Obama Should Act Like He Won

[Dominus Atheos]

The... WALL STREET JOURNAL?!?!

As we anxiously await the debut of the Obama administration, we hear more and more about the incoming president's "post-partisan" instincts. He has filled his cabinet with relics of the centrist Clinton years. He has engaged the evangelical pastor Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration. And according to Politico, he wants 80 Senate votes for his stimulus plan -- a goal that would mean winning a majority among Republicans as well as Democrats.

Maybe these will turn out to be wise moves. Maybe they won't.

Audacity they ain't, though. There is no branch of American political expression more trite, more smug, more hollow than centrism.

After all, as Mark Leibovich pointed out in Sunday's New York Times, transcending faction has been the filler-talk of inaugural addresses going back at least to Zachary Taylor's in 1849. When you hear it today -- bemoaning as it always does "the extremes of both parties" or "the divisive politics of the past" -- it is virtually a foolproof indicator that you are in the presence of a well-funded, much-televised Beltway hack.

Centrism is something of a cult here in Washington, D.C., and a more specious superstition you never saw. Its adherents pretend to worship at the altar of the great American middle, but in fact they stick closely to a very particular view of events regardless of what the public says it wants.

And through it all, centrism bills itself as the most transgressive sort of exercise imaginable. Its partisans are "New Democrats," "Radical Centrists," clear-eyed believers in a "Third Way." The red-hot tepids, we might call them -- the jellybeans of steel.

The reason centrism finds an enthusiastic audience in Washington, I think, is because it appeals naturally to the Beltway journalistic mindset, with its professional prohibition against coming down solidly on one side or the other of any question. Splitting the difference is a way of life in this cynical town. To hear politicians insist that it is also the way of the statesman, I suspect, gives journalists a secret thrill.

Yet what the Beltway centrist characteristically longs for is not so much to transcend politics but to close off debate on the grounds that he -- and the vast silent middle for which he stands -- knows beyond question what is to be done.

Here, for example, is centrist Washington Post columnist Sebastian Mallaby, writing last October on the debate then raging over the role of deregulation in precipitating the financial crisis: "So blaming deregulation for the financial mess is misguided. But it is dangerous, too, because one of the big challenges for the next president will be to defend markets against the inevitable backlash that follows this crisis."

Got that? Criticizing deregulation is not merely wrong but "dangerous," virtually impermissible, since it problematizes the politics that everyone knows president 44 will ultimately embrace.

As this should remind us, the real-world function of Beltway centrism has not been to wage high-minded war against "both extremes" but to fight specifically against the economic and foreign policies of liberalism. Centrism's institutional triumphs have been won mainly if not entirely within the Democratic Party. Its greatest exponent, President Bill Clinton, persistently used his own movement as a foil in his great game of triangulation.

And centrism's achievements? Well, there's Nafta, which proved Democrats could stand up to labor. There's the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act. There's the Iraq war resolution, approved by numerous Democrats in brave defiance of their party's left. Triumphs all.

Histories of conservatism's rise, on the other hand, often emphasize that movement's adherence to principle regardless of changing public attitudes. Conservatives pressed laissez-faire through good times and bad, soldiering on even in years when suggesting that America was a "center-right nation" would have made one an instant laughingstock.

And what happens when a strong-minded movement encounters a politician who acts as though the truth always lies halfway between his own followers and the other side? The dolorous annals of Clinton suggest an answer, in particular the chapters on Government Shutdown and Impeachment.

That's why it is so obviously preferable to be part of the movement that doesn't compromise easily than to depend on the one that has developed a cult of the almighty center. Even a conservative as ham-handed as former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay seems to understand this.

As he recounted in his 2007 memoirs, Republicans under his leadership learned "to start every policy initiative from as far to the political right as we could." The effect was to "move the center farther to the right," drawing the triangulating Clinton along with it.

President-elect Obama can learn something from Mr. DeLay's confession: Centrism is a chump's game. Democrats have massive majorities these days not because they waffle hither and yon but because their historic principles have been vindicated by events. This is their moment. Let the other side do the triangulating.

[Vympel]

Fucking A. The mindless middle blather that gets Beltway journalists "Wet as October" (to borrow Titus Pullo's turn of phrase from Rome) drives me mad.

[Stargate Nerd]

As this should remind us, the real-world function of Beltway centrism has not been to wage high-minded war against "both extremes" but to fight specifically against the economic and foreign policies of liberalism. Centrism's institutional triumphs have been won mainly if not entirely within the Democratic Party.

My favorite part.

[Guardsman Bass]

That's not a surprise. This is Thomas Frank, the author of What's the Matter with Kansas?.

[weemadando]

Indeed, the soppy, weak, softly-softly, bullshit, pandering approach is driving me nuts.

Seriously - W. just made the executive branch into an Imperial seat, so why not just fucking go with it? If not, just get some balls and start by announcing at your inauguration that you are going to go after every member of the previous administration for every crime that they committed. That would be the way to go about things.

[Posner]

Indeed, the soppy, weak, softly-softly, bullshit, pandering approach is driving me nuts.

Seriously - W. just made the executive branch into an Imperial seat, so why not just fucking go with it? If not, just get some balls and start by announcing at your inauguration that you are going to go after every member of the previous administration for every crime that they committed. That would be the way to go about things.

I hate to sound like a goddamn Obama commercial, but isn't that what he was going for? A return to constitutionality and maybe get back that shred of political civility American politcs had before 2000.

