Legal Commentary

Best Intentions

By Big Tent Democrat

It always amazes me that people care what politicians "really" want. Kevin Drum writes:

I never expected to like everything [Obama] did. The reason I'm schizophrenic [about Obama] is that it's almost impossible to get a handle on what he really wants. Did he want a bigger stimulus bill but compromised down because $800 billion was all he could get? Or did he not really want more than that in the first place? Ditto for the public option. Ditto for DADT, which he had to be pushed into supporting this year. And ditto again on financial reform, which is worth passing only because of numerous amendments to the original bill. On all of these issues and more, I don't feel like I ever knew what Obama's real position was. There's a big difference between compromising because politics is what it is and you have no choice, and compromising because the more centrist position is the one you genuinely hold. But Obama never gives me a good sense of which it is with him.

(Emphasis supplied.) Actually, there is no difference between compromising because of perceived political constraints or because you prefer the compromised position. The outcome is the same. It is the insatiable desire, that I simply do not understand, to believe a politician agrees with you on policy, even if he does nothing that actually enacts the policies you prefer.

It is ridiculous. Pols are pols and do what they do. Trying to figure out if they do things because they think it is the right thing to do or the politically expedient thing to do is a fool's errand. It matters not one whit WHY a pol does something. What matters is WHAT he does. The long arguments on the WHY are simply ridiculous.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on June 29, 2010 (boomark / email).