Repeat After Me: Obama Is A Moderate

Every time new legislation or policies fall short of the expectations of progressives, several things happen. First, progressives complain that President Obama (yet again) has rushed to compromise with moderates and conservatives. Second, media commentators praise President Obama for being pragmatic and willing to work with others. Third, conservatives describe the legislation or policies as evidence of President Obama's sinister plot to turn the US into a communist society. To all who have engaged in this discourse, repeat after me: Obama is a moderate.

Progressives Continue to Ignore Reality
Regular readers of this blog know that I have long described Obama as a moderate -- even before he was elected. A long list of prior blog entries on this subject appears below this article. During the Democratic primaries, when Obama was the untouchable darling of the progressive community, I often watched with alternating confusion and amazement over the Left's collective worship of Obama and its portrayal of him as a progressive figure.

After Obama was elected, several factors indicated that he would fall far short of the wild expectations that many progressives had of him. He appointed despised Clinton-era officials to positions in his own administration. He chose Hillary Clinton, a "defeated" enemy of the political left, as his Secretary of State. And he would soon show his commitment to some policies of the Bush administration that progressives had vigorously opposed.

Although these decisions caused some progressives to awaken quickly from what I have described as an Obama-Vegetative State (a condition in which the patient is unable to think critically about Obama), clearly, others remain wedded to the unsubstantiated idea that Obama is a true progressive.

Despite the variety of data that prove Obama's moderate leanings, many progressives cling to the fantasy that he is a leftist. Accordingly, they become extremely upset when he dives toward the center and "compromises" with Republicans and moderate Democrats on issues such as the healthcare public option, the Bush tax cuts, and the magnitude and substance of the economic stimulus. Progressives demand that Obama negotiate from the left and move slightly to the right. Surprisingly, they assume that he shares their desire to start from the left in the first place.

The False Pragmatism Canard
In response to progressive criticism over Obama's political moderation, media commentators scold progressives for being partisans. They also praise Obama for being flexible and strategic. These commentators believe that Obama is a progressive but that he, unlike his progressive critics, is pragmatic. Most of these commentators, however, do not even engage the possibility that Obama himself is a strategic moderate who occupies the center not because failing to do so would doom him politically, but because this is the political space that coincides with his own ideological commitments.

The Conservative Red Scare Tactic
No one can convince Obama's rightwing critics that he is not a Muslim, socialist, communist, foreign-born individual causing the inevitable destruction of US society. So, I will leave them to their ideas. It is interesting, however, that the right and the left are equally drawn to their belief that Obama is a progressive.

What Progressives Must Do
If progressives wish to engage in helpful politics, they must first embrace a strategy grounded in reality rather than fiction. President Obama is a moderate. Starting with this premise creates the conditions for effective political action.

Second, progressives must become students of history. Moderate presidents have presided over deeply progressive social change, such as the abolition of slavery, the extension of voting rights to women, and the implementation of extensive civil rights legislation in the 1960s. If progressives study this history, they can learn how to build effective political action for change.

Third, progressives must engage in organized social movement behavior to shape public opinion about the need for change -- rather than exclusively focusing on their defeats. Although many progressives continue to participate in collective politics, these efforts are literally drowned out by the voices of critics who are continually frustrated by a president who does not satisfy their unrealistic expectations about his political ideology.

Finally, progressives need to engage in multidimensional political advocacy. Focusing on one political figure is a completely ineffective political strategy. Historically, political change has come about as a result of complex activism at the local, state and federal level. This political action has targeted voters, corporations, lawmakers, and executive branch officials. It has also involved courts and litigation. For many progressives, however, the national government -- and more specifically Obama -- has absolute centrality.

Social movements have produced remarkable progressive changes in the US. Part of this history involved criticism of political leaders. Nonetheless, a large part of that history centered around crafting public information campaigns and fostering ties with the public and with multiple layers of politicians and private entities to create political opportunities for change. If progressives refuse to follow this historical practice, then they will have to blame themselves as much as (or even more than) Obama for the failure of progressive politics.

The promised reading list on Obama as a moderate:

2008 Is Not 1964: Why Liberal Mania and Conservative Panic Are Nothing But Melodrama

Chicken Little Politics: Moderate Obama Causes Progressive Panic

Criticizing President Obama Is Pragmatic

Progressives Awaken from Obama-Vegetative State

Free at Last? No!

From the "Duh" Files: Effusive Political Adoration Does Not Lead to Social Change

A Sober Look at a Democratic Sweep

If Obama Emulates Lincoln, Will Progressives Follow Abolitionists and Radical Republicans?

Head Explosion at The Nation: Left "Duped" by Its "Own Wishful Thinking"

The "Yes We Can" Movement Gets Sudden Reality Check!

Disturbing "Progressive" Discourse Regarding Assange Rape Charges

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has become a folk hero among progressives. Even though Assange's actions raise important issues about the protection of sensitive governmental information, many progressives praise him as a "whistleblower."

Now that Assange has been arrested for charges of sexual assault, many progressives have lined up to defend him. The presumption of innocence is a cornerstone of every decent criminal justice system, and Assange is absolutely entitled to defend himself vigorously against the charges.

Nevertheless, some of the progressive commentary that has emerged in the blogosphere and on Twitter expresses very dangerous views on gender and sexual assault. Also, some of the comments rush to credit innuendo and one-sided commentary as fact.

Crying Rape?
Several progressive bloggers imagine a Swedish-US conspiracy against Assange. As evidence of this conspiracy, they argue that Assange is not guilty of rape in the common use of the word. Instead, he is supposedly only "guilty" of a "Victorian" crime -- having sex without a condom. This line of reasoning appears on several liberal blogs (see, e.g., here and here). Who is the source of this popular description of the rape charge? Assange's own defense lawyer.

Not only have some progressives failed to wait for the facts to unfold, but they have rushed to dismiss the alleged sexual assault victims, and have placed complete faith in Assange's lawyer's self-serving description of the charges. Furthermore, the description of the charges sounds specious at best.

Although all of the facts are not fully developed, many accounts indicate that at least one of the alleged incidents involved a broken condom. It is possible that the sexual assault charge might relate to the woman's claim that she decided not to have sex after it broke.

Even assuming that the woman initially consented to sex with Assange, if the condom broke during sex, she has the right to withdraw consent. Generally, people can withdraw consent to sex, and the fact that consent was initially given does not preclude a rape charge. This point, however, is completely absent in some of the progressive analysis I have read on this case. By concealing this potential aspect of the case, Assange's defenders can mock the alleged victims and play up the conspiracy narrative.

FDL
A popular reader diary on the respected progressive blog FDL adds a new dimension to the discourse. According to the diary, Assange's accusers are radical feminists supposedly connected to the CIA, anti-Castro and anti-communist organizations and to US-sponsored organizations that promote acts of terrorism in Cuba. Of course, none of these allegations is substantiated. Nevertheless, the reader's portrayal of the women as radical feminists and anti-Castro seems to have worked. Most of the comments uncritically accept the claims in the diary and view them as proof of an international plot against Assange.

Keith Olbermann
Finally, Keith Olbermann has entered the fray with a post on his Twitter account. Olbermann says that "Reuters now confirms Swedish rape investigation of Julian Assange is about broken condoms & fear of STD's." The Reuters article, however, is based exclusively upon information provided by "several people in contact with [Assange's] entourage at the time [of the alleged assaults]." Information from this anonymous and potentially biased source cannot constitute confirmation of any specific fact.

Final Take
Although this post condemns emerging progressive commentary regarding the Assange sexual assault charges, I do not wish to imply that all or most progressives have acted inappropriately. In addition, I do not mean to suggest that the criminal charges have merit or that they are connected to the ethical issues concerning Assange's release of confidential governmental information.

Instead, the purpose of this post is two-fold. First, progressives, like everyone else, should wait for the facts of this situation to unfold. Assange is entitled to due process and a day in court. Shoddy argumentation and "fact finding" will not help his cause. To the extent that a budding progressive discourse seeks to "create" its own facts, this development is unfortunate.

Second, progressives should not disparage feminism and alleged victims of sexual assault in order to defend Assange. Protecting free speech does not require progressives to abandon central principles like equality and bodily integrity. I encourage other progressives to reject this ridiculously false choice.

Also on Dissenting Justice: What If Julian Assange Were An Arab Muslim . . . .

