President Obama’s defenders in the media often describe him as a “pragmatist.” Although these journalists usually do not define the term, it seems that they wish to imply that Obama can set aside his ideological commitments in order to deliver concrete results to his constituents. By contrast, many commentators portray Obama’s progressive critics as people who place ideology above tangible results and who refuse to compromise and accept the incremental advancement of their overall political agenda.
Mainstream media outlets barely do a decent job reporting the news. Their attempt at political science is absolutely atrocious.
The assumption that Obama is a progressive
When commentators describe Obama as a pragmatist, they assume that he is a progressive who compromises to achieve practical benefits. It is unclear, however, that Obama is actually a progressive.
Although Obama became the darling of the political left during the Democratic primaries, he never really embraced policies that were more progressive than other mainstream Democratic presidential contenders. Nevertheless, the left was so desperate to replace President Bush and to avoid the “triangulation” of the Clinton era that it easily accepted Obama’s progressive narrative. Obama also benefited from an adoring media, which failed to raise tough questions about his progressive credentials and which often rushed to denounce his critics.
After he secured the Democratic nomination, President Obama started moving more overtly to the center. Many progressives accepted this “transformation” as a necessary element of a national political campaign. But long before he won the election or even the Democratic nomination, progressives had enough reasons to question Obama’s liberal credentials. Obama, for example, criticized a Supreme Court ruling that reaffirmed prior case law forbidding the death penalty in rape cases. He also praised a conservative Court ruling that found an individual right to bear arms and that invalidated a Washington, D.C., gun law. Obama also voted to renew the Patriot Act and, betraying a campaign promise, to extend immunity to telecoms that conducted unlawful surveillance on behalf of the Bush administration. Citing his own religious views, Obama stated that he did not agree with same-sex marriage. And while the antiwar left certainly preferred Obama to Hillary Clinton, Obama, like Clinton, said that he viewed the war in Afghanistan as a “just” war.
Although journalists often portray Obama as a pragmatic progressive who can prioritize concrete outcomes over his own ideological commitments, another narrative is also highly plausible. Obama is a political centrist who is in fact pursuing his own ideological commitments — even if this means discarding the interests of liberals who were instrumental to his political success. This narrative, however, does not sound nearly as laudatory and self-sacrificing as the pragmatism rhetoric. It is, however, a perfectly logical take on Obama’s political orientation.
Even if Obama is a progressive, he could compromise his ideological values in order to maximize his opportunity for reelection. If this is the reason for Obama’s “pragmatism,” then it is unclear that voters — and certainly liberal voters — should laud his careful effort to tread the center and to compromise with conservatives.
The assumption that Obama’s progressive critics are not pragmatic
Commentators who laud Obama as a pragmatist almost uniformly condemn his progressive critics as ideological and impractical. Unlike Obama, who is a good, pragmatic progressive, liberals who criticize the president are politically inflexible ideologues whose rigidity, if widely followed, would preclude the implementation of helpful policies.
This juxtaposition of Obama (good, pragmatic) and his progressive critics (impractical, ideologues) has occurred most recently in debates surrounding healthcare reform. After the White House instructed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to delete the public plan and Medicare buy-in from the healthcare bill, liberals criticized Obama for betraying his campaign promises and for watering down the measure. The White House responded by calling Obama’s liberal critics “irrational” and “insane.” Ronald Brownstein argued in the Atlantic that they are privileged white college graduates who need not worry about the practical implications of their positions. These arguments are deeply flawed.
Brownstein’s racial analysis is simply another bizarre manifestation of the notion that criticizing Obama — even from a progressive perspective — inevitably comes from a racial place. This argument is old, tired and should be retired.
With respect to the point about pragmatism, depending upon the goals of progressives, criticizing Obama could operate as a highly pragmatic political tactic. President Obama has several items on his agenda — including reelection. These goals, however, might cause him to act in a way that is inconsistent with progressive political agendas. Progressives can only influence Obama and other elected Democrats if they express their discontent. If they can also reveal that Obama is betraying his liberal base, then they can possibly make him more vulnerable from a political perspective. In order to cure or avoid this vulnerability, Obama may have to act in a way that addresses the concerns of progressives. If progressives never complain or engage in advocacy or mobilization, then politicians will have very few incentives to address their concerns.
