Huffington's Hillary Makeover Continues: Pro-Clinton Essays A Dramatic Switch from Prior Coverage

During the Democratic primaries, the Huffington Post was undeniably imbalanced. Most of the blog's coverage of Hillary Clinton portrayed her in an extremely negative fashion, while articles on Barack Obama were typically positive. Now that Obama has picked Clinton to serve as Secretary of State, the popular blog has suddenly altered its coverage of Clinton (just as Obama's description of her has changed). I have already highlighted this new positive take on Clinton, but the "Hillary Is My Homegirl" essays just keep coming.

Today, Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordon submitted an entry which praises Clinton as a "Champion of Human Security":

Hillary Clinton will be a strong, effective Secretary of State in the new
Obama administration.

I observed first hand her commitment to peace and justice during the
presidency of Bill Clinton, when Jordan's King Hussein, my late husband, and I
worked closely with the Clintons in an attempt to achieve a Middle East peace.
When they take office next year, I know that President-elect Obama and she
quickly will begin looking for ways to bring security to Israel and justice to
Palestinians, including four to six million Palestinian refugees.

In the Senate, Mrs. Clinton has worked hard to protect other displaced
populations, including those from Iraq and Darfur. . . . .

Sen. Clinton has introduced legislation to help displaced Iraqis. In the
Obama administration she and her colleagues will have to come up with a
comprehensive plan to help Iraqis return to a safe and secure Iraq as U.S.
troops withdraw. This will be a challenge, but she understands that displaced
Iraqis threaten the stability of Iraq, as well as the stability of the region,
and potentially beyond. . . .

As Secretary of State, Mrs. Clinton will face many challenges, but I know
from personal experience that she is up to them all.

And yesterday, a Huffington Post blogger defended Clinton against rightwing smears in the essay, "The Pro-Lie Movement Targets Hillary":

The "Susan B. Anthony List" claims Clinton, as Obama's Secretary of State,
will "promote abortion" around the world. According to their November 30
press release, "Clinton will join Obama in promoting taxpayer funding of
international abortions through a revocation of the Mexico City Policy and
restoring funding to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). . . .

Defamation is a tool of the anti-choice establishment. Its campaign
against UNFPA was one of its most sinister. . . .

Hillary has been a big supporter of UNFPA, and for good reason. UNFPA . . . provide[s] lifesaving interventions in the reproductive field: delivering babies, creating healthy births, ensuring that women are well enough to become mothers again, and giving families the methods to space children . . . .

Another report that might interest you: Chicken Little Politics: Moderate Obama Causes Progressive Panic.

Drink Coffee With Obama: DNC Offers Commemorative Obama Holiday Coffee Mug for Donations!

The Democratic Party has created a commemorative Obama Holiday Coffee Mug, which donors of $15 or more can receive, just in time to sip coffee with Obama during the holiday season! Is this a tacky and bizarre "cult of personality" moment, or am I being too picky?

PS: It's a "Limited Edition."

Chicken Little Politics: Moderate Obama Causes Progressive Panic

Reality Check for the Left: Obama Is a Moderate
With every new Cabinet appointment, guarded and nuanced statement about the prospect of reform, and "shocking" embrace of policies that progressives vehemently oppose, the Left continues to discover what it refused to see earlier: Obama is a moderate politician (which I do not view as an inherently negative quality). If Obama is not a moderate, he has strongly indicated that he will likely govern from the middle nevertheless, probably in order to maximize his political support and ensure reelection.

In a normal year, this rather standard assessment of a president governing a politically divided, yet moderate, country would not warrant extended debate. But progressives have formed high expectations of Obama's presidency. Progressives have heralded Obama's victory as a triumph of the righteous Left over the corrupt Right. The Democratic primaries provided the initial stage in this battle of good versus evil, and Obama's victory over Clinton supposedly renewed the Left's influence in Democratic Party politics. According to progressives, it also dethroned the Clintons and reduced them to useless relics of a nightmarish political past filled with selfishness, immorality, and triangulation.

Although Obama's campaign focused broadly on "change," liberals and Leftists largely interpreted this mantra as progressive change. His presidency would rid the country and world of the worst elements of the Clinton and Bush legacies: free trade, deregulation, wealth inequality, and foreign policy marred by hawkishness and unilateralism. Obama would also strengthen labor unions, enforce and augment civil and individual rights, protect the environment, appoint liberal judges, bring about world peace, and generally restore the "dignity" of the United States. Although the Left is usually skeptical of establishment politicians, progressives truly believed Obama could deliver this enormous basket of liberal reforms.