Jezebel has a great essay on this issue: "Some Thoughts On 'Sex By Surprise.'"

Ben Smith Argues That Liberal Support For Health Bill Vindicates Rahm Emanuel

Apparently, Rahm Emanuel's media buddies could not resist the urge to write another love piece. Today, Ben Smith of Politico asserts that a new poll which shows that liberal voters support healthcare reform vindicates Emanuel. Emanuel has argued that the White House should not make concessions to liberals because they would come around eventually.

Smith's article, however, is too simplistic as an analysis of contemporary politics. First, the passage of reform legislation cannot vindicate Emanuel since, as numerous articles report, he favored a much slimmer bill and feared that a large one would not pass. If anything, the passage of this bill -- though smaller than what many liberals wanted -- proves Emanuel wrong.  Emanuel argued that comprehensive reform would not pass; he -- not the liberals -- was wrong.

Second, Smith misunderstands the debate among liberals regarding healthcare reform. Liberals have always favored reform, and many liberals always favored the Senate bill. Many liberals, however, were angry that the White House did not do enough to support more progressive and sensible measures like the public plan option. The public plan represented the most rational argument regarding cost containment (other than a single-payer system). Although President Obama advocated it during the campaign, he never forcefully backed it as president. This angered liberals, causing some people to argue that Congress should abandon the Senate bill and start the process again.

But after the "kill" option evaporated, liberals -- contrary to the White House line -- accepted compromise. The fact that liberals now support this good yet flawed bill actually proves Emanuel and the White House wrong.  White House staff circulated a narrative that portrayed liberals as unforgiving and unwavering ideologues (also known as "fucking retards"). Obama, on the other hand, was portrayed as the smart pragmatist.  The mainstream narrative about liberals was clearly inaccurate.

Finally, Smith makes the mistake of equating one battle with an entire war. The struggle over healthcare reform has emboldened many liberals.  Labor unions have threatened moderate Democrats with primary challenges.  MoveOn has promised the same. Even Obama has shown some needed spunk and told on-the-fence Democrats that he would not raise money for them if they voted against the bill. Liberals have always wanted a fight. The fact that they accept this mixed victory does not vindicate Rahm Emanuel in any way, shape or form. It simply shows that liberals can cut their losses and move forward when appropriate. It does not mean, however, that they have become a doormat for the White House or Rahm Emanuel. Perhaps, Smith's analysis is merely wishful thinking.

While White House Condemns Liberals, Congressional Moderates Remain Inflexible

Now that the House and Senate have passed heathcare bills, the process of merging the disparate proposals must take place. The White House has branded liberals who oppose the more conservative Senate bill as inflexible and impractical. But moderates, whom Obama has eagerly sought to appease during the legislative process, have repeatedly drawn firm and rigid lines in the sand.

Joe Lieberman, for example, issued multiple filibuster threats until Obama instructed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to drop the public plan option from the Senate bill. Ben Nelson won concessions on abortion funding after he threatened to derail the bill. And Mary Landrieu secured millions of dollars in federal funding for Louisiana after she vowed to vote against the measure.

According to The Hill, Senate moderates have promised to maintain their inflexible stance during the upcoming negotiations:

Democratic centrists have informed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) they will accept few changes in the final healthcare bill negotiated between the House and Senate.

Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) have made clear there is little room to deviate from the bill the Senate passed on Christmas Eve.

They are the most vocal of nearly two-dozen senators who have indicated they see little wiggle room in the conference talks. . . .

Lawmakers in the House will have to accept the Senate legislation with little change if a final bill is to muster 60 votes to overcome procedural hurdles and make it to President Barack Obama’s desk, the centrists say.

“There’s very little room for this bill to change,” said Landrieu. “The framework really has to stay basically in place.

Although centrists have continually dug their heels in the sand and threatened to kill the reform process unless their demands were met, the White House has not described their muscularity as "insane" or "irrational." Instead, these labels seemingly apply only to liberals who demand a tough posture during negotiations.

Question for readers: What do you think explains the disparate treatment of liberals and moderates by the White House?

See also:

NYT's Adam Nagourney Peddles New White House Attacks on Progressives

Criticizing President Obama Is Pragmatic

Rahm Emanuel Tells Liberals To Kiss His Arse

Liberals Battle White House Over Healthcare Reform

White House Shows Its True Colors on Healthcare Reform

Irrational Robert Gibbs Says Howard Dean Is Irrational

Salon's Glenn Greenwald Says: Blame Obama, Rather Than Lieberman

Why Is Obama Still Protecting Lieberman?

House Democrat Louise M. Slaughter: Scrap Senate Healthcare Bill

Obama Falsely Claims that the Senate Healthcare Bill Matches His Campaign Promises

Ezra Klein's "Pink=Blue=Colors" Logic Regarding Healthcare Reform

NYT's Adam Nagourney Peddles New White House Attacks on Progressives

Adam Nagourney has written an article that purports to analyze ideological divisions in the Democratic Party. But the "article," which reads more like an op-ed, narrowly and incorrectly frames Democratic Party divisions in the same flawed terms as the White House has done: Obama, the pragmatist, is dueling with unrealistic and impractical leftist ideologues.

Nagourney repeatedly portrays Obama's progressive critics as political "outsiders," which supposedly makes them naive about politics and intolerant of compromise:

It is not just that the left wing of the party thinks that its centrists hold too much sway and are too quick to cave when faced with pressure from the right. It is also that this White House, stocked as it is with insiders, people whose view of politics is shaped by the compromises inherent in legislating, is confronting a liberal base made up largely of outsiders to the lawmaking process who are asking why they should accept politics as usual (boldface added).

Nagourney's portrayal of Obama's critics, however, is highly simplistic and deceptive. The growing list of progressives who have criticized Obama includes veteran lawmakers such as John Conyers, Maxine Waters, Russ Feingold, and Louise M. Slaughter. And while some of the more passionate critiques have come from independent journalists and writers, who are not professional politicians, that does not make these individuals ignorant of the political process or unreceptive to compromise. Instead, it simply demonstrates that they are either more liberal or freer to speak honestly, without worrying about maintaining access to the White House -- something Nagourney must consider when he writes his own articles.

Nagourney, however, chooses to rest his entire article on a simplistic dichotomy. To Nagourney, Obama is a results-oriented pragmatist, while his critics, especially Howard Dean, are ideologues:

As much as Mr. Obama presented himself as an outsider during his campaign, a lesson of this battle is that this is a president who would rather work within the system than seek to upend it. He is not the ideologue ready to stage a symbolic fight that could end in defeat; he is a former senator comfortable in dealing with the arcane rules of the Senate and prepared to accept compromise in search of a larger goal. For the most part, Democrats on Capitol Hill have stuck with him.

By contrast, Mr. Dean, the former Democratic Party chairman who has long had strained relations with this administration, said the White House was slow to fight and quick to make concessions — particularly on creating a public insurance plan — and demanded that Democrats kill the Senate version of the health care bill.

To build upon this theme, Nagourney uncritically quotes Senior White House adviser David Axelrod:

"The president wasn’t after a Pyrrhic victory — he wasn’t into symbolism. . . .The president is after solving a problem that has bedeviled a country and countless families for generations."

Earlier this month, Axelrod called liberal opponents of the Senate bill "insane."

Last week, I wrote an essay that criticizes the Obama-as-pragmatist rhetoric, which has flourished in response to liberal critiques of the Senate healthcare bill. Nagourney cannot resist employing this flawed script. The pragmatism rhetoric rests on a false understanding of political change. Historically, liberal change has been incremental. It has involved compromise. And it has involved dealing with setbacks from successful countermovements. But liberal change has never occurred in the absence of open and vocal criticism of politicians from progressives. Participants in abolition, suffrage, the Civil Rights Movement, feminism and GLBT rights have all employed criticism (as well as compromise) to effectuate change.

The White House and Nagourney, however, continue to approach politics from an ahistorical perspective. Broad social change has only resulted from and can only occur with political pressure. Indeed, even the passage of the watered-down Senate bill occurred as a result of decades of activism on the issue of healthcare reform and from the political activism that secured Obama's election victory and Democratic majorities in Congress. The White House and Nagourney, however, portray the healthcare victory exclusively as the product of pragmatic politicians making deals.