[Spyder]

Indeed, the soppy, weak, softly-softly, bullshit, pandering approach is driving me nuts.

Seriously - W. just made the executive branch into an Imperial seat, so why not just fucking go with it? If not, just get some balls and start by announcing at your inauguration that you are going to go after every member of the previous administration for every crime that they committed. That would be the way to go about things.

I hate to sound like a goddamn Obama commercial, but isn't that what he was going for? A return to constitutionality and maybe get back that shred of political civility American politcs had before 2000.

I would dare to say that attempts at political civilty were ultimately the American "leftists" undoing. Centrism just doesn't work, especially when people actually aim for the centre.

[Surlethe]

Indeed, the soppy, weak, softly-softly, bullshit, pandering approach is driving me nuts.

Seriously - W. just made the executive branch into an Imperial seat, so why not just fucking go with it? If not, just get some balls and start by announcing at your inauguration that you are going to go after every member of the previous administration for every crime that they committed. That would be the way to go about things.

I hate to sound like a goddamn Obama commercial, but isn't that what he was going for? A return to constitutionality and maybe get back that shred of political civility American politcs had before 2000.

I would dare to say that attempts at political civilty were ultimately the American "leftists" undoing. Centrism just doesn't work, especially when people actually aim for the centre.

As they say, "aim for the stars, and you might just hit the moon." Corollary: shoot for the moon, and you'll be lucky to land in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. If we had an honest-to-God liberal party in power who acted liberal, the conservative opposition would be forced to compromise more and we'd probably end up with fairly centrist policies. But since we have a "liberal" party that is trying to be centrist, the conservatives will drag the compromise to the right, and act like they're being horribly raped just to give up a little bit of ground, when in reality all they're doing is dragging the political center of gravity to the right just a little bit further.

[Yogi]

The last time I brought this topic up, the Obama-drones said that actually implementing liberal policies would drive away the center vote and cause the Conservatives to win in the next election. So does that mean America's a center-right nation, or are the Obama-drones [once again] full of shit?

[General Zod]

The last time I brought this topic up, the Obama-drones said that actually implementing liberal policies would drive away the center vote and cause the Conservatives to win in the next election. So does that mean America's a center-right nation, or are the Obama-drones [once again] full of shit?

Considering that "liberal" is still treated like a dirty word and a significant chunk of the population did in fact vote for McCain, the idea that we're anything but just a little bit off center, and probably leaning right is absurd. Just look at the way socializing any type of essential public service gets treated, for fuck's sake. Or how many people were still "undecided" right up until election day for that matter.

[Ender]

Seriously - W. just made the executive branch into an Imperial seat, so why not just fucking go with it?

Yeah! Remember people, unconstitutional and unethical acts are only bad if they other side did it!

[Mr Bean]

Seriously - W. just made the executive branch into an Imperial seat, so why not just fucking go with it?

Yeah! Remember people, unconstitutional and unethical acts are only bad if they other side did it!

Yeah, midway through the election I lost any hope that Obama would man up(Excuse the expression) and make day one repealing all the Dictator powers that George W Bush put into place. And he could do it so damn easy if he gave a speech of something along the lines of... "Dear America, it's me, did you know I have the right to throw anyone I please into jail forever? Hell I could throw the whole goddamn supreme court into a Romanian jail as terror accomplices and it would be perfectly legal as long as I never charged them since Habeus Corpus does not exist anymore. So please America do the right thing and pressure your Senator and state Representative to take this power away from me and all future Presidents."

Sad to say I know he's not going to do that for the simple fact I know while Inspiring, and changetastic, he's not a true Liberal, he's a lets all get along centrist with a few core liberal principalities

[General Zod]

Sad to say I know he's not going to do that for the simple fact I know while Inspiring, and changetastic, he's not a true Liberal, he's a lets all get along centrist with a few core liberal principalities

Anyone who thought Obama was going to ever be anything but centrist was deluding themselves, especially given the nature of the speeches he gave in his campaign and his own policies on his website. He's arguably the most liberal President we've had in some time, but completely totally liberal? Hardly.

[Posner]

Anyone who thought Obama was going to ever be anything but centrist was deluding themselves, especially given the nature of the speeches he gave in his campaign and his own policies on his website. He's arguably the most liberal President we've had in some time, but completely totally liberal? Hardly.

I agree, he is as liberal a president as America was going to get this time around.

[weemadando]

Seriously - W. just made the executive branch into an Imperial seat, so why not just fucking go with it?

Yeah! Remember people, unconstitutional and unethical acts are only bad if they other side did it!

Out of context, that looks bad. I'd like to see Obama and co. go after the "other side" for all of the shit they did, and as part of that process you would have to tear down the bullshit protections et al built in by them.

In the meantime though, why not use your newly legislated powers of hand-wavium to unwrite some of the more despicable bits of mal-legislation quickly and quietly?

[General Zod]

In the meantime though, why not use your newly legislated powers of hand-wavium to unwrite some of the more despicable bits of mal-legislation quickly and quietly?

I take it you've missed all the press articles going around about how Obama's planning to undo a sizable amount of Bush regulations through executive order once he's sworn in?

[weemadando]

I'm in Australia, we get a lot of fluff coverage of Obama "looking for puppy!", "oh look Clinton getting sworn in!", "wow! Doesn't he look dapper!", but not much in the actual policy department.