By criticizing Obama, progressives are modeling the behavior of social movement participants as diverse as the abolitionists, suffragists, civil rights advocates, feminists and proponents of GLBT rights. Progressive movements have never achieved their goals by peacefully acquiescing to the will of politicians. While successful progressive movements have undoubtedly made and accepted compromises, they have also condemned politicians — even sympathetic politicians — when doing so was appropriate. The election of Obama does not provide a reasonable basis for abandoning this tried and tested historical approach to social change.
U.S. President Barack Obama leaves after speaking about healthcare reform in the press briefing room at the White House in Washington, November 5, 2009. REUTERS/Larry Downing (UNITED STATES POLITICS)(Credit: Reuters)
The New York Times has now covered an issue that many liberal bloggers have discussed for several days — the White House’s anger directed toward progressives who oppose the Senate healthcare bill. Several liberals have criticized the bill because it does not include a public plan option or a Medicare buy-in.
Many Democrats — including President Obama — previously argued that such measures, particularly the public plan, could provide competition for insurers and reduce the cost of insurance premiums. Indeed, one of the strongest arguments in support of a universal mandate — which the bill contains — is that the public plan would reduce costs and make insurance affordable for the uninsured.
Under orders from the White House, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid deleted the public plan and Medicare buy-in from the healthcare bill. This move has angered liberals, who rightfully point out that Obama is betraying promises from his own very recent presidential campaign. Howard Dean, a medical doctor and former head of the Democratic National Committee, has advocated that senators “kill” the bill and craft a new measure that offers “real reform.” Furthermore, Senator Bernie Sanders, who actually prefers a single-payer system, announced yesterday that he was not committed to voting for the legislation in its present format.
As I have already written, White House officials have moved to attack and discredit liberals who oppose the Senate bill. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, for example, said that Dean was acting irrationally. Also, White House Senior Advisor David Axelrod said that liberal opponents of the Senate bill are “insane.” The White House response has only enhanced anger among liberals.
Axelrod conducted a conference call with liberal bloggers on Wednesday, and he faced numerous questions regarding the White House response to progressive opponents of the Senate bill. One blogger asked Axelrod whether the White House would respond with similar anger to Ben Nelson, the moderate Democrat who also announced his opposition to the Senate bill because he wants tougher provisions related the delivery of abortion services. According to The Nation, during the conference call, Axelrod tried to back away from the harshness of his previous comments regarding liberals:
“I’m not professionally qualified to judge insanity and maybe I should have used a different word,” Axelrod said, and he noted that “everybody’s a little on edge at this point” in the long legislative battle. He also stressed his respect for allies in the “progressive community,” but reiterated his view that it would be “wrongheaded” to squash all of health care reform at this point, which is “infinitely better” than the status quo.
My take: I suspect that liberals will remain disappointed. The White House did not describe Lieberman, Mary Landrieu or Bill Nelson as “insane” or “irrational” when they threatened to vote against or filibuster the proposed legislation. Instead, the White House moved to appease them.
Liberal activists, many of whom worked to elect Obama, feel betrayed by the White House’s angry response to their legitimate complaints. Furthermore, this is not the first time liberals have felt let down by the White House. On issues as diverse as gay rights and the Afghanistan War, liberals believe that President Obama has not taken their interests into account or that he has moved away from his campaign promises. These types of feelings do not vanish easily.
President Barack Obama and Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., greet each other after Obama's address before a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2009. Lieberman has changed his tune on Obama. After campaigning for Republican John McCain in 2008 and attacking Obama as naive, Lieberman now in 2009 showers praise on the popular new Democratic president. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)(Credit: Associated Press)
I am beginning to see the inevitable healthcare “compromise” as the product of a political song and dance conducted by Democrats and Republicans solely to appease various constituencies within their parties — and nothing else. Remarkably, The Onion accurately assessed the situation several months ago with the satirical essay “Congress Deadlocked Over How To Not Provide Health Care.” The Onion “quotes” Nancy Pelosi in a very smart passage:
Both parties understand that the current system is broken,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters Monday. “But what we can’t seem to agree upon is how to best keep it broken, while still ensuring that no elected official takes any political risk whatsoever. It’s a very complicated issue
Substantial reform was possible
Although I am proudly more cynical than most commentators, many early signs pointed to the possibility of substantial healthcare reform. Even though I predicted in October 2008 that the public would not likely tolerate the introduction of major spending programs during a weakened economy, opinion poll data told another story.