Nagourney also accepts the White House's belief that liberal opposition will be irrelevant in November 2010. According to Nagourney, if progressives could not persuade one Senate Democrat to vote against the healthcare bill, then they cannot impact midterm elections. This is a simplistic understanding of politics from someone who believes he is educating his audience about the complexity of politics. Politics involves short-term defeats and victories. The passage of the Senate bill does not guarantee that the Democrats will not be vulnerable in 2010 (or 2012) to forces on the left or right. Senators undoubtedly supported the legislation for numerous reasons (party unity, etc). Their interests, however, do not determine the outcome of elections. Voters do.

Final Take: Nagourney's article falls far short from useful political analysis. Instead, it sounds like White House talking points designed to marginalize progressive critics.

Update: NYT's writer Ross Douthat continues the Obama-as-pragmatist rhetoric. His opinion essay, however, is far more intelligent and complicated than Nagourney's piece. Douthat considers the downsides of pragmatism and cutting deals, including the reality that: "sometimes what gets done isn’t worth doing. The assumption that a compromised victory is better than no victory at all can produce phony achievements — like last week’s 'global agreement' on climate change — and bloated, ugly legislation" (boldface added). I concur.

See also:

Criticizing President Obama Is Pragmatic

Rahm Emanuel Tells Liberals To Kiss His Arse

Liberals Battle White House Over Healthcare Reform

White House Shows Its True Colors on Healthcare Reform

Irrational Robert Gibbs Says Howard Dean Is Irrational

Salon's Glenn Greenwald Says: Blame Obama, Rather Than Lieberman

Why Is Obama Still Protecting Lieberman?

House Democrat Louise M. Slaughter: Scrap Senate Healthcare Bill

Obama Falsely Claims that the Senate Healthcare Bill Matches His Campaign Promises

Ezra Klein's "Pink=Blue=Colors" Logic Regarding Healthcare Reform

Criticizing President Obama Is Pragmatic

President Obama's defenders in the media often describe him as a "pragmatist." Although these journalists usually do not define the term, it seems that they wish to imply that Obama can set aside his ideological commitments in order to deliver concrete results to his constituents. By contrast, many commentators portray Obama's progressive critics as people who place ideology above tangible results and who refuse to compromise and accept the incremental advancement of their overall political agenda.

Mainstream media outlets barely do a decent job reporting the news. Their attempt at political science is absolutely atrocious.

The Assumption That Obama Is a Progressive
When commentators describe Obama as a pragmatist, they assume that he is a progressive who compromises to achieve practical benefits. It is unclear, however, that Obama is actually a progressive.

Although Obama became the darling of the political Left during the Democratic primaries, he never really embraced policies that were more progressive than other mainstream Democratic presidential contenders. Nevertheless, the Left was so desperate to replace President Bush and to avoid the "triangulation" of the Clinton era that it easily accepted Obama's progressive narrative. Obama also benefited from an adoring media, which failed to raise tough questions about his progressive credentials and which often rushed to denounce his critics.

After he secured the Democratic nomination, President Obama started moving more overtly to the center. Many progressives accepted this "transformation" as a necessary element of a national political campaign. But long before he won the election or even the Democratic nomination, progressives had enough reasons to question Obama's liberal credentials. Obama, for example, criticized a Supreme Court ruling that reaffirmed prior caselaw forbidding the death penalty in rape cases. He also praised a conservative Court ruling that found an individual right to bear arms and which invalidated a Washington, DC gun law. Obama also voted to renew the Patriot Act and, betraying a campaign promise, to extend immunity to telecoms that conducted unlawful surveillance on behalf of the Bush Administration. Citing his own religious views, Obama stated that he did not agree with same-sex marriage. And while the antiwar Left certainly preferred Obama to Hillary Clinton, Obama, like Clinton, said that he viewed the war in Afghanistan as a "just" war.

Although journalists often portray Obama as a pragmatic progressive who can prioritize concrete outcomes over his own ideological commitments, another narrative is also highly plausible. Obama is a political centrist who is in fact pursuing his own ideological commitments -- even if this means discarding the interests of liberals who were instrumental to his political success. This narrative, however, does not sound nearly as laudatory and self-sacrificing as the pragmatism rhetoric. It is, however, a perfectly logical take on Obama's political orientation.

Even if Obama is a progressive, he could compromise his ideological values in order to maximize his opportunity for reelection. If this is the reason for Obama's "pragmatism," then it is unclear that voters -- and certainly liberal voters -- should laud his careful effort to tread the center and to compromise with conservatives.

The Assumption That Obama's Progressive Critics Are Not Pragmatic
Commentators who laud Obama as a pragmatist almost uniformly condemn his progressive critics as ideological and impractical. Unlike Obama, who is a good, pragmatic progressive, liberals who criticize the President are politically inflexible ideologues whose rigidity, if widely followed, would preclude the implementation of helpful policies.

This juxtaposition of Obama (good, pragmatic) and his progressive critics (impractical, ideologues) has occurred most recently in debates surrounding healthcare reform. After the White House instructed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to delete the public plan and Medicare buy-in from the healthcare bill, liberals criticized Obama for betraying his campaign promises and for watering-down the measure. The White House responded by calling Obama's liberal critics "irrational" and "insane." Ronald Brownstein of The Atlantic argued that they are privileged white college graduates who need not worry about the practical implications of their positions. These arguments are deeply flawed.

Brownstein's racial analysis is simply another bizarre manifestation of the notion that criticizing Obama -- even from a progressive perspective -- inevitably comes from a racial place. This argument is old, tired, and should be retired.

With respect to the point about pragmatism, depending upon the goals of progressives, criticizing Obama could operate as a highly pragmatic political tactic. President Obama has several items on his agenda -- including reelection. These goals, however, might cause him to act in a way that is inconsistent with progressive political agendas. Progressives can only influence Obama and other elected Democrats if they express their discontent. If they can also reveal that Obama is betraying his liberal base, then they can possibly make him more vulnerable from a political perspective. In order to cure or avoid this vulnerability, Obama may have to act in a way that addresses the concerns of progressives. If progressives never complain or engage in advocacy or mobilization, then politicians will have very few incentives to address their concerns.

By criticizing Obama, progressives are modeling the behavior of social movement participants as diverse as the abolitionists, suffragists, civil rights advocates, feminists, and proponents of GLBT rights. Progressive movements have never achieved their goals by peacefully acquiescing to the will of politicians. While successful progressive movements have undoubtedly made and accepted compromises, they have also condemned politicians -- even sympathetic politicians -- when doing so was appropriate. The election of Obama does not provide a reasonable basis for abandoning this tried and tested historical approach to social change.

Rahm Emanuel Tells Liberals To Kiss His Arse

According to the Wall Street Journal, Rahm Emanuel has "shrugged off" liberal opposition to the Senate healthcare bill. Although one liberal senator (Bernie Sanders of Vermont) says he will not vote for the measure, Emanuel says "[t]here are no liberals left to get."

Emanuel's comment indicates that the White House will not lobby for the reinsertion of favored liberal provisions like the public plan and Medicare buy-in. According to many published reports, Emanuel himself instructed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to remove the provisions from the bill under the guise of appeasing conservative Democrat Joe Lieberman. But as several commentators have argued, this position undoubtedly reflects the will of the White House, which could certainly explain why President Obama has remained stealth during most of the debates over healthcare reform.

Rahm's statement also declares "victory" against the political Left. He feels that he does not need to negotiate with liberals in Congress because they will not make the critical "mistake" of failing to support the healthcare bill. But Emanuel is forgetting one important thing about recent political events. Liberal members of Congress did not elect President Obama. Instead, liberal voters, along with a coalition of Independents, secured Obama's victory.

By reducing the struggle over healthcare reform to an internal Congressional battle, Emanuel ignores the very activists whose work was instrumental in Obama's election victory. If this behavior continues, Emanuel will probably have to dust off his resume in 2012. Arrogance is very ugly. Good luck!

For the record: I never trusted Emanel or Obama. I still do not.

Update: People have emailed me asking "what do you mean you did not trust Obama?" Here is what I mean.

I did not believe that hype that portrayed Obama as transcending politics. Instead, I viewed him as a politician. Rather than doing things calculated to achieve a liberal transformation of society, Obama would and has done things calculated to achieve his own reelection -- which means doing some things for his base, striving for the middle, and giving monetary prizes to corporate interests.

