Legal Commentary

Will Obama Provide Clintonism Redux?

By Big Tent Democrat

A familiar question for readers of this blog rears its head again today as Glenn Greenwald revisits the issue, inspired by David Ignatius trotting out the same old Beltway "post-partisan" "unity" tripe. Glenn writes:

Whatever else one might want to say about this "centrist" approach, the absolute last thing one can say about it is that there's anything "new" or "remarkable" about it. The notion that Democrats must spurn their left-wing base and move to the "non-ideological" center is the most conventional of conventional Beltway wisdom (which is why Ignatius, the most conventional of Beltway pundits, is preaching it). That's how Democrats earn their Seriousness credentials, and it's been that way for decades.

Several weeks ago, I documented that this was the exact approach that fueled Bill Clinton's candidacy and the Clinton Presidency. That's what Clinton's widely-celebrated Sister Souljah moment and his Dick-Morris-designed "triangulation" were all about: "moving toward the center in a way that upsets some of his liberal allies," as Ignatius put it today as though it's some brand new Obama invention. Clinton's approach even resulted in his own GOP Defense Secretary. And, during the Bush era of the last eight years, moving to the Center and spurning their base was about the only "principle" that ever animated Congressional Democrats.

That's why it's been so bizarre listening to Beltway pundits, along with some of the hardest-core Obama followers, acting as though they've discovered some brand new exotic elixir -- the most important discovery since the Fountain of Youth -- with all of these tired buzzphrases about centrism, post-partisan transcendence, and "competence over ideology." These are the same things Democrats have been saying and doing since the early 1980s.

Yep. This is a familiar theme for those of us here. My response remains the same:

It would be wrong for Obama and his supporters to embrace this crouched and defensive approach. Obama is in a political climate as favorable to Democrats and progressivism as I have ever seen since Watergate. Bold, principled, progressive leadership will be embraced, not triangulation. Not surprisingly, folks in the Village like the DLC's Harold Ford want and applaud Obama's "move to the middle." They believe it is still 1992. They are wrong.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on January 11, 2009 (boomark / email).