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The Way Forward: Pragmatic, Honest, Pandering

WT calls for a true-blue Obama supporter to explain why Obama?s ?incoherent? positions merit enthusiasm. I?ll give it a shot.

Obama?s answer to the left?s decades-long draught is simple: sacrifice principle in the name of pragmatism. Or, cribbing Voltaire, don?t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. The particular policies below aren?t any more enthusiasm-producing than carbon cap-and-trade, or government transparency, or universal health care. They just happen to represent an approach to governance that I think the left, and the country, desperately needs.

On FISA, Obama?s position is not incoherent, it?s subtle. His argument is simple: In a choice between extending FISA?s intelligence-gathering provisions and letting them expire but getting a perfect bill without retroactive immunity, choose extending FISA. Before FISA expiration was on the table, he tried for better. For now, good is better than perfect.

On gay marriage, the guy?s got wacky views. But some people, including him, apparently balk at calling gay-marriage ?marriage.? That?s stupid, but so long as he supports every substantive policy result that I do, I?m not getting all worked up about language. Because that?s something a purist liberal would do.

Public financing is an easy one. Here?s the choice: a possible landslide victory with big down-ballot reverberations OR breaking the letter but not the spirit of a campaign promise.

The D.C. Gun ban: A survey and an interview clip can be read to suggest otherwise, but Obama?s view has been consistent: balance an individual right with public-safety.

So take a sympathetic view, and stop talking about ?credibility problems? as if you don?t know politics as well as you do.

Full post as published by Expressio Unius on July 03, 2008 (boomark / email).