| First of all, I think he has been a talented politician. He is certainly better than Kerry at navigating contradictory impulses.
Against a war you fund, for instance.
Questioning the judgment of Democrats who voted yes on the AUMF and then consulting with Condoleezza Rice is another example.
http://www.aspendailynews.com/...
This is important for any politician, but in the end it's not much of a compliment simply because being a great politician is not something anyone really admires so much. At least no one who values the issues they support. That in itself is a contradictory impulse.
In any case, no one ever says "Pols are pols" about Russ Feingold so I'll assume it's a bad thing for a pol to be a pol until such time as I am notified otherwise.
But I do think he's a talented politician.
Hey look. That's what Bill just said actually...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Clinton volunteered very little praise of Obama, beyond describing him as "smart" and "a good politician" when asked about him toward the end of the interview.
Mostly what I admired about Barack Obama was that, and how self-serving is this, is that it turns out he used to be a lot more like Hillary Clinton.
I derive this from his now infamous 2005 address to the "dailykos crew".
http://obama.senate.gov/blog/0...
Which came about because of his remarks about advocacy groups during the John Roberts confirmation.
He said:
I was deeply disturbed by some statements that were made by largely Democratic advocacy groups when ranking member Senator Leahy announced that he would support Judge Roberts. Although the scales have tipped in a different direction for me, I am deeply admiring of the work and the thought that Senator Leahy has put into making his decision. The knee-jerk unbending and what I consider to be unfair attacks on Senator Leahy's motives were unjustified. Unfortunately, both parties have fallen victim to this kind of pressure.
Now I don't think that was true so much, just because the Republican is a slave to that pressure and no one can ever remember when the Dems responded even a little bit to that kind of pressue, it's a false equivalency, and he was right to get called on that.
But what I admired most about the Truth Tone address is this one paragraph:
According to the storyline that drives many advocacy groups and Democratic activists - a storyline often reflected in comments on this blog - we are up against a sharply partisan, radically conservative, take-no-prisoners Republican party. They have beaten us twice by energizing their base with red meat rhetoric and single-minded devotion and discipline to their agenda. In order to beat them, it is necessary for Democrats to get some backbone, give as good as they get, brook no compromise, drive out Democrats who are interested in "appeasing" the right wing, and enforce a more clearly progressive agenda. The country, finally knowing what we stand for and seeing a sharp contrast, will rally to our side and thereby usher in a new progressive era.
I think this perspective misreads the American people.
Now I have not much else to say about that, except that I agree with it, it was a great rebuke and rejection of the dailykos attitude. Took some guts to do that. I agreed with it.
But lets now look at the next sentence which probably might not ever get noticed if not for what he became during the primary.
From traveling throughout Illinois and more recently around the country, I can tell you that Americans are suspicious of labels and suspicious of jargon.
POW! Bazing! But whether or not one agrees with Barack Obama's assessment about what Americans think, while I would like to have boldfaced the second phrase, look at what I did boldface.
At least he was someone who regarded himself in a world where he had something to learn from other people, regular people. People not immediately like himself. And not just to fulfill a post-partisanship make believe world, at least that wasn't what I thought at the time. I didn't really know. All it meant is, when I boldface the first phrase, and not the second, he was positioning the dailykos crew as elitists. People who stay at home and write about what they think is good for everyone else cause they know better.
When you think about it. And that's what they are and continue to be.
That was admirable. That was Clinton-esque. If Obama doesn't like being associated with Clinton, I don't have to do that. It was still the right thing to do. And it's the right attitude to have. I can say it was Obama-esque back when I believed Obama was admirable.
Everything else about the truth tone address has been written already.
Now. 3 years later. Why did Obama fail to connect with the people, the Americans he refers to above, even after he was given a default victory?
Let's break out some jargon. Let's call them racist. That answers the question. |