During the 2008 campaigns, voters clearly supported healthcare reform. Every credible candidate in both major parties advocated healthcare reform. Also, the Democrat candidates won convincingly, and they generally proposed broad reforms, including the formation of some type of “public plan” option that would extend government-sponsored healthcare to most uninsured individuals. Insured individuals could also opt for the public plan under certain circumstances. When healthcare debates began in Congress, most opinion polls showed strong support among voters for a public plan option.
Theatrics over debate
Although voters held and continue to hold favorable opinions regarding healthcare reform, the mainstream news media has generally portrayed the public plan in very ominous terms. Also, conservatives have shamelessly distorted the terms of healthcare reform in order to scare voters — particularly seniors.
Earlier this year, tense debates and even violence broke out at “town hall” meetings held to discuss healthcare reform. Moderate Democrats vowed to derail measures that included a public option. Liberals vowed to kill measures that did not include a public plan option. And it has become increasingly clear that Republicans will not vote for anything that the Democrats propose — other than bills to augment war spending. More often than not, mainstream media outlets have examined the political “drama” surrounding healthcare reform instead of providing facts that would allow voters to assess the merits of the various proposals.
In the middle of this theatrical performance, the Obama Administration went into hibernation. During the month of August, the president — who campaigned with an almost unprecedented level of high energy — virtually disappeared from the radar screen while the media and conservatives distorted Democratic healthcare reform proposals. Obama, however, returned from his vacation to Martha’s Vineyard and delivered a speech, during which he lauded and embraced a public plan option. Since that speech, however, Obama has not forcefully advocated the creation of a public plan.
Early warning signs missed?
Perhaps liberals missed the warning signs, which indicated that the moderate and conservative positions on healthcare would certainly prevail. In July 2008, for example, Maxine Waters told MSNBC that the White House was not going to punish moderate and conservative Democrats who did not suppport a robust public plan option. Waters said that Rahm Emanuel gave Blue Dog Democrats political cover because he recruited many of them to run for Congress:
[Pushing Blue Dogs] may be difficult for Rahm Emanuel, because don’t forget — he recruited most of them. As when he was over in the Congress, in the leadership, Rahm Emanuel recruited more conservative members and based on some of the information I’m getting, they told them that they could vote the way they wanted to vote, that they would not interfere with what was considered their philosophy about some of these things. So, now the chickens have come home to roost.
Perhaps the chickens are indeed roosting — at least according to several stories that appeared yesterday on many leading political blogs, including TPM, Huffington Post and Politico. According to these reports, Emanuel personally visited Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and demanded that he give Senator Joe Lieberman exactly what he wants regarding healthcare reform. Lieberman opposes a public plan and a buy-in option for Medicare. Lieberman has repeatedly vowed to filibuster any proposed healthcare reform legislation that contains either of these proposals. The recent reports which claim that Emanuel has told Reid to cater to Lieberman — a claim the White House denies — confirms the July statements of Maxine Waters.
Some careful readers will also remember that the White House intervened and allowed Lieberman to maintain his leadership positions on Senate committees, despite the fact that he ran as an Independent in 2006 and endorsed John McCain for president in 2008 during a speech he delivered at the Republican National Convention. Lieberman has threatened to kill the most important legislation that Congress has proposed in decades, and the White House continues to protect him politically and to cater to his interests.
To liberals who still believe that criticizing the Obama Administration is treasonous, I ask the following question: What must the White House do to receive legitimate criticism from the Left?