Obama's general election victory has only heightened the dramatic claims of liberals and progressives. Now, many of them have argued that the nation has become center-left and that a new generation of political and social dominance by liberals has finally arrived. Liberal commentators have begun eulogizing the GOP and declaring the death of "old white wealthy male heterosexual" power (see 2008 Is Not 1964: Why Liberal Mania and Conservative Panic Are Nothing But Melodrama).

But now that Obama has hired several individuals most despised by the Left, including Clinton, many progressives have shifted gears and now argue that Obama has betrayed them. Their anger, however, is misplaced. Progressives must blame themselves for believing that Obama was anything other than a moderate politician in the mold of Bill Clinton. They have only recently discovered his true political ideology because their irrational hatred of the Clintons and desperate desire for a progressive president caused them to accept Obama uncritically and project their own desires upon him. He became "their" candidate, even though he designed his campaign to appeal to the broadest audience possible. Now that Obama has signaled that he will not transform the White House into a leftist space, progressives are experiencing collective shock, dismay and a sense of betrayal.

How and Why Progressives Constructed Obama as a Progressive

Anti-"Clinton" Hatred
During the Democratic primaries, progressives exhibited an extreme level of animosity towards Hillary Clinton. Much of their disgust with Clinton stemmed from lingering disappointment with Bill Clinton's presidency. Progressives hate former President Clinton's compromises with conservatives, his failure to fight for some progressive causes, and his embrace of the center. They refuse to acknowledge or diminish the significance of his liberal accomplishments (e.g., protecting abortion rights, making liberal judicial appointments, reducing black unemployment, and negotiating the Irish peace accords). Leftists unleashed their pent up anger with Clinton's administration upon his wife. Progressives helped construct the two Clintons as a pathological "Billary" and refused to take Hillary Clinton on her own terms. Although Clinton contributed to this by claiming "experience" related to her husband's presidency, she never said that she was simply his political clone. Progressives, however, refused to distinguish the two. Both represented unmitigated evil.

Liberal Sexism
Many progressives also harbored deeply sexist hostility (explicit and unconscious) towards Clinton. To these individuals, Clinton was a dangerous (b/w)itch, Tanya Harding, shrill, nagging, dominatrix, etc. Prejudice prevents a realistic assessment of its victims. If, as I argue, Clinton experienced sexism from progressives, this could explain their distorted and negative view of her and their unrealistically positive understanding of Obama.

Naive View of Race Relations
In addition, a large number of white progressives and liberals supported Obama in part because his success could prove to them that the United States had finally become a post-racist society, despite the fact that people of color lag severely behind whites in every significant indicator of social well being. One liberal white academic told me that he was content campaigning for Obama because as he "knocked on each door, he realized that we were finally putting this race thing behind us."

Even before Obama secured the Democratic nomination, political commentators opined warmly about the tremendous progress his successful candidacy symbolized. Many said that it proved that race no longer mattered in American society. Obama represented a younger generation of black politicians for whom race politics (thankfully) did not play a significant role. Obama became the treasured antidote to Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. Linking him with either of these men constituted racism; Bill Clinton discovered this when he compared Obama's South Carolina victory with Jackson's.

Obama's success in the general election has led to even more sweeping claims about American post-racialism. A close examination of exit polls, however, demonstrate that Obama only won the election due to an increased presence of black and Latino voters in key states and to his greater level of support among these demographics relative to Democrats in the recent past. Despite media commentary that suggests a fundamental transformation in race-based voting, Obama failed to win a majority of white voters in eleven "blue states," and he only won a slight majority (51-52%) in five others, including his home state of Illinois, where he received just over 1/2 of votes cast by whites. Furthermore, Obama, like all other Democratic presidential candidates since 1964, failed to win a nationwide majority of white voters. Without a surge of black and Latino voters, Obama would have lost the election (see Reality Check: Obama's Election Victory Does Not Mean That Era of Race-Based Identity Politics Has Died ).

Obama as Rorschach
Progressives so desperately wanted a left-leaning president -- without Clinton as a surname -- that they projected their own political fantasies upon Obama. Progressives constructed Obama, with his tacit acceptance, as the progressive leader they "had been waiting for." They also reacted swiftly to any dissenting voice that offered a complicated appraisal of Obama. For example, progressives responded with hostility when liberal New York Times columnist Paul Krugman began criticizing Obama's economic and healthcare proposals and statements he made on the campaign trail. Often, the popular media along with progressives would imply that people who preferred Clinton or McCain over Obama were racists. This racist lot included Latinos who voted for Clinton during the primaries, but who later fueled Obama's general election victories in Nevada, New Mexico, and Colorado.

Regardless of the merits of Obama as a candidate and president, an atmosphere that rejects dissent cannot sustain progress. Because the Left helped to silence inquiry regarding the details of Obama's political commitments, while lauding him effusively and bashing his opponents, they must blame themselves for not discovering his moderate political status earlier.

