Everyone Put On The Brakes For A Minute

I know Barack Obama is a horrible, dastardly person and his move to the center has offended many of his greatest supporters. At times it's offended me; I'm a member of the social networking group inside his own website asking him to do the right thing on FISA. It has 7,500 members now, suggesting that many of his fervent supporters are more progressive than he is and will not be particularly interested in giving themselves over to the great glory of Obama and silencing their own criticisms.

I think this expectation of being "stabbed in the back" has gone into less critical territory now, however. On the faith-based initiatives front, I don't see the problem with partnering on anti-poverty programs, demanding accountability from them, and ensuring that their participation complies with all relevant Constitutional statutes. I understand the argument that there's a distinction without a difference, as the church would get money to use on secular anti-poverty programs and save their own money to discriminate in other areas. But that just warps history and suggests that no faith-based charity ever got money from the government prior to big bad George Bush. They did, and in fact it was ruled unconstitutional for them to be denied on the basis of religion.

Now, I hit Obama hard yesterday on rebuking Wesley Clark's perfectly legitimate comments, and I don't think it was some plausible deniability strategy. However, he said today that the remarks in his speech yesterday, which many thought alluded to Clark, had nothing to do with him and were written two months ago. What happened yesterday, I think, is that the Clark thing blew up and stepped on his daily message, and he wanted it to go away quickly to get back to the message of the day.

Now, like Glenn Greenwald I don't disagree that there's a bad pattern here:

That's quite a two weeks. One of the primary reasons that blogs emerged over the last seven years was as a reaction to, an attempt to battle against, exactly this narrative which the media propagated and Democratic institutions embraced -- that it is the duty of every Democrat to repudiate and attack their own base; that the truly pernicious elements are on the "Far Left", whose values must be rejected, while the Far Right is entitled to profound respect and accommodation; that "Strength" in National Security is determined by agreement with GOP policies, which is where "the Center" is found; that Seriousness is demonstrated by contempt for the liberal masses; that every Democrat must apologize for any statement over which Republicans feign offense [...]

A presidential election is a unique time when Americans are engaged in a discussion over our collective political values (at least more engaged than any other time). Why would anyone watch the Obama campaign use this opportunity to perpetuate and reinforce this narrative, and watch Obama embrace polices that are the precise antithesis of the values he espoused in the past, and not criticize or object to that? Criticisms of that sort aren't unhealthy or counter-productive. They're the opposite. Of course one ought to object if a political candidate -- even Barack Obama -- is advocating policies that trample on one's core political values or promulgating toxic narratives. That's particularly true since his doing so isn't necessary to win; it's actually more likely to have the opposite effect.

There is no question, at least to me, that having Obama beat McCain is vitally important. But so, too, is the way that victory is achieved and what Obama advocates and espouses along the way. Feeding distortions against someone like Wesley Clark in order to please Joe Klein and his fact-free media friends, or legalizing warrantless eavesdropping and protecting joint Bush/telecom lawbreaking, or basing his campaign on demonizing MoveOn.org and 1960s anti-war hippies, is quite harmful in many long-lasting ways. Electing Barack Obama is a very important political priority but it isn't the only one there is, and his election is less likely, not more likely, the more homage he pays to these these tired, status-quo-perpetuating Beltway pieties.

Absolutely. But I think a lot of things are getting swept up in this "move to the center" narrative that ought not necessarily be in there. And I think we have to be careful that our narratives don't get as rigid and impervious to contrasting information as the traditional media.

I also agree with Markos and I didn't donate to Obama in June for this reason, too. But I think there's a happy medium here. Not EVERYTHING Obama is doing is designed to stab bloggers in the back.

UPDATE: I also agree with Arianna that moving to the center for the sake of pleasing elites is a loser's game, and the benefit is outweighed by the costs. You would think that a campaign that believes itself to be transformative wouldn't be so ashamed of the more transformative side of his own party. It does hurt his brand. But taking everything to the extreme and imputing the worst possible motives dilutes it even further, and what's more it's intellectually dishonest.

UPDATE II: I hate to keep going with this, but here's what Obama just said:

Obama Just Said Re: Clark That Gen Clark didn't have the intent of the SBVT and he rejects that analogy.

...also, Pastor Dan has more on the faith-based initiatives and worries that it'll become a patronage factory for the left, which is a legitimate concern. I think if they're serious about measuring effectiveness that I don't much care who benefits. In an email he notes that the "fungible" argument may be bogus because many of the largest orgs. like Catholic Charities have separate organizations for their charity efforts.