Update: An organization called the Progressive Change Campaign Committee has launched an advertisement that criticizes Rahm Emanuel’s willingness to discard the public plan option. The ad is posted below:
Jason Bruce, a Marine reservist in Tampa, Fla., attacked an innocent Greek Orthodox priest with a tire iron. Bruce has initiated a shameful legal defense: the priest grabbed his crotch.
The actual story is quite different. Apparently, Father Alexios Marakis, who speaks little English, became lost after his car’s GPS system led him astray. Marakis followed several cars into the parking garage of a condominium in order to seek instructions. He approached Bruce, who was retrieving items from the trunk of his car. Bruce responded by chasing Marakis and hitting him several times with a tire iron. Video footage shows a tire iron-wielding Bruce chasing Marakis. Marakis’s GPS records confirm his assertion that he came to the area while trying to reach another destination.
Police arrested Bruce after he gave several inconsistent explanations. According to the St. Petersburg Times, Bruce said that:
The man tried to rob him.
The man grabbed Bruce’s crotch and made an overt sexual advance in perfect English.
The man yelled “Allahu Akbar,” Arabic for “God is great,” the same words some witnesses said the Fort Hood shooting suspect uttered last week.
“That’s what they tell you right before they blow you up,” police say Bruce told them.
Bruce’s allegation that Marakis grabbed his crotch is an example of the controversial “gay panic defense.” The gay panic defense allows defendants to claim provocation as justification for violent acts they committed. The defense is not uniformly recognized, and it is widely criticized by legal scholars.
The gay panic defense is homophobic because it rests on the assumption that a gay sexual advance is so provocative and threatening that, with or without physical contact, it warrants a violent response. This is not the law regarding heterosexual sexual advances.
Furthermore, Bruce’s conflicting explanations suggest that the defense is a complete fabrication. Nevertheless, his lawyer, Jeff Brown, is running with it. According to Brown the following series of events took place:
The bearded man wearing a robe and sandals was clearly trespassing in the garage. In a sudden move, the stranger made a verbal sexual advance and grabbed Bruce’s genitals. The Marine defended himself. And immediately, he called 911 as he chased him.
Brown is actually trying to peddle a gay Islamic Arab rapist terrorist defense. Brown’s argument is a gross example of shameful lawyering.
Finally, this was not Bruce’s first brush with the law. Although this information will probably get excluded from evidence if Bruce is prosecuted, in 2007, Bruce “was charged with misdemeanor battery … for hopping over the bed of a tow truck and shoving its driver. He pleaded no contest.” Today, Bruce remains violent.
Anthony McKinney is serving a life sentence for a 1978 murder. Another individual, Tony Drakes, confessed to the murder in a taped interview with Northwestern University journalism students.
Recently, major news outlets reported that Anita Alvarez, the district attorney for Cook County, Illinois, had subpoenaed the grades, grading standards and electronic communications between students and professors in the Medill Innocence Project. Northwestern University runs the Medill project, which, during its 10-year history, has helped to secure the release of 11 innocent inmates.
Medill journalism students in the project research claims of innocence by incarcerated individuals. If the students believe the claims have merit, they give the information to lawyers who then decide whether to pursue legal relief. Medill students have gathered evidence that seems to exonerate Anthony McKinney, who is serving a life sentence for the 1978 murder of a security guard. Another individual, Tony Drakes, confessed to the murder during a videotaped interview with students.
The prosecutors’ subpoena has sparked almost universal condemnation. Many commentators view it as a blatant attempt to harass the students and their professors and to chill advocacy on behalf of wrongly convicted individuals.
The prosecutors, however, will likely get the documents they seek — unless a judge determines that the students are “journalists” under Illinois law. If the judge treats the students as journalists, then Illinois law would shield their communications from disclosure.
Full smear campaign
The merits of the subpoena depend solely upon the status of the students under the Illinois journalistic shield statute. Nevertheless, Alvarez has apparently decided to launch a full smear campaign against the Medill project.
First, Alvarez defended the subpoena by claiming that she wanted to know whether students received higher grades if they concluded that inmates were innocent. Now, Alvarez has made the salacious claim that Medill students paid two witnesses for their testimony.