No, Chicken Little, the Sky Is not Falling

Progressive Social Movements Can Create Change With Moderate Presidents
Being a moderate does not make Obama (or any other candidate) unfit for office, nor does it preclude progressive change. Many progressives who are angry that Obama is a political moderate seem to have a gross misunderstanding of the history of social progress in the United States. Advancements in terms of race, gender, class, and other liberal causes did not occur because a progressive president governed the nation. Instead, these changes occurred because of progressive domestic social movement activity, international scrutiny and criticism, extreme factors like economic depression and warfare shifting voter attitudes, and a convergence of interests between dominant forces and minority groups.

Great Historical Changes With Moderate Presidents
Obama's supporters have likened him to President Lincoln in order to portray his presidency as potentially generating tremendous change. But Lincoln was not a radical. He would have preferred to maintain slavery or to end it gradually. Exigencies of the war led him to a more dramatic path, however. And while he personally opposed slavery, Lincoln embraced many of the prevailing racial prejudices of his generation and devised a plan to send blacks "back to Africa." He was not a card-carrying member of the Radical wing of the Republican Party. Lincoln was not Charles Sumner. But abolitionists and Radical Republicans used him to help create change.

Liberals have also made very warm comparisons of Obama and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. But labor and other liberal groups pressured Roosevelt to design and implement his New Deal legislation. Furthermore, despite his commitment to forward looking economic legislation, Roosevelt had a shaky to horrific record on civil rights and is responsible for the racist internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

Progressives also frequently compare Obama to John F. Kennedy. Progressives have long overstated Kennedy's contribution to racial equality movements. Although he was prepared to sign comprehensive civil rights legislation before his death, civil rights leaders constantly pushed him into this direction, and it took witnessing state-sponsored and private violence against blacks in the South before he finally endorsed the legislation. Johnson, by contrast, whom progressives despise due to his role in the Vietnam War, actually did far more than Kennedy had indicated he would do in terms of advancing racial and economic justice. Clinton was right in saying that it "took a president to sign the Civil Rights Act of 1964," but it took a politically active village to make sure that he did so.

What Today's Progressives Must Do to Create Liberal Change with Obama
Historically, nongovernmental actors have pushed moderate, though sympathetic, politicians to implement progressive reforms. In order to make sure that Obama's presidency delivers progressive change, the Left needs to take inventory of and admit to its own responsibility in misreading him. Progressives also need to acknowledge that sexism, Clinton-hatred, and an understandable but naive desire to move beyond race politics combined to create a situation where they idealized Obama and assigned to him values that he did not specifically espouse. Finally, progressives need to begin articulating specific political agendas that they want to see accomplished in the next four years and to design strategies to bring these goals to fruition.

Bickering over Obama's moderate status -- something many others knew or suspected a long time ago -- will not do the work necessary to generate progressive change. If the Left actually believes in the ideas it espouses, then its members will quickly begin the task of constructing a new progressive agenda. If they simply continue to whine, then maybe "more of the same" satisfies them well enough.

Related Readings on Dissenting Justice:

* 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

* Progressives Awaken from Obama-Vegetative State

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

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

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

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

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

Latest Cabinet Buzz: Richard Holbrooke to Lead South Asia Diplomacy

Today's Washington Post reports that Obama will likely select Richard Holbrook to lead diplomatic efforts in South Asia. Holbrooke is an advisor to Hillary Clinton on foreign policy. He also served as Ambassador to the United Nations in the Clinton administration. Before Clinton accepted her position as Secretary of State, media accounts indicated that Clinton negotiated having top roles for her advisors in the State Department. Holbrooke's rumored appointment could reflect this agreement.

Although Holbrooke has a wealth of foreign policy experiences, progressives have expressed nothing but contempt for him. In fact, he was a major part of a "guilt by association" strategy they used to construct Hillary Clinton as a bloodthirsty hawk: Because Holbrooke, who advises Clinton, is militaristic, then Clinton is militaristic as well. By contrast, progressives argued that Obama surrounded himself with a collection of peaceful doves, which, along with his stated opposition to the war in Iraq, made him a leftist in terms of foreign affairs. Some would argue that this argument is valid from a "common sense" perspective, but as a wise professor recently told me: "Common sense is for people who do not want to read." Now that Obama has surrounded himself with the same group of supposed hawks, progressives are in a state of near panic.

I have pulled together a collection of progressive critiques of Holbrooke and have pasted them below. Some of these arguments were made during the Democratic primaries, but others only recently emerged.

