For what it's worth, there is one area in which I will always side with Obama:

[Writer]

And that's the great need he has to put away the typical idealistic, totalistic battles between the left and the right.

Watching Newt Gingrich on The Daily Show left me with the nauseated feeling that the ridiculous dichotomous politics that have so defined us for far too many decades simply won't die. Or won't die quickly enough.

The same politics that create false dichotomies:

Capitalism v. Socialism

Individualism v. Social Welfare

War v. Peace

Rich v. Poor

Limited government v. Big government

And on and on and on...

These sorts of politics expect you to pick a side and argue not only for that, but for everything else that happens to fall on the same side, whether its sensible or not.

So nothing gets accomplished except for continuing to master the better rhetorical strategy. Ideals over people.

Obama has always expressed a desire to transcend that, but it seems that this sort of nonsense is so entrenched in Washington culture, that he is forced to play the stupid game of faux-bipartisanship. Seriously, I doubt that anything makes his skin crawl more than pandering to folks who have over the years emphasized gamesmanship over production. He's the new guard in politics, yes, but the old guard still reigns in Congress.

Maybe it's time we get rid of the old guard and get some fresh blood into Congress.

[avaistheone1]

1. How is that working out for him?

[Uzybone]

2. It has been a zero sum game for the working person

I K&R your post.

I basically fell in love with Jon Stewart when he made the same point on Crossfire those years ago.

In the current world of left vs right, politics always triumphs over truth.

[frazzled]

3. You might be interested to read Louis Menand's 'The Metaphysical Club.'

It's a long but very interesting and sometimes even entertaining history of the American mindset after the Civil War and before World War I, when a number of thinkers began to believe that the ideological fervors that preceded that great tragedy had exacted too great a price: that people should never kill each other over ideas. It deals with Oliver Wendell Holmes, William James, Charles Sanders Peirce, John Dewey ... and up to Jane Addams and reformers. It's about the philosophy of pragmatism.

I read it when it first came out, in 2001 ... and I've recently thought I'd like to read it again.

http://tiny.cc/HDH6S

[DJ13]

4. he is forced to play the stupid game of faux-bipartisanship

Forced, or does he use it to keep everyone second guessing his real goals?

[freddie mertz]

5. Well, he is certainly following your advice, albeit in a scattershot fashion.

I see a prescription for big losses in 2010 and 2012.

[Vincardog]

6. I think it is time that the Rich War Capitalist Individualists were not the only ones fighting

[Armstead]

7. I agree with you in theory -- In reality that is surrender

It takes two to tango. And it takes a willingness to compromise, accept less and negotiate in good faith on all sides.

The GOP right wing Corporate machine is NOT going to do any of those things. They want all or nothing. You can't be reasonable or compromise with someone who wants to eat all of your lunch.

[Demoiselle]

8. The "false dichotomies" are all creations of the right wing blah blah machine..

..Socialism and Social Welfare in a small d democratic society present no threat to free enterprise or individualism.
Nor is an avowed obligation to ease the burden of the poor, the ill, the luckless any threat to our nation.


My problem is that although the Newt Gingriches of this country have been offering these falsehoods for years, we have had no sensible, strong voice denying the nonsense.Those who SHOULD be speaking out, yes, even being forthrightly and loudly partisan, have been anything but. And although the media may work overtime to stifle the left, that just means to me that we should all have been shouting louder.
I worried about Obama last year when I realized the basic pillar of his campaign seemed to be to blame "partisanship" for all our woes. I couldn't for the life of me figure out which Democratics/Liberals/Progressives he blamed. And I still can't. And he still seems incapable of speaking out against the right wing.
I wish him the best, but I'm profoundly disappointed.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

9. So the one thing you're most into is his worst trait. Cool.

[bvar22]

10. So far, that philosophy has produced...

...a steady march to The RIGHT on POLICY over the last 30 years.

I would prefer a Democratic leader who occasionally STANDS on PRINCIPLE.
A leader who is willing to draw a line in the sand and say,
"This far, and NO further!"

"In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.

Among these are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.--FDR

If the Democratic Party no longer STANDS for these PRINCIPLES,
then I am no longer welcome in the Democratic Party.

"Centrism"...because it is so EASY!
You don't have to STAND for ANYTHING,
and get to insult those who do!!!
:party:

[rug]

11. War and peace have so much in common.

[QC]

12. War is peace. n/t

[LooseWilly]

13. The most insidious dichotomy of all: Right vs. Wrong...

I interpreted Obama's attempt to do away with the "old politics" in a completely different way than you apparently have. I saw it as a statement that he was going to try to move beyond the right/left definitions that have festered since the 60s, in particular as a residual political coloring left over from the Vietnam clashes of domestic politics.

The Democrats would no longer accept the "leftist" label. They would no longer allow the Republicans to label them as de facto hippies. They would argue fiscal discipline, social levelling (concern for poor/middle class rather than simply pandering to corporations) would be argued on its merits rather than run away from for fear of being labelled "Pinko", a sane foreign policy based upon clearly articulated strategic goals would be developed (as opposed to the black and white dichotomy of escalation a la Vietnam to Cambodia to Laos... vs. immediate withdrawal), and corporate regulation would be re-exerted as opposed to the rampant de-regulation and neo-Robber Baron style of economic cowboyism that had caused one Great Depression before but which the Vietnam-era-esque conservatives tried to cast as being the only American-Alternative to Communism.

All the Democratic Party platform policies are in line with the most popular policies around the developed world. The undercurrent of every argument against those policies amounts to: Hippies came up with those policy positions... and Hippies are Un-American!!

A re-creation of the "narrative" of American Politics, if pursued vigorously, could conceivably deprive the Republicans of all the subliminal programming energies built into the "not liberal" populace. If the terms of the "debate" were successfully re-framed, then the knee-jerk reactions caused by the connotative reactions to certain buzz words could be averted entirely.

Instead, Obama seems to be just abandoning the policy positions that the "left" has been fighting for for decades, and is offering a "negotiated truce" of ideologies... and he seems to be taking the first steps... quite a number of steps in fact... in the rightward direction, as an attempt to show "good faith" one would assume... but he now seems at a loss for what to do as the other side simply grins, and waits for him to keep walking rightward to find a "middle ground" on the right.

I thought he was going to abandon the ideology and dialectic of the "left". Instead, he's abandoning the "left" while trying to hold onto the dialectic.

I, personally, am in complete opposition to everything that you have here proposed Writer. Your position is precisely the inverse of mine.

You are wrong. The problem isn't "These sorts of politics expect you to pick a side and argue not only for that, but for everything else that happens to fall on the same side, whether its sensible or not." The problem is that the arguments have been made before and the attempt to continue to make the same arguments leads to you then argue for "everything else that happens to fall on the same side"... precisely because the old arguments were what defined the "other stuff" that fell "on the same side".

The solution isn't to walk away from the arguments. The solution is to re-examine the goals, and re-formulate the arguments as to why those are the goals.

Instead, I see Obama offering to walk away from the goals, in an effort to distance himself from the old flawed arguments.

That's not getting past the old politics. That's walking away from the objectives that have been fought for in the past.

That's capitulation.