The New Republic

Of course McCain has moved because of "changed circumstances." In 2004, he was not running for the GOP nomination!

I think McCain is the first presidential candidate I can remember who has had to pander to his party's base AFTER he has secured the nomination.

- rozenson

July 2, 2008 at 3:24pm

...I think McCain is the first presidential candidate I can remember who has had to pander to his party's base AFTER he has secured the nomination....

They all pander, always, everywhere , to everyone. Politics is a mugs' game. Obama personifies that and he has no great moral standing unless you take Machiavelli's idea of a distinct poltical morality that accommodates all the bullshit so to lead. But then where are we?

- basman

July 2, 2008 at 3:53pm

All I have to say is I liked McCain a lot more when Bush's tax cuts offended his conscience...

- GSpinks

July 2, 2008 at 4:07pm

basman, right on. Honestly, I have been utterly baffled by this. I found much to admire about McCain during the primary season, and I assumed if anything he would even go more leftward. I really think his best chance is to run as a Conservative Democrat, the guy who was considered to be Kerry's VP. But now he seems to want to run as a combination of Eisenhower (war hero) and Genghis Khan (all around right wing nut). I have found his run more disappointing then Obama, because Obama is running to the center where I am, but McCain is running to the far right.

- blackton

July 2, 2008 at 6:13pm

It's times like these that I begin to think that politicians don't really believe in anything at all. I could never be a politician because no Democrat can be elected without promising to help withdraw from Iraq. I'd also probably have to pretend to hate gay people a little more.

- rozenson

July 2, 2008 at 6:27pm

I haven't seen Obama compromise on principle or reverse himself in any but the most technical or trivial way.  This is in sharp contrast with McCain who has shifted dramatically on basic policy.  This distinction is not coming out in the recent media coverage, which seems determined to tag Obama as a flip-flopper.  Most of these charges I think stem from disappointment among some that Obama is not who they thought he was.  Problem is, he was *never* who they thought he was, through no fault of his own.

To some of the editorial boards offended by his turning down public money, he turns out not to be a perfect goo-goo.  But he never was a perfect goo-goo.  He said in an interview in this magazine long ago that he wasn't for good government for good government's sake but instead to get things done.  He doesn't fetishize the League of Women Voters' agenda.  Nor should he.  Should he have had the foresight to realize that he would inspire vast grassroots enthusiasm that would make his campaign rich?  I don't know, but it's worth pondering what exactly David Brooks is afraid of. Corruption by the hope lobby?

To some of the lefty bloggers, he turns out not to be a lefty.  But he never was a lefty.  For example, he actually is religious, he actually has talked about it quite a bit, and his faith-based initiative concept is very much in keeping with his long-standing stated views on religion and politics.  (Views I don't entirely agree with, but its absurd to despair at a lack of perfect agreement.)  To those who had pegged him as someone else -- based on false impressions Obama had no part in creating -- he's a panderer, positioning himself to seem more faith-friendly for the general election.

Now, his campaign, after being hounded, did issue a statement back in whenever -- February I think -- saying that he would support a filibuster of any bill containing