The Progressive
Holbrooke . . . carries a lot of baggage—some of it pretty unsightly. He was a State Department official in Vietnam during the 1960s, and under President Carter served as assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs. During those years, he helped provide key assistance to U.S.-backed dictators in South Korea, the Philippines, and Indonesia. His constant refrain was the preservation of U.S. national security interests in the region. After Park Chung Hee, the South Korean dictator, was shot to death in 1979 after eighteen years of increasingly brutal rule, for example, Holbrooke exploded in anger when Christian dissidents protested the continuation of martial law. Their actions, he complained in declassified documents I obtained in 1996, were making it difficult for the United States to avoid “another Iran” in that country.

And like Brzezinski, Holbrooke lent enormous assistance to Suharto’s military to put down the Timorese resistance. Among the weapons systems sold to Suharto with U.S. support were A-10 Broncos that were used to strafe Timorese villages. “If you look at the statistics, from 1976 to 1978 we massively increased our assistance that made the occupation and quelling of the [East Timor] rebellion possible,” Edmund McWilliams, a longtime U.S. diplomat who served in Indonesia during the Clinton Administration, told me. “To my mind, that was when the great bloodletting took place, and it was all done during the watch of Richard Holbrooke and Jimmy Carter, the human rights President.”

Holbrooke also was hawkish on Iraq and has had harsh words for Iran, comparing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Hitler.

Foreign Policy in Focus
During the lead-up to the war, Obama’s advisors were suspicious of the Bush administration’s claims that Iraq somehow threatened U.S. national security to the extent that it required a U.S. invasion and occupation of that country. . . .

By contrast, Clinton’s top advisor and her likely pick for secretary of state, Richard Holbrooke, insisted that Iraq remained “a clear and present danger at all times" . . . .

Holbrooke, rejecting the broad international legal consensus against offensive wars, insisted that it was perfectly legitimate for the United States to invade Iraq and that the European governments and anti-war demonstrators who objected “undoubtedly encouraged” Saddam Hussein.

Air America
[Richard] Holbrooke will have major sway over U.S. policy, whether or not he gets an official job. . . . Among the many violent policies he helped implement and enforce was the U.S.-backed Indonesian genocide in East Timor. Holbrooke was an Assistant Secretary of State in the late 1970s at the height of the slaughter and was the point man on East Timor for the Carter Administration.

According to Brad Simpson, director of the Indonesia and East Timor Documentation Project at the National Security Archive at George Washington University, "It was Holbrooke and Zbigniew Brzezinski [another top Obama advisor], both now leading lights in the Democratic Party, who played point in trying to frustrate the efforts of congressional human-rights activists to try and condition or stop U.S. military assistance to Indonesia, and in fact accelerated the flow of weapons to Indonesia at the height of the genocide". . . .

[]Holbrooke also supported the Iraq war. In early 2003, shortly after then-Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech to the UN, where he presented the administration's fraud-laden case for war to the UN (a speech Powell has since called a "blot" on his reputation), Holbrooke said: "It was a masterful job of diplomacy by Colin Powell and his colleagues, and it does not require a second vote to go to war. . . .Saddam is the most dangerous government leader in the world today, he poses a threat to the region, he could pose a larger threat if he got weapons of mass destruction deployed, and we have a legitimate right to take action."

San Francisco Chronicle
Clinton's apologists include Gloria Steinem and too many other feminists, who should know better than to betray the women's movement's commitment to peace in favor of simplistic gender politics. It is disturbing, not because they conclude that Clinton is the best candidate, but because they refuse to challenge their candidate to be better. Does it not matter that Hillary's key foreign policy advisers are drawn heavily from the ranks of the neoliberals, who cheered as loudly for Bush's war as did the neoconservatives? Are they not concerned that Richard Holbrooke, who exploited his experience and access to secret information during the Clinton presidency to back the Iraq invasion, is a likely contender for secretary of state should she win?

The Atlantic
Roger Cohen lobbies hard for the inclusion of Richard Holbrooke in a very powerful role in an Obama administration. I would say the fact that this seems relatively unlikely to happen was emblematic of the reasons to prefer Obama over Hillary Clinton. I think nobody doubts that Holbrooke is an very able practitioner of a certain brand of diplomacy, but his judgment and substantive ideas about broad policy questions leaves much to be desired.

He's the leading light of the clan of self-proclaimed "national security Democrats", that faction of the party sufficiently "serious" about foreign affairs to have seen the deep wisdom of a costly and destructive invasion of Iraq. . . .