According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, Cook County prosecutors argued in court yesterday that Drakes received $40 from a cab driver hired by the Medill project and that he used the money to purchase “crack cocaine.” Prosecutors also argued that students paid Michael Lane, a friend of Drakes and possible accessory to the murder, between $50 and $100 and “took him out for cocktails and dinner and flirted with him.” Prosecutors, however, provided no other details regarding the payment to Lane. These assertions reflect absolute hypocrisy and desperation by the prosecutors.
Prosecutors “pay” witnesses all the time. In exchange for testimony from witnesses, prosecutors pursue lesser charges, or they give them full or partial immunity. They also drop pending charges in other cases. Prosecutors also threaten harsher penalties if witnesses refuse to cooperate. Indeed, it is probably likely that prosecutors threatened Drakes, who confessed to a murder, with severe penalties before he “recanted.” In order to question the students’ credibility, Alvarez must also question the credibility of prosecutors across the nation.
Furthermore, the prosecution’s assertions seem highly unlikely. Indeed, the Medill project has a simple explanation for the payment to Drakes, which suggests that prosecutors made the allegation purely for shock value, rather than substance. David Protess, the professor who runs the Medill project, says students paid a cab driver to transport Drakes and that he retains the receipt.
Protess also questions the sincerity of Cook County prosecutors who seem to believe that Drakes would confess to murder for $40. But these prosecutors are so desperate to conceal the truth that they apparently do not care about their own reputations or the reputations of the Medill students who pursue justice for wrongfully convicted individuals.
President Obama correctly stated that people should not “rush to judgment” regarding the motivation of Nidal Hasan — the individual who killed 13 people at the Fort Hood military base. Unfortunately, the public often races to assign a collective narrative to extremely violent events. Typically, the earliest narratives rest on gross stereotypes and, consequently, miss the mark. For example, many commentators assumed that Arab terrorists bombed the Oklahoma federal building, until they learned that Timothy McVeigh — a disgruntled, white former member of the military — committed the heinous crime.
Recent acts of mass violence have pitted liberals and conservatives against one another. Both sides have argued that the killers’ ideologically laced statements prove the bankruptcy of the others’ political views. Neither side, however, seems to understand or appreciate the deep psychosis that causes acts of mass violence.
While mass murderers often embrace extreme political or religious views, mental illness makes them susceptible to extremism in the first place. According to Dr. Steven Dinwiddie, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral neuroscience at the University of Chicago, commentators who blame religious zealotry for Hasan’s killing spree miss the mark. Dinwiddie says:
I think it would be a mistake for people to theorize [he did this] because he is an adherent of this or that religious faith … The mental illness comes first, then flowing from that is the adoption of perhaps, unusual, religious beliefs.
When commentators adhere to political agendas and discard intellectual integrity, facts rarely matter.
“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and Hasan
Recent reports indicate that military officials knew that Hasan’s upcoming deployment to Afghanistan caused him severe emotional distress. Also, according to unnamed sources quoted by ABC News, the military knew months ago that Hasan tried to establish contact with al-Qaida. Nevertheless, Hasan remained in the military and did not face discharge proceedings or questions about his fitness to serve.
Apparently, the military retained a person who suffered from known (or reasonably discoverable) psychological problems and who attempted to contact an anti-U.S. terrorist group. Meanwhile, the military continues to enforce “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and to discharge mentally fit and loyal gay and lesbian service members. No theory of military preparedness can justify this perverse outcome.
U.S. President Barack Obama leaves after speaking about healthcare reform in the press briefing room at the White House in Washington, November 5, 2009. REUTERS/Larry Downing (UNITED STATES POLITICS)(Credit: Reuters) 
President Barack Obama and Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., greet each other after Obama's address before a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2009. Lieberman has changed his tune on Obama. After campaigning for Republican John McCain in 2008 and attacking Obama as naive, Lieberman now in 2009 showers praise on the popular new Democratic president. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)(Credit: Associated Press) 
Anthony McKinney is serving a life sentence for a 1978 murder. Another individual, Tony Drakes, confessed to the murder in a taped interview with Northwestern University journalism students. 