Passionate Compromise
by digby
Everyone ins the beltway has been clamoring for the President to get up on his bully pulpit and get mad, really mad. And today he finally did it:
Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me — and I welcome their hatred. Those who used to have [access to the White House] are not happy. Some of them are desperate. Only desperate men with their backs to the wall would descend so far below the level of decent citizenship as to foster the current . . . campaign against America’s working people.
Ok, that was Roosevelt shaking his fist at the bankers and the Republicans. But Obama said much the same. Of course he was talking about left wing of his own party, but then again, that’s just what the Village ordered.
This notion that somehow we are willing to compromise too much reminds me of the debate that we had during health care. This is the public option debate all over again. I pass a signature piece of legislation where we finally get health care for all Americans, something that Democrats have been fighting for for a hundred years. But because there was a provision in there that they didn’t get, that would have affected maybe a couple of million people, even though we got health insurance for 30 million people, and the potential for lower premiums for maybe 100 million people, that somehow that was a sign of weakness, of compromise.
If that’s the standard by which we are measuring success or core principles, then let’s face it: We will never get anything done. People will have the satisfaction of having a purist position, and no victories for the American people. And we will be able to feel good about ourselves and sanctimonious about how pure our intentions are and how tough we are. And in the meantime the American people are still saying to themselves, [I’m] not able to get health insurance because of pre-existing conditions. Or not being able to pay their bills because their unemployment insurance ran out. That can’t be the measure of how we think about public service. That can’t be the measure of what it means to be a Democrat. This is a big, diverse country. Not everybody agrees with us. I know that shocks people… This country was founded on compromise. I couldn’t go through the front door at this country’s founding. If we were really thinking about ideal positions, we wouldn’t have a union.
Someone should check up on David Broder. I’m afraid the orgasm he just had may have given him a heart attack.
The President was very angry, no doubt about it and the sanctimonious purity trolls are on notice to get with the program. (I will, therefore, resist the temptation to point out that the main “compromise” this country was founded on was the 3/5th compromise which wasn’t the greatest idea the founders ever had and ended quite badly.)
Seriously, this is simple triangulation, Obama style, and it’s to be xpected at this point although I certainly got the feeling that he meant every word. But he did mischaracterize his critics just a bit. The public option was the compromise position that was compromised again and used as a negotiating chip with people like Lieberman to turn the health care legislation into Bob Dole’s plan circa 1996. That’s an improvement over the current GOP plan of “Don’t get Sick” but still, it’s not unfair for liberals to feel ill used in all that. (Not to mention that the cock-up of a legislative strategy is hard to take even for people who weren’t invested in a public option. It wasn’t pretty.)
Moreover, there are many people in Obama’s coalition who are arguing from a position of core principle and feel that it’s important to fight for those principles, particularly in a time of great crisis when they truly, sincerely believe that his compromises are going to make things worse. And it’s not like the economic policies that have been tried are all that successful (which may explain the level of anger you see from the president when it’s pointed out.)
I get the triangulation thing. The whole Village is now characterizing him as being “the only grown-up” in the room, which I’m sure is exactly what they were going for. And I honestly wouldn’t care if he railed at liberals all day long if he had used the power of the presidency and as head of his own party more strategically over the past two years. Huge opportunities were squandered and the advice that he relied on, both on policy and politics, has been inadequate to the task. Now the country is faced with a slavering beast of a right wing which has been revitalized while the rank and file of the Democratic party is confused at best.
So, he can triangulate all he wants, but I’m not sure it will help him as much as they might suppose. The problem is that the policies he’s pursuing are likely going to cost him the election because whether he believes in those policies or not doesn’t change the fact that he’s being set up politically by the right. And he doesn’t want to hear about it. No matter how much you like or dislike the man, that’s a problem.
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