The Nation
In diplomacy, even a veneer of decency and statesmanship can matter. Neither Richard Holbrooke, the author of Dayton, who lost no opportunity to refer to the UN as "deeply flawed" or Secretary of State Warren Christopher, who disposed of Boutros Boutros-Ghali in the most high-handed and thoughtless manner, can lay claim to glory as statesmen. Albright, responding to critics at the UN, reminded everyone that we are the "indispensable nation," so get over it.

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

Arianna Huffington is certainly politically astute. Perhaps that explains why her blog recently received a $25 million investment from venture capitalists.

During the Democratic primaries, bloggers at the Huffington Post were unrelentingly anti-Clinton and pro-Obama -- which they usually equated with being pro-progressive and anti-conservative. Today, the blog has suddenly become pro-Clinton, pro-Obama, and pro-center. In other words, Huffington Post appears to move with popular political currents, which makes it look unprincipled and opportunistic, much like the rest of the "corporate media." I assume Huffington Post qualifies as "corporate media" after securing a multi-million dollar investment.

Yesterday, I surveyed some of the early progressive responses to Obama's national security team. While AlterNet and The Nation maintained their skepticism of and opposition toward Clinton and centrist foreign policy, the Huffington Post has apparently modulated its tone. Most of yesterday's entries on the preeminent blog praise Obama's centrist appointments as being "astute" and even progressive.

If you have followed the Huffington Post even casually over the last year, its recent praise of Clinton and equating of centrist and moderate politics with brilliance should stand out as a noticeable departure from much of the commentary the blog has featured. By raising these contradictions, I am not simply "having fun," as Obama accused a journalist of doing at yesterday's press conference. Instead, I hope to remind progressives why they should never abdicate their critical role in society.

During the past year, most progressives seemed unable to offer any critical insight regarding the candidates that did not extend beyond a predictable pattern of condemning and demonizing Clinton and McCain while giving the highest praise to Obama. Uncritical "analysis," however, does not advance progressive politics.

Furthermore, now that Obama has signaled that he will indeed "govern in prose," progressives risk appearing unprincipled if they do not rethink their prior opinions. Rather than moving forward by offering ideas on policy, the Left is waging a battle over the appropriateness of Obama's personnel decisions. This discussion, however, is simply a proxy for a broader, much delayed debate over Obama's ideology. The Left has finally discovered that Obama is a moderate and a politician -- like the most of the Democratic Party leadership. Now, leftists are trying to decide what to do with the fact that the most progressive presidential candidate in U.S. history is actually a moderate. While some progressives claim Obama misled them, other commentators rightfully argue that progressives allowed their own wild expectations to cloud their evaluation of him.

If progressives had realized or admitted that they were "compromising" and accepting a moderate politician (which is probably the "best scenario" for a presidential election) months ago, a debate over ideology could have already taken place. Furthermore, an earlier search for the truth about the candidates could have spared the party a potentially fatal rift between Clinton and Obama supporters. Clinton supporters were reasonably upset by the constant and damaging portrayals of her as a neconconservative in Democratic attire. Clinton's effort to repair those divisions have earned her the very Cabinet post that now angers some progressives and makes a mockery of their exhausting (as opposed to exhaustive) portrayals of her as a bloodthirsty hawk.

Below, I have posted additional analysis from the Huffington Post that supplements my discussion of these issues from yesterday. This blog post provides additional praise for Clinton and other members of the foreign policy team. This type of analysis rarely appeared on Huffington Post prior to the election.
__________________________

Huffington Post
(Gordon Goldstein)
As we all saw on the morning of December 1, President-elect Barack Obama has clearly assembled a compelling national security team. As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton has the potential to be a highly effective and respected global diplomat. As secretary of defense, Robert Gates will provide excellent judgment and continuity, along with valuable political cover to a new Democratic commander-in-chief.But perhaps the most astute choice is General James L. Jones, the former commandant of the Marine Corps and Supreme Allied Commander of NATO forces in Europe, as national security adviser. It may prove to be one of the most critical decisions of his presidency.

[Editor: "Continuity" is not "change."]

Related Reading on Dissenting Justice:

*Progressives Awaken from Obama-Vegetative State

*Governing In Prose: Obama's Cabinet Picks Defy Campaign Narrative That Emphasized "Hope," "Change," and "Washington-Outsider" Status

* More "Change": Tom Daschle to Lead Dept. of Health and Human Services

* If Clinton Becomes Sec. of State for Obama, My Cynicism Will Max Out!

*The "Left" Responds to Obama's "Centrist" Foreign Policy Team
*Back Down Memory Lane: A Review of Anti-Clinton Rhetoric by "Progressives" on Daily Kos, Huffington Post, and AlterNet
*Late (But Thoughtful) AP Article on Irony of Clinton as Secretary of State

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

Today, I posted a blog entry that recounts some of the harshest progressive criticism of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Since that time, I have scanned the Internet and collected some of the initial responses by progressives to the official nomination of Clinton as Secretary of State. Here are some of the items I have found.

