to what extent Obama wants the kind of policies he gets in place, and to what extent he's just trying not to burn his bridges with the right- when his opposition is cheerfully willing to douse the bridges in gasoline and start playing with matches.

But I don't think the main motive in his mind is that he fears to enact progressive reforms which he would otherwise enact. It's either that he genuinely doesn't want to do it, or that he wants to do it but has this strange fixation on being seen as the noble, adult negotiator in every political crisis, even if that means nothing gets done.

[K. A. Pital]

US politics doesn't feature much in the way of shadowy assassination-by-cabal for senior political figures, practically none if you don't buy into the Kennedy conspiracy theories (which are poorly supported, and which include mutually exclusive versions).

What about MLK?

[Simon_Jester]

Again, lack of strong, consistent evidence for the conspiracy, and lack of evidence for the existence of a powerful conspiracy that would want him dead*.

Also, King was not a 'major American political figure' in the sense Obama is- no Secret Service protection or any of the other security advantages enjoyed by a sitting president. He was a very well known man, but not enough so to become unusually difficult to kill.

Basically, there have been a number of deaths in American politics... but when the best examples you can think of date to forty or fifty years ago, and even there you're relying on the truth of conspiracy theories, there's a hole in your argument, Stas.

You're on much stronger ground talking about whether Obama actually wants to bother with various reforms than when you insinuate that he might become a target for some ill-defined cabal if he tried to enact the reforms.
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*Killing MLK did not reverse the existing gains of the civil rights movement, radicalized the movement in the future, and generally made the situation worse.