In the absence of sustained social movement and voter pressure, even liberal-leaning presidents will aim for the center or right. Obama is not different. So, I did not join the liberal mania that portrayed him as a folk hero of leftwing politics. I have written on this many times. See, e.g., here and here. That is what I meant about not trusting Obama.

I Wrote This In October 2008. . . .

On October 21, 2008, when Dissenting Justice was still getting started as a blog, I wrote the following essay reprinted below. I am republishing it because it seems highly relevant today. FYI: The article received many hits at the time and remains very popular among readers.

________________________________________________________________

2008 Is Not 1964: Why Liberal Mania and Conservative Panic Are Nothing But Melodrama

Keeping with the theme of this blog, I have decided to critique the dramatic commentary coming from liberal and conservative circles about the implications of a likely expanded Democratic majority in Congress and probable victory for Barack Obama. Democrats are getting ready to dance in the streets, while Republicans have assumed a "Red Scare" posture. On the sidelines, I watch with alternating amusement and astonishment. Both sides exaggerate the significance of a Democratic victory - particularly when they analogize it to the period of massive legal and social change in the 1960s.

Republicans Channel Paul Revere: "The Liberals Are Coming, the Liberals Are Coming!"
The editors of the Wall Street Journal set off a rallying cry last week, in an opinion piece predicting gloom and doom from a "liberal supermajority." The WSJ predicts that a Democratic Executive and Congress, including a filibuster-proof Senate, "would mark the restoration of the activist government that fell out of public favor in the 1970s." I guess it would also replace the activist government that fell out of public favor in 2008. I wrote about this opinion piece in a previous blog entry.

On the campaign trail, McCain and Palin have already insinuated that Obama's economic policy resembles European socialism. Now, as the San Francisco Chronicle reports, McCain's campaign has decided to raise the specter of full Democratic control of the national government as dangerous. Despite the fact that the Republicans have controlled Congress, the White House, and the Supreme Court for many years, they will shamelessly market the virtues of divided control. So, expect to hear more soundbites about the perils of the Obama-Pelosi-Reed triumvirate.

Democrats: We Believe We Can Fly!
The Democrats, on the other hand, are salivating from the implications of a clean sweep. For some time now, liberal commentators have gleefully predicted the demise of the Republicans and the establishment of a liberal utopia. Earlier this year, New York Times columnist Frank Rich wrote a eulogy, masquerading as political commentary, remarking on the death of the Republican Party. Rich opined that "the G.O.P. looks more like a nostalgic relic than a national political party in contemporary America. A cultural sea change has passed it by." Rich predicts that a "national rout in 2008 just may be that Republican Party’s last stand." Obama supporter Jonathan Alter of Newsweek has written a similar, but more guarded, column called "We're Heading Left Once Again," in which he asserts that Obama "would have a fighting chance to move the country to a new place, or at least one we haven't seen for a while. Leftward ho!" Finally, Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen has a "hot from the press" article entitled "Party Like It's 1964." Cohen argues that Bush and McCain have "constructed a mean, grumpy, exclusive, narrow-minded and altogether retrograde Republican Party." Accordingly, the GOP has earned its fate: life in the "political wilderness."

My Take: Both Sides Are Just Wrong
Republicans lament the advent of U.S. socialism, while Democrats prepare to build a new "Great Society." From both of these notions, I respectfully dissent. Despite all of the passionate predictions of an impending liberal takeover of the country, both sides overstate the significance of a Democratic presidential victory, even one connected to an expanded liberal majority in Congress. Here's why.

The Country Remains Right of Center
Despite the apparent resurrection of the Democratic Party as a contender for the White House, the Country remains right of center. And if you compare aspects of American social policy with other liberal democracies, the country's political core looks solidly conservative. If the Democrats want to get re-elected -- which is likely their paramount goal as politicians -- then they will have to operate within the constraints of that political reality. Any sweeping liberal change will receive stiff resistance. Certainly, any costly liberal policy proposal will receive even louder opposition. Bush and the Republicans engaged in excess, and they are paying for it. Smart Democrats like Obama will avoid this at all costs -- not by building a coalition for radical change -- but by aiming for the middle.

When Clinton was elected in 1992, my liberal colleagues were similarly exuberant about the possibilities of a liberal shakeup of the country, although with Obama, liberals have become absolutely ecstatic (translation: unbounded from political reality). But the nasty reaction to Hillary Clinton's vanguard effort to create a national health care system and the backlash -- led primarily by Colin Powell -- against Bill Clinton for attempting to lift the ban on gays and lesbians in the military -- gave people an early wakeup call. Merely electing a Democrat does not mean that the electorate has fundamentally changed with respect to political ideology.

Many commentators have also neglected to consider that Obama actually trailed or tied McCain in most polls until Lehman Bros. collapsed. When several other financial institutions imploded, Obama reclaimed the lead, which has only sharpened. This change in his fortune surely does not mean that the country has become suddenly left or center-left. Instead, non- or less-partisan voters are simply doing what they have done throughout American political history: They are blaming the incumbent and the incumbent party for poor economic conditions. On top of this historical skepticism towards incumbents during bad times, Obama has successfully blamed Bush for the financial crisis -- even though this is a major distortion (as FactCheck.Org documents). The economy -- not a new liberal electorate-- has placed Obama on top of the polls.

An Election Alone Is not a Social Movement
Obama's rallies are filled with thousands of supporters. Scores of new voters have registered as Democrats, many due to the appeal of both Democratic candidates during the primaries. Obama has formed a coalition of liberal/leftist elite whites, blacks (who were already the most faithful Democrats), women, young people, and some moderates. Several commentators have argued that these changes will lead to the implementation of much more liberal social policy -- just like in the 1960s. This is not necessarily true.

Many of the changes that occurred during the 1960s happened because of very sustained, sometimes even violent, political activism and unrest. Although Clinton was right in saying it took a president to sign the Civil Rights Act of 1964, she should have also cited her earlier work, because a very large "village" helped create the political conditions that ensured passage of the law.

The implementation of the 1960s legislation that prohibited discrimination in areas of employment, voting, the usage of federal money (the denial of which would have crippled segregated schools), and access to places of public accommodation, resulted from decades of social movement activity. It also resulted from a remarkable alignment of domestic leftist interests with the national government's need to project a good image into the international community. The U.S. justified its Cold War policing of foreign countries on the need to fight totalitarianism and fascism. News of racial terrorism and discrimination against U.S. blacks, which the Soviet Union rapidly distributed to other countries, disrupted the attainment of this latter goal.

Comparing the 1960s with the current situation does not reveal many parallels. Granted, young people are passionate and fed up with the current government (just like most other people). But many participants in the current Democratic resurgence have united in order to secure the defeat of Bush (Cheney-Rumsfeld-McCain-Rice-Powell*), rather than to accomplish a broad set of liberal social policies. During the primaries, the media joyfully reported Obama's victories in a string of red states, where he often secured the vast majority of white votes. But it remains unclear what beyond electing Obama and ending the war unifies white Democrats in Wyoming or Utah with blacks in Brooklyn, and gays and lesbians in San Francisco. These groups view the Democrats as a healthy alternative to the Republicans. But outside of ejecting the Republicans from leadership, wanting change is merely a political slogan, not a political movement. Desiring something new does not transform what already exists.

Obama Is Not Wildly Liberal Compared with Other Democrats
During the Democratic primaries, Obama supporters, especially blogs such as HuffingtonPost, Daily Kos, and Mother Jones, vehemently worked to distinguish Obama and Clinton ideologically. Clinton was just "more of the same." She was, gasp, almost a Republican. Her war vote, Obama said, showed a lack of judgment. To his supporters, it proved that she was a shameless hawk. Even when commentators like Paul Krugman said her health plan was more progressive than Obama's, his supporters said that she was lying anyway and would not work to achieve it. Some of them (and the Obama team as well) said that it would "force" people to participate, which sounded a lot like the Republican rejection of "Hillarycare."

Once the primaries ended and polls showed that many of Clinton's disgruntled supporters intended to vote for McCain or neither candidate, their rhetoric turned around completely. Instead of being a Republican in Democratic clothing, Clinton held the exact same position as Obama on all social issues. Accordingly, PUMAs would betray their party and preferred candidate's life work if they voted for McCain. So is Clinton now wildly liberal like Obama or is Obama less progressive than his supporters claimed? Probably a little of both.