AlterNet
(Stephen Zunes)
With the selection of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State . . . it is no longer possible to make any more excuses [for Obama's cabinet choices]. It is getting harder to deny that Barack Obama intends to tilt his foreign policy to the right.

This is not simply a situation where Obama desires an opportunity to listen to alternative perspectives from hawks as a means of strengthening his dovish proclivities. These hawkish perspectives have long been dominant in Washington and in the mainstream media, so even without these appointments, Obama would be getting plenty of this kind of feedback anyway. It appears that he has appointed Clinton and these other hawks because he does not have any principled objections to their disdain for human right and international law.

[Editor: Zunes is consistently extreme in his critique of Clinton. Now, he offers similarly melodramtic statements about Obama.]

The Nation
(Katrina Vanden Heuvel)
Barack Obama not only had the good judgment to oppose the war in Iraq but, as he told us earlier this year, "I want to end the mindset that got us into war." So it is troubling that a man of such good judgment has asked Robert Gates to stay on as Secretary of Defense -- and assembled a national security team of such narrow bandwidth. It is true that President Obama will set the policy. But this team makes it more difficult to seize the extraordinary opportunity Obama's election has offered to reengage the world and reset America's priorities. Maybe being right about the greatest foreign policy disaster in U.S. history doesn't mean much inside the Beltway? How else to explain that not a single top member of Obama's foreign policy/national security team opposed the war -- or the dubious claims leading up to it?

(John Nichols)
Obama is not assembling a team of rivals -- at least not with the Clinton pick. He is selecting a fellow senator who he came to respect and even to regard somewhat fondly during the course of a difficult but not particularly destructive primary campaign. More importantly, he is selected someone who agrees with him on almost every significant global issues and who he is certain will be able Secretary of State.

No, the man who spent the past several days consulting by phone with outgoing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, is not staking out bold new turf with his selection of a replacement for Rice. This is not fundamental change. But no one who paid serious attention to Obama's campaigning, even in the early stages of the race, thought he was about fundamental change.

Huffington Post
[Editor: Apparently, today's theme at Huffington Post is: "it's all good." The pro-Obama blog features several essays that praise Obama's foreign policy team, even though it was a major player in the construction of Clinton as a worthless hawk and the portrayal Obama as a Leftist dove. Although Arianna Huffington criticized Obama's choice of Clinton before it became official, Huffington Post bloggers have seemingly moved fully behind the new team. One essay even offers a "progressive" take on Robert Gates.]

(James Warren)
As the season's first snow hit, Barack Obama on Monday took a shovel to the chilliest element of Bush administration national security policy: moral certitude. Rather than look to the heavens, a skillful president-elect seemed distinctly focused on the ground for inspiration.

With Sen. Hillary Clinton and six other new colleagues aligned in front of their very own American flags, Obama left little doubt that we're shifting the political center of gravity. For all Monday's talk of power, and successfully ending the "war on terror" in Afghanistan, the significance was less the obvious signals of being "muscular" than of an attempt to be flexible and, yes, multilateralist.

(Max Bergmann)
[Editor: Here's the progressive take on Gates.]
While many progressives acknowledge that Gates has said some reasonable things . . . and has been a positive influence within the Bush administration, many argue that this does not justify keeping someone on who was simply not as bad as the rest - especially when you have an opportunity to bring in someone more progressive.

But in keeping Gates, Obama, is actually indicating that he is very serious about instituting significant reform of the Pentagon.

Gates has advocated some very bold progressive reforms during the last couple of years. He has broken with the Rumsfeld emphasis on military transformation and has repeatedly talked about the need for the Pentagon to move away from procuring unnecessary weapons that are hugely expensive and have little strategic role (italics added).

[Editor: "Very bold progressive reforms"? Apparently, I missed an issue of my subscription to Bold Progressive Reforms Magazine. Also, it is pretty sad for lefties when simply disagreeing with "shock and awe" Rumsfeld gives someone progressive credentials.]

Cecile Richards
The selection of Senator Clinton [as Secretary of State] represents an important first step down a new path for American foreign policy -- an enormous shift represented by the selection of a champion of women's health and rights to be in charge of America foreign policy. . . .

Senator Clinton understands that improving the status of women is not simply a moral imperative; it is necessary to building democracies around the globe. Improving the status of women is key to creating stable families, stable communities, and stable countries. Women's ability to control the size of their families, regardless of economics, nationality, or culture, has a direct impact on their economic well-being and that of their children. Senator Clinton understands that women's quality of life directly affects the major issues confronting the globe: national security, environmental sustainability, and global poverty.

[Editor: During the Democratic primaries, Huffington Post published a number of "open letters" from feminists "for Obama" (or simply "against Clinton"). I do not recall seeing much pro-Clinton feminist commentary, except from solid Clinton supporters like Taylor Marsh.]

Concluding Thoughts: As I stated at the beginning of this entry, I have always believed that Obama and Clinton are both centrist Democrats. My view of the candidates' shared political ideology has placed me in constant opposition with other progressives.

But I do not believe that having a centrist president precludes progressive change. Accordingly, I am not writing about Obama's moderate politics in order to denounce his administration. Instead, I hope to remind the Left that dissent is a critical component of progressive politics. Because many progressives abdicated critical analysis of Obama, they are now becoming disaffected or searching for ways to reconcile their earlier praise of Obama and hatred of Clinton with the reality that he is a centrist and that she is the "fresh face" of U.S. foreign policy.

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

Now that Clinton has officially received her offer to serve as Secretary of State, I thought readers might find it interesting to ponder with me how the Left will react. During the Democratic primaries, I found both leading candidates highly attractive. When it became clear that the race would go to the wire, I even favored a "Dream Team," but that never materialized.

The Left Bashed Clinton as a Conservative Hawk

By contrast, my liberal and progressive colleagues (many of whom are other academics) had the utmost disdain for Clinton. While I viewed the two candidates as fairly mainstream or guardedly liberal on most issues, other progressives passionately supported Obama as the most radical choice and dismissed Clinton as a self-interested, conservative (or valueless), inexperienced, racist, demagogue who would govern as a centrist (at best), continue Bush's hawkish foreign policy, and fail to offer any fundamental change in society.

Progressives' disgust with Clinton stemmed, in part, from their lingering dissatisfaction with Bill Clinton's presidency, which they viewed as betraying the Left. Hillary Clinton became a punching bag for Leftist discontent with centrist politics of the Democratic Party. Disclaimer: I (a self-proclaimed progressive) also disagreed with many of President Clinton's compromises with the right. I was 20-something at the time, and I now appreciate the value of compromise much more than I did at the time. Furthermore, and more importantly, I refused to conflate the Clintons and view them as a pathological "Billary," as many liberals shamefully did. That term has an unmistakeably sexist connotation.

Progressive Bloggers Helped Portray Clinton as Bush III

Some of the loudest "progressive" criticism of Hillary Clinton came from popular liberal and progressive blogs. In particular Daily Kos, Huffington Post, and AlterNet (among many others) frequently posted vitriolic essays warning readers of the awful nature of Clinton's politics. Now that Clinton has received the highest position on foreign policy in Obama's Cabinet, I assume that the Left will soon express dismay -- if they actually believed the harsh criticism they lodged against Clinton and the effusive praise they reserved for Obama during the Democratic primaries.

Because people have very short memories, I have posted some material from several liberal and progressive blogs below. As you read them, consider how the writers could possibly reconcile their earlier positions on Clinton and Obama with Obama's decision to make Clinton Secretary of State.

Examples of Progressive Critiques of Clinton from Daily Kos, Huffington Post, and AlterNet

Daily Kos

(1/2/2008)

This is a fight for the soul of the Democratic Party. Will it be the party of corporate insiders and the Democratic Leadership Council’s centrist, triangulating approach to politics? Or will it be the party of a new generation shaping the future of the Democratic Party in a progressive direction.

We face a turning point for this country and for the Democratic Party. We have the potential to launch a progressive revolution in America. That’s why we cannot risk everything on a centrist, unpopular candidate, and why progressives must unite behind the only candidate who can defeat Hillary Clinton in the primary race.

(3/8/2008)

Everyone knows that Hillary Clinton has made the completely wrong and incompetent judgements in Foreign Policy, on both Iraq and Iran. Even far worse than any one particular vote, she attached her own credibility to public promotion and parroting of the plainly fraudulent White House talking-points, and a bizarre faith-based loyalty to their bogus intelligence (White House manipulated) -- even after the inconvenient truth was reported both Nationally and Internationally, and revealed before the whole World. . . .

The errors are even larger, and something that is permanent and institutionalized by her own choice of trusted advisors, and that incompetence will never change either now or in the future. You can learn a whole lot about a candidate by who their trusted advisors are.

Both Barack Obama and Hillary have hired advisors that at one time served within the former Clinton administration. Yet, the similarity ends there. . . .

(4/10/2008)

The more I see Hillary Clinton on TV and think about her, the more I realize that she doesn't care in the least bit about the Democratic party. She cares about herself and her husbands legacy and nothing else. Frankly, I am sick of it, and I will be even sicker if she somehow manages to get this nomination. People who are nominated for President by a party have usually worked in the past to show that they actually care about the party, not just themselves. Hillary Clinton has done nothing to show ths [sic]. . . .

Huffington Post

(2/9/2008)

A major difference stands out among those they are likely to appoint to key posts in national defense, intelligence, and foreign affairs: Almost everyone in Senator Obama's foreign policy team opposed the U.S. invasion. By contrast, most of Senator Clinton's foreign policy team, which largely comprises veterans of her husband's administration, strongly supported George W. Bush's call for a U.S. invasion of Iraq. . . .

Hillary Clinton has a few advisors who did oppose the war, like Wesley Clark, but taken together, the kinds of key people she's surrounded herself with supports the likelihood that her administration, like Bush's, would be more likely to embrace exaggerated and alarmist reports regarding potential national security threats, to ignore international law and the advice of allies, and to launch offensive wars.

(2/25/2008)

The problem of Clinton's poor instincts on foreign policy is compounded by the hawkish foreign policy advisors she has surrounded herself with, the most important of which are Madeleine Albright, Richard Holbrooke, Lee Feinstein and Sandy Berger.

(3/7/2008)

Hillary's triangulating against Obama is true to form for the Clintons. That's all they ever do: cozy up to the Republicans, cut off the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, and help push along the Republican agenda on trade, welfare, taxes, and corporate power. The Democratic Party has still not recovered from the Clinton failures to stand up to the GOP. Hillary was on the board of directors of Wal-Mart, one of the most anti-labor companies in the world. That's not much different than being CEO of Halliburton.

Now she, in effect, endorsed John McCain over Barack Obama in the 2008 election. It was both a shortsighted attempt at tactical advantage and a snub to Obama stating that he can forget about sharing a ticket with Hillary. How can Hillary ever join a ticket with Obama now that she has ranked him below the GOP's choice? . . . .[I] will vote for Ralph Nader before I'll vote for Hillary Clinton.

(2/21/2007)

Let's face it: No matter how much many of us who oppose the war in Iraq would also love to elect a female president, Hillary Clinton is not a peace candidate. She is an unrepentant hawk, à la Joe Lieberman. She believed invading Iraq was a good idea, all available evidence to the contrary, and she has, once again, made it clear that she still does. . . .

[The record] shows a fondness in Clinton for war and bullying adventurism that vastly overshadows her sensible stances on many domestic issues. As Barry Goldwater supporters stated in kicking off the Republican revolution, what we need is a choice, not an echo.

AlterNet

(8/15/2007)

What in the world was Sen. Hillary Clinton thinking when she attacked Sen. Barack Obama for ruling out the use of nuclear weapons in going after Osama bin Laden? And why aren't her supporters more concerned about yet another egregious example of Clinton's consistent backing for the mindless militarism that is dragging this nation to ruin?

So what that she is pro-choice and a woman if the price of proving her capacity to be commander in chief is that we end up with an American version of Margaret Thatcher?

(8/19/2005)

In July 2002, at the first Senate hearing on Iraq, then-Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair Joe Biden pledged his allegiance to Bush's war. Ever since, the blunt-spoken Biden has seized every opportunity to dismiss antiwar critics within his own party, vocally denouncing Bush's handling of the war while doggedly supporting the war effort itself. . . .

The Democrats' speculative front-runner for '08, Hillary Clinton, has offered similarly hawkish rhetoric. Clinton, a member of the Armed Services Committee, appears more comfortable accommodating the President's Iraq policy than opposing it . . . .

(12/24/2007)

Why is [Clinton] even a Democrat? As we all know, Democratic presidents are almost as likely to wage war as Republican. Then what's with her reputation as a liberal?

It's almost as if the cover of arch-liberal with which conservatives have conveniently provided Hillary allows her inner hawk to fly free. . . .Thanks to the efforts of people like Stephen Zunes, more and more of us understand that, with Hillary and her militaristic proclivities, what you see is what you get.

(2/17/2008)

Would you have not paid serious money to watch the Anointed One's composure disintegrate before your very eyes as the ground receded from beneath her feet? Can you imagine her sheer fury at having sold-out everything and everyone to be president, only to be left holding the bag, her butt good and well kicked by a funny-named nobody from nowhere? . . . Could you have hoped even in your wildest dreams that Bad Bill's true colors would finally be exposed to his idiotic supporters who never saw him for the Republican he always was? . . . .

The public is ready for a turn to the left, and Obama wants to give it them. Young people have abandoned the GOP in droves. As importantly, conservative policies and politics have been discredited for a generation or more, especially if some Democrat could unplug their brain from life-support long enough to just say so. Obama is saying so.