Obama is a great politician and lawyer, which has led to much of his success. He knows how to embrace policies specifically enough to show commitment, but always leave room for nuancing his stance later. A lot of Democrats in the past, like Gore and Kerry, could not do this effectively. Bill Clinton, on the other hand, could. Part of it comes from being a lawyer and knowing that "is" can have multiple meanings.

Outside of abortion, where Obama has a very consistent record of progressive voting, it is unclear what other liberal area he is as far to the left as his supporters portrayed him during the primaries. For example, he is against the war, but so are most Americans. He believes in multilateral foreign relations, but this is hardly a novel idea for the U.S. He campaigned on universal health care, but so did all of the other Democrats, and it is unclear whether the electorate will support this policy under a time of economic hardship. He took the position that the Supreme Court should have authorized the death penalty in rape cases -- even though the history of applying capital punishment for sexual assault follows a horribly racist pattern. And he supported the Supreme Court's recent Second Amendment ruling, which found an individual right to bear arms sufficient enough to defeat Washington, DC's ban on handguns. Obama, like Bush and McCain, does not support same-sex marriage, but endorses local efforts to make it a reality. It appears that Obama can chase the center, middle, and right -- just like Bill Clinton, the original triangulator.

Furthermore, despite Obama's opposition to the war and his view that supporting it shows a lack of judgment, Obama selected Biden -- who voted for the war -- as a running mate. Despite his slamming of Clinton for supporting NAFTA, Biden actually voted for the legislation, which Obama himself says he will not seek to repeal. Biden also voted for the bankruptcy reform legislation, which Obama derided as showing a lack of compassion to consumers. Also, while Democrats blame (wrongfully) the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act for the current financial crisis, Obama has called upon Clinton's former Secretary of Treasury Ron Rubin for economic advice. Rubin supported Gramm-Leach-Bliley, and he is currently a Director of Citicorp, one of the largest beneficiaries of the legislation.

Finally, Obama recently accepted Colin Powell's endorsement, despite Powell having delivered one of the most compelling arguments to the United Nations for the war. Powell's dissertation on the war utilized forged materials, which purported to document Iraq's effort to obtain uranium from Niger. Powell also orchestrated political opposition to Clinton's effort to lift the ban on gays and lesbians in the armed forces, which gave us the terrible "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" compromise. Nevertheless, Powell's endorsement has received almost universal praise from Democrats. Obama's negotiation and acceptance of the endorsement is brilliant from a political perspective. But it does not fit with the narrative of a leftist politician who will fundamentally change the U.S and who hates all things related to Bush and his war.

Only White Old Heterosexual Males Are Predicting the Demise of White Old Heterosexual Male Power
Finally, I think it is worth mentioning that only white old heterosexual males have predicted the demise of white old heterosexual male power. Joining Rich, Alter, Cohen and McCain, Alec Baldwin recently asserted that Obama's election would neutralize racism and kill the civil rights movement. Most of the commentators and politicians I have seen who believe that November will usher in a leftist regime that will grip America and slay old white power are part of that demographic themselves, regardless of political affiliation. Why is that? Perhaps because women, people of color, the poor, and gays and lesbians know from personal experience that meaningful progressive change does not happen overnight. Perhaps it is because we know that creating equal opportunity still requires a lot of work. Maybe it is because having just witnessed a plenty of crude sexism, racism, and mocking of poor uneducated voters from so-called liberals during this election cycle, we cannot imagine a Democratic victory causing substantial progressive change. I hope our cynicism goes too far, but for now, I am sticking with history and my own instincts. Accordingly -- Republicans should: "Chill out!" You are down, but not done. And Democrats should: "Put down the pom poms and start doing the hard work of building effective social movement activity, which actually involves some very honest and open political debate and self-criticism.

To Michael Moore: Absolutely Not!

Michael Moore's wife has convinced him that he was too harsh in his criticism of President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize. Moore has decided to share his born-again moment with other liberals by telling us to "Get off Obama's back." Well, here's my message to Moore: Absolutely not!

I remain highly skeptical of the Nobel Peace Prize committee's decision. My skepticism stems from Obama's continuation of policies that leftists -- including Moore -- criticized loudly, passionately, and relentlessly for the last 8 years. These policies include wars, troop surges, handouts to corporations, rendition, indefinite detention, denial of habeas corpus, military tribunals, state secrets, and a lack of positive action on GLBT rights. Moore's essay does not mention these things -- neither do the liberal defenses that have emerged which condemn progressives who question the prize committee's decision. If liberals truly hated these practices, then they should apply the same criticism to Obama. Otherwise, their criticism looks disingenuous and partisan.

Moore's essay also sets forth some very low standards for progressive politics. Why does Obama deserve the Nobel Peace Prize? He is "sane," "smart," wants world "peace," and was "elected." Add good looks to the list, and these traits could describe the winner of a Miss America pageant!

I believe that progressives can praise Obama when he is correct, criticize him when he is wrong, and act strategically at all times. The abolitionists did the same thing to Lincoln (whom Obama has symbolically emulated) and other moderate Republicans. The Civil Rights Movement criticized Kennedy. Today, progressives are told to be quiet and praise the establishment. History, however, means a lot more to me than sentimental political commentary.

For most of the last year, my liberal colleagues have told me (and others) to stop criticizing Obama. In a climate like this, I see no reason to heed their call. No progressive movement has accomplished its goals without criticism. Let the cheerleaders cheer and the cynics criticize. There is room for all voices -- and in this area, dissent is seriously underrepresented.

Update: Glenn Greenwald remains consistent on this issue as well, supplementing his prior commentary. See: Accusing Obama critics of "standing with the terrorists.

Daily Kos Reader: Progressive Criticism of Obama's Nobel Prize = Racism!

This is this ultimate GIVE ME A BREAK thread. I was skimming through Daily Kos and discovered this whopper in a diary written by "pvlb":

Apparently, among "progressives" unless the African American President of the United States of America does not satisfy the very exacting specifications of each individual's idea of what should be done, he is a sell-out do-nothing.

There's no conclusive way of determining what's at the root of that, but as I thought about it, I did come to an excruciating, embarrassing, and sad end to my contemplation.

As my mental wanderings led me down path after path in trying to find an explanation, I came to dead end after dead end. Only one seemed to provide any possibility of an explanation. Regretfully, I concluded that even among progressives, this is a racial thing. Even for them, President Obama has got to do more, do it better and in less time than anyone else on the planet, in order to prove that he is 'worthy' of the presidency, or our support or the Nobel Peace Prize . . . .

Normally, when I am discover such flawed reasoning, I fall into "teaching mode" and try to approach the proponent with diplomacy. But plvb's argument does not warrant such sympathetic treatment.

Committee Could Have Made a Better Choice
Pvlb's analysis is extraordinarily misguided (but gaining traction on Daily Kos). First, President Obama did not award himself the Nobel Peace Prize. Therefore, criticism of the award, at least from my perspective, is directed towards the prize committee -- not Obama.

Also, there are more deserving people the committee could have selected -- like Representative Barbara Lee, whose actual work embodies an actual commitment to peace. Lee is the only member of Congress who had the courage to oppose the war in Afghanistan in 2001. She has also introduced a measure to deny funding increases for Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama, by contrast, describes the war in Afghanistan as a "just war," and he is currently considering a second troop surge.

Obama's position on Afghanistan does not represent a strong commitment to peace. It certainly does not represent a greater commitment to peace than the advocacy of others -- like Lee. Lee, by the way, is a very progressive -- far more than Obama -- black woman. My argument that Lee is a better candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize than Obama should neutralize plvb's immensely ridiculous claim that progressive criticism of the prize decision (or of Obama's policies) results from racism. Pvlb is so stuck inside of his/her own "contemplation" and "mental wanderings," however, that I am not sure whether he/she will notice this very basic fact.

In addition to escalating the war in Afghanistan, Obama has maintained many of Bush's antiterrorism practices -- like rendition, military tribunals, indefinite detention, and the denial of habeas to certain detainees. When liberals criticized Bush for engaging in these practices, they were not racist. When the few liberals who believe in logical consistency criticize Obama for embracing these same practices, they are still not racist. Furthermore, these policies are inconsistent with the pursuit of peace among nations and people.

Indiscriminate and Unnecessary Use of Race Is Harmful to Racial Discourse
Undoubtedly, some of Obama's critics are racists. But the simplistic and kneejerk equating of criticism of his policies with racism needs to end. This line of analysis began during the Democratic primaries. Committed racial progressives like Sheila Jackson Lee and Maxine Waters were called self-loathing "racists" for supporting Hillary Clinton over Obama. But after he secured the nomination, Obama used the Clintons ("two racists") on the campaign trail, and he chose Hillary as Secretary of State after he was elected.

Ironically, Obama receives vigorous race-based advocacy, but he strives to avoid racial discourse himself. The first and only racial criticism he made as president ended comically with him having a brew with Joe the Cop.

Although Obama runs away from racial issues, many of his most ardent defenders continue to wield "race" as a knife aimed indiscriminately at progressives and conservatives alike. This is an absolutely bankrupt and ultimately unhelpful approach to race relations.

Update: A response to Michael Moore's criticism of Obama's progressive critics: To Michael Moore: Absolutely Not!

Obama on National Security: I Am Doing the Right Things; I Have Not Broken Campaign Promises

[Update: Even the mainstream media have begun to make similar arguments that I make in this essay regarding the Supreme Court and Obama's national security decisions. Also, thanks to TalkLeft for initiating a thread on the issue (and graciously linking to this post).]

Obama made an interesting speech today. To summarize, Obama basically said he is doing the right things regarding national security, despite the difficulties, and that he has not abandoned any of his campaign promises. Nuance is key to understanding these promises, I suppose. For those of you who do not trust my sarcastic summary, here is the long version of the President's speech: Obama Speech Transcript.

More of the Same?
Throughout the Democratic primaries, the progressive wing of the party said that Obama was extraordinarily liberal, while Hillary Clinton offered "more of the same" (as Bush). But when Obama embraces "preventive detention," this sounds the same as Bush's maligned practice of "indefinite detention." Obama wants to detain dangerous individuals consistent with the "rule of law," but Bush did the same thing, although he called detainees "enemy combatants." "Enemy combatants" sound "dangerous" to me.

Obama has opted to utilize "kinder, gentler" military tribunals, but, like the Bush version, they will operate under a watered-down version of due process in order to secure easier convictions. As a compromise, Obama could have chosen to follow the stricter procedures contained in the Uniform Code of Military Justice -- which govern the prosecution of military personnel for crimes ranging from sodomy to treason. Instead, he has chosen to "stay the course" with slight modifications.

Obama reports that he will reform Bush's tribunals by giving defendants greater freedom to pick their own lawyers and by requiring the government to demonstrate the reliability of hearsay evidence. These reforms, however, will unlikely represent a substantial departure from practices during the Bush administration. Military courts receive so much criticism in part because one entity serves as police, prosecutor, judge, and jury. So, even if Obama changes the hearsay rule, the military (as judge) will still decide whether the military (as prosecutor) can introduce hearsay evidence collected by the military or the CIA (as police officer) for use in a military proceeding (a criminal prosecution). Focusing only on the promise to reform the hearsay rule and not the process for evaluating its reliability is a mere distraction.

Supreme Court Implications
Civil liberties organizations have already promised to file lawsuits challenging the military courts. In two different rulings, the Supreme Court invalidated the procedures used in Bush's military tribunals. Potentially, the Court could rule against Obama's courts, especially if he chooses a "true" liberal to replace Justice Souter.

I suspect that for this and other reasons, Obama will aim for the middle and for familiarity. This standard works against Judge Sonia Sotomayor (whom people have labeled as a leftist without reading her opinions) and Professor Pam Karlan (who is a bona fide leftist).

Elena Kagan, however, is probably the presumptive front runner. She is the most moderate of the individuals on the reported short list. More importantly, Kagan has already embraced the expansive notion of indefinite (sorry: "preventive") detention that Obama says he will utilize. Furthermore, she is a known quantity to President Obama, and he undoubtedly asked her many questions about law and national security before selecting her to become the Solicitor General. Also, after Souter announced his retirement, several leading Democrats floated a script that discouraged the selection of a sitting judge. Kagan is the the most popular front runner who is not a judge. Although this analysis sounds logical, I will decline to make a formal prediction. There are clearly many factors at stake.

Final Thoughts
Ironically, Obama, who ran as the antiwar candidate, is now the "war" president. He is the commander-in-chief in two ongoing offenses, including one in which he has authorized a "surge." As proof that his antiwar rhetoric is a distant memory, Obama has delivered a speech to justify his Bush-esque national security policy against liberal (and Cheney's) criticism in a building that houses the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, which rank among the most enduring of American symbols. This is a long road from the flag pin controversy.

Finally, I will leave readers with some "oldies but goodies" from Dissenting Justice. These articles argue that the Left set itself up for disappointment with its irrational exuberance surrounding Obama. He is, as Reverend Wright accurately stated during the campaign, a politician. All presidents before him were politicians as well. I was stunned that liberals refused to see this. So, to the formerly effusive and uncritical Left: I told you so. To everyone else, enjoy the articles.

Latest analysis on Dissenting Justice:

Cutting Through the Rhetoric Regarding Hate Crimes Legislation


Related Readings on Dissenting Justice:

* 2008 Is Not 1964: Why Liberal Mania and Conservative Panic Are Nothing But Melodrama

* Progressives Awaken from Obama-Vegetative State

* Head Explosion at The Nation: Left "Duped" by Its "Own Wishful Thinking"

* From the "Duh" Files: Effusive Political Adoration Does Not Lead to Social Change

* Warning to Progressives: NYT Proclaims Obama Will Govern From Center-Right

* Leftists Finally Realize Obama Is a Moderate; Huffington Post Suddenly Embraces Clinton and Political Center

* The "Left" Responds to Obama's "Centrist" Foreign Policy Team

* Reality Check: Obama's Election Victory Does Not Mean That Era of Race-Based Identity Politics Has Died

* Back Down Memory Lane: A Review of Anti-Clinton Rhetoric by "Progressives" on Daily Kos, Huffington Post, and AlterNet

* Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Hold Your Breath

Are Young People Really Progressive As New Study Claims?

Ruy Teixeira has published a few articles (and even co-authored a book), in which he argues that the United States is becoming a more "progressive" society. Now, Teixeira and his colleague David Madland of the Center for American Progress, have released a study which concludes that the "Millennial" generation is strongly progressive (view the full report here).

In the past, I have viewed these types of studies with a high degree of skepticism. First, I believe that it is very difficult to articulate a list of factors that define an individual as "progressive." Second, public opinion is highly malleable, and people's responses to a set of specific policy questions might reflect the politics of the moment rather than longterm ideological commitment. Third, younger people's views tend to be more fluid, thus exacerbating the problem of measuring their longterm ideological commitments. In addition to these general methodological problems, I have some specific "questions" about the Teixeira and Madland study.

Voting for Obama = Progressive?
The first nine pages of the study report how well Obama performed among voters in the 18-29-year-old category. Exit poll studies have already revealed that Obama received a huge share of younger votes. Madland and Teixeira interpret this fact as an indication of the age group's progressive values: "Millennials backed Obama primarily because he reflects their progressive view of the world and progressive policy preferences. . . ."

Obama represented many things to different individuals. But as many progressives who supported Obama are recently discovering, political campaigns and governance are not the same. A lot of liberals constructed Obama as being far more progressive than other candidates -- including, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards -- without having a tangible basis for such a claim. Madland and Teixeira demonstrate that Millenials' support of Obama was far greater than their support for Kerry, but Obama and Kerry are pretty close in terms of social policy. Saying that a candidate is progressive and then voting overwhelmingly for that person does not make the candidate or the voter progressive.

Post-Gender and Post-Racialism Are Not Inherently Progressive Positions
Despite the blatant role of race and gender in the 2008 election, many political commentators have celebrated the arrival of America's new "post-racial" and "post-gender" landscape. Even though Obama ultimately won the national election on the strength of black, women, and Latino voters, many commentators view his election and Hillary Clinton's strong performance as proof of the social irrelevance of race and sex. Not only is this view contradictory, but it is not inherently "progressive" as Madland and Teixeira assume.

To Madland and Teixeira identity-blindness is a positive thing. The authors applaud the Millennials for believing that race is not a "big deal," and they enthusiastically proclaim that: "Barack Obama’s election is just the beginning—America’s postracial future is fast approaching." They make a similar observation with respect to gender: "Just as with race, gender equality is rapidly becoming a nonissue with Millennials."

Critical theorists have produced a rich body of literature that contests the idea that race- and gender-blindness produce progressive outcomes. Not only is this argument inconsistent with Millennials' support for Obama, but this view has also justified conservative resistance to policies designed to create educational diversity and equal employment opportunity.

As long as social inequities correlate with race and gender, the post-identity rhetoric will preclude an honest discussion of and solutions to inequality. Conjoined racial isolation and poverty severely limit opportunities for advancement. Dismissing race and sex in the name of progress does not alter this harsh reality.

Lack of "Context": Measuring Future Generations By Past Standards
The study also questionably measures the "progressive" ideology of the Millennials based on their support of historically contested ideas that were considered progressive to earlier generations. The study fails to articulate a new set of values that might provide a more accurate measure of how cutting-edge today's Millennials are.

The study, for example, shows that Millennials are less likely to believe in creationism, do not believe a "woman's place is in the home," favor government-sponsored health care, believe in same-sex marriage, and support a move to renewable energy and a reduction in dependence on fossil fuels. Opposing the idea that a "woman's place is in the home" might have been a radical concept (especially if she were white and wealthy) up until World War II, but the post-War era and the second wave feminist movement greatly altered societal beliefs in "women's work." The fact that today's younger people embrace concepts that centuries of social movement activity and subsequent legal reforms have legitimized does not make them more progressive. Instead, it gives them a different set point than their predecessors.

Conflating Idealism With Progressive Ideology?
Finally, several aspects of the study suggest that the opinions of the respondents correspond with age, rather than ideology. The authors cite to studies which purportedly demonstrate a continuity in ideology across an individual's lifetime. Even if these studies are accurate, age could still determine an individual's response to many of the questions in the survey.

For example, younger respondents want much more regulation and governmental involvement in economic affairs. Younger respondents are also less cynical and more trusting of the government than older respondents. The authors attempt to dismiss this fact by explaining that younger respondents are more cynical than younger persons who completed similar surveys in the past. But this qualification does not answer how today's Millennial's would have viewed politics if they lived in the past.

Youthful idealism could also explain the Millennial's embrace of post-racial and post-gender politics. Once younger people and their friends report experiences with discrimination in the workplace, then their views on the insignificance of race and sex will likely shift.

Conclusion
Because public opinion is contextual and shaped by the media, social movements, politicians and contemporaneous events, it is very difficult to discern ideological commitments from short-term viewpoints. The Madland and Teixeira study focuses on "hot-button" social issues that have informed much of the "adult" lives of the Millennials. Hillary Clinton took "the bullet" on healthcare reform in the 1990s, but today, her thinking on the subject informs the so-called progressive commitment of the Millennials. The shift in public opinion on the subject resulted from years of political activity and statutory reform that predated the 2008 election.

The older folks in the Madland and Teixeira study engaged in vigorous protests over Vietnam, racism and sexism, and they showed a commitment to progressive causes that went far beyond simply casting a vote for certain issues or candidates. Yet, Madland and Teixeira describe these individuals as being more conservative than younger people who oppose the Iraq War and think race and sex are irrelevant.

Despite my skepticism, I took the "How Progressive Are You" quiz. I scored 288 out of 400, which makes me extremely progressive. The average score among Americans is 209.5. I even slammed the Millennials. Of course, I do not know what score I would have earned 20 years ago.

New Partisan Theatrics on the Left: GOP Supports the Flu

Ok. I'm back. I have been scarce recently, due to professional constraints. Now that I have returned, I have discovered a litany of blog posts which essentially say the same thing: The GOP voted against flu preparation funding in the stimulus. The news is spreading like a....virus...across the web (yeah, cheesy intentional pun).

John Nichols, a writer with The Nation, started the flurry of posts this morning (I believe) with this zinger: GOP Know-Nothings Fought Pandemic Preparedness. Nicols describes a process where silly Republicans voted to water down the amount of money devoted to pandemic preparation in the stimulus package:

When House Appropriations Committee chairman David Obey, the Wisconsin Democrat who has long championed investment in pandemic preparation, included
roughly $900 million for that purpose in this year's emergency stimulus bill, he was ridiculed by conservative operatives and congressional Republicans.

Obey and other advocates for the spending argued, correctly, that a pandemic hitting in the midst of an economic downturn could turn a recession into something far worse -- with workers ordered to remain in their homes, workplaces shuttered to avoid the spread of disease, transportation systems grinding to a halt and demand for emergency services and public health interventions skyrocketing. Indeed, they suggested, pandemic preparation was essential to any responsible plan for renewing the U.S. economy.

But former White House political czar Karl Rove and key congressional Republicans -- led by Maine Senator Susan Collins -- aggressively attacked the notion that there was a connection between pandemic preparation and economic recovery.

Now, as the World Health Organization says a deadly swine flu outbreak that apparently began in Mexico but has spread to the United States has the potential to develop into a pandemic, Obey's attempt to secure the money seems eerily prescient.

Of course, even Nicols acknowledges that no flu pandemic exists. But he does not acknowledge that the stimulus package was an extra stream of money separate from the normal operating budget of the federal government and the normal allocation of money for general spending projects, including public health initiatives.

Nicols does not present any evidence whatsoever to demonstrate that the normal budget failed to devote sufficient funds to the agencies responsible for addressing public health concerns. Nicols also fails to demonstrate why, if necessary, Congress cannot simply allocate funds now as part of an emergency spending plan. Instead, he whips out his partisan club and starts pounding. He does not even state whether the pandemic funds that actually made it into the package are being used to combat the swine flu.

My Take: I agree with critics who argued that including pandemic preparation funds in the stimulus package did not promote the policy behind the plan -- stimulating the economy. Public health is a general policy issue; it is not properly addressed in legislation combatting a financial crisis. Furthermore, opposition to including the the funds in the stimulus package does not mean that any particular member of Congress opposed investing in pandemic preparation as a general policy matter. Accordingly, my fellow liberals are just pumping out hot air on this one.

Apparently, the mercurial stock market has responded negatively to the flu, a fact that Nicols believes proves the link between the flu and the stimulus. But this argument is not persuasive. The stock market reacts and overreacts all the time. Extreme daily movement in the market usually has nothing to do with sound economic analysis. Instead, it results from public panic, which Nicols's analysis invites.

Finally, while Nicols blames the GOP for opposing the inclusion of pandemic preparation in the stimulus package, he fails to acknowledge that Democrats voted for them as well. The stimulus package would have passed without the votes of the 3 purple Republicans. If the Democrats believed that including the full amount requested by Obey was so compelling, they would not have supported the Republican cuts. On this point, one blogger says that Senate Democrat Charles Schumer also blasted the notion of including pandemic spending in the stimulus package.

My Very Cynical and "Bitter" Outtake: I wonder how the kids in racially segregated urban poverty schools are doing today. While liberals are blabbing incessantly about this silly matter, they should have been analyzing pressing social issues related to poverty and unequal opportunity. Decaying public schools pose a bigger threat to the economy and to public health than GOP opposition to specific items in the stimulus package. Liberals pretend that they are a "progressive" antidote to the GOP, but from here, it looks like many of them do not care about progressive issues at all. So long as they can beat up Republicans, they are happy. But that does not put food on people's tables, right? Yes -- I am venting.

Related article: Dems Put Swine Flu to Good Use.

Two Important Terrorism Updates...But You've Heard Them Before

FIRST
Today, the Obama administration decided to maintain the Bush adminstration's legal position, which asserts that individuals detained at the Bagram Air Force Base near Kabul, Afghanistan do not have a right to seek judicial review of their detention. The Department of Justice argues that, unlike Guantanamo Bay, the base is located in the "theater of war" and this makes judicial review impracticable." Also, the government argues that the Bagram detainees are not entitled to habeas corpus because they are subject to the Military Commissions Act of 2006 -- a statute that Obama denounced.

This military base is not subject to Obama's executive orders which require the review and subsequent closure of Guantanamo Bay. Also, the facility is not a longterm CIA prison which the executive orders also require the government to shutter. Presumably, the government can indefinitely detain individuals at Bagram -- rather than Guantanamo Bay -- without judicial review. Solicitor General Elena Kagan and Attorney General Eric Holder essentially validated this position when they endorsed indefinite detention of terrorism suspects during their confirmation hearings.

SECOND
Obama's executive orders create a task force to study Guantanamo Bay and then subsequently to close it. Today, the Pentagon, responding to a request by President Obama, released an 85-page report which concludes that the maligned facility complies with the Geneva Convention. During the Bush administration, many individuals in the human rights community passionately disputed this position.

While the study finds that the facility complies with international law, it concludes that some of the more dangerous individuals should now receive play time:

The report recommended some changes, including an increase in group recreation for some of the camp's more dangerous or less compliant prisoners, according to a government official familiar with the study. The report also suggested allowing those prisoners to gather in groups of three or more, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the report has not officially been released.

FINAL WORD
I have written many articles which track the similarities between Bush's and Obama's anti-terrorism policies. For the record, I do not necessarily disagree with some of these practices. For example, I have argued that the government should probably receive wide latitude to invoke the state secrets privilege and that courts should defer to the government's conclusion that a potential item of evidence qualifies for the privilege.

Also, asserting executive authority to do a particular act, does not mandate the use of such power. So, even if the government believes it can detain terrorism suspects indefinitely, this does not mean that it will.

My purpose for engaging this subject arises from my belief that the Left must hold consistent positions and that it must rethink the uncritical approach it took with respect to Obama during the Democratic primaries and the general-election campaign. If McCain (or probably even Clinton) had won the election and began validating Bush's policies, my fellow liberals would condemn him as Bush III.

In order for our arguments to have legitimacy, we must remain consistent or explain why we shift. If progressives now believe that they overreached in condemning Bush, they should make this clear. If progressives simply wanted to drum Republicans out of power, they have made a mockery of the very values they claim to embrace. Criticism and consistency, rather than partisan defense of "our" candidate, can permit greater accountability. Silence and acquiescence do not. I hope I am not the lone progressive who sees this. Ok - that was a melodramatic ending. And for the record, outside of Ron Paul, I have not seen many conservatives criticize other conservatives for not taking Bush to task on his extravagant fiscal policies.

Ahem

Well, at least they are catching up. Now Charlie Savage, a mainstream card-carrying journalist, has reported that Obama has claimed authority to engage in some of the most disparaged practices of the Bush administration -- such as using rendition and invoking a broad "state secrets" privilege. A few bloggers and journalists picked up on this a while ago. But this is still an interesting development. I am particularly interested in how progressives will respond.

From the "Duh" Files: Effusive Political Adoration Does Not Lead to Social Change

John Judis, a writer for the New Republic, has written an article in which he laments the lack of critical progressive commentary and social movement activity regarding Democrats, including President Obama. Judis observes that:

[I] think the main reason that Obama is having trouble is that there is not a popular left movement that is agitating for him to go well beyond where he would even ideally like to go. Sure, there are leftwing intellectuals like Paul Krugman who are beating the drums for nationalizing the banks and for a $1 trillion-plus stimulus. But I am not referring to intellectuals, but to movements that stir up trouble among voters and get people really angry. Instead, what exists of a popular left is either incapable of action or in Obama's pocket.

This article sounds markedly less upbeat than an essay Judis wrote immediately following Obama's election victory. In that article -- America the Liberal -- Judis argues that the Democrats' success demonstrates that a new political bloc consisting of persons of color, women and liberal professionals could potentially engender longterm progressive reform.

Although Judis tries to temper his excitement, he believes that the 2006 and 2008 elections mark a fundamental leftward shift in the ideological makeup of the electorate:

The rise of [women, people of color, and professional liberals] within the post-industrial economy has brought in its wake a new political worldview. Call it "progressive" or "liberal" or even "Naderite". . . .[P]rofessionals are the vanguard of the new progressive majority. Their sensibility is reflected in the Democratic platform and increasingly in the country as a whole. . . .Professionals are generally liberal on civil rights and women's rights; committed to science and to the separation of church and state; internationalist on trade and immigration; skeptical of, but not necessarily opposed to, large government programs; and gung-ho about government regulation of business, especially K Street lobbyists.

Many are children of the 1960s and '70s--heavily influenced by Martin Luther King Jr., Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, and Nader--but their views are clearly reflected in succeeding generations of college-educated Americans, particularly the "millennials" who grew up during the administrations of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Ucla's annual study of incoming college freshmen across the country found in 2006 that 28.4 percent identified themselves as "liberal"--the highest percentage since 1975.

Judis also contends that:

[S]even years removed from September 11, liberal views have re-emerged with a vengeance. Now, the coming recession seems likely to push voters even further left.

Needless to say, this "push" has not occurred.

The Left Effusively Endorsed Obama During the Democratic Primaries
I have always been suspicious of liberal arguments which celebrate the demise of the GOP and conservatism and which welcome the advent of a liberal Utopia. I wrote many essays on this subject during the campaign and since the election -- including an essay which responds to Judis's "America the Liberal." I also created Dissenting Justice because often, the Left seemed like it was in a collective Obama-Vegetative State, which rendered progressives incapable of offering critical and balanced analysis of the Democratic presidential candidates. I hoped to shake things up with my own rigorous analysis.

And as gauche as saying "I told you so" seems, I can barely resist doing so. Nevertheless, I will attempt to make a critical contribution to this debate by reiterating some of the basic points I have made on my blog and elsewhere.

What the Political Left Needs to Understand
First, an election is not a social movement. Although many diverse people united to support Obama and to oppose the GOP, this does not mean that they shared a leftist political ideology. The invalidation of same-sex marriage in California -- where Obama won by more than 20% of the vote -- demonstrates this patently obvious point.

Second, progressives were so unnerved by Bush and the Clintons that many of them projected radicalism upon a moderate (or undefined) Obama in order to frame voting for him as a dramatic break from the past. Although "change" supports many meanings, for progressives, it symbolized liberal transformation of U.S. political life and policy.

Third, many liberals wanted so desperately to believe in the myth of a post-racial America that they treated Obama's electoral success as the ultimate triumph of progressive race politics. Despite the fact that strong racial cleavages shaped the vote for both Obama and McCain, many commentators, nevertheless, argued that Obama's victory would allow the country to move beyond race altogether.

Fourth, many self-described liberals are actually political moderates. They passionately support a set of symbolic liberal causes, but they do not favor more substantive societal transformation. Beating up Don Imus or Republicans who sing about a "Magic Negro" is a lot easier to do than creating good public schools that do not deprive poor children and children of color of a quality education. And passing the much-needed Ledbetter legislation does not resolve the substantive legal difficulties that civil rights plaintiffs encounter if they manage to overcome tough procedural hurdles. Yet, liberals cheered loudly for Ledbetter without even discussing (minus a few exceptions) the need for more progressive measures.

Liberal Regrets: Not Obama's "Fault"
Progressives cannot blame Obama for his effort to straddle the ideological center. Instead, they must look inward and discover why they chose to treat a politician (as skillful in that role as he might be) as someone who is mythological or larger than life.

They should also canvass history, as Judis has done, to learn about the critical role of passionate collective activism in the evolution of U.S. politics and policy. Moderate presidents have presided over great changes in the U.S., but they did so with the backing and agitation of engaged social movements. True social change does not result from effusive adoration and acquiescence; instead, it arises from criticism, collective activism, strategic compromise and political opportunity.

Conclusion: Silence and Defensive Partisanship Will Not Create Change Either
Many liberals have remained silent or have become defensive partisans in response to commentary that reveals striking similarities between Obama's policies and Bush-era practices that provoked sustained and angry criticism from the Left. Consequently, I am not hopeful that progressives will welcome dissent and self-criticism in the near future. Dissent and criticism, however, are staples of successful social movement activism, which is an essential component of progressive (or conservative) political change.

Ironically, I have found that political conservatives (e.g. Glenn Reynolds) often provide the most accommodating space for dissenting progressives. Admittedly, progressive dissent can serve conservatives' interest in hearing criticism of Democrats. But this process can also link nonpartisans across the political spectrum, who, despite disagreeing on many issues, can learn and benefit from open debate. I hope that progressives will begin to provide the same space for liberal criticism that some nonpartisan conservatives have already offerred.

PS: My sudden obsession with links to my previous essays is just a subtle way of saying "I told you so!"


Just Added to Dissenting Justice:

Presidential Idol: Lincoln the Best, Bush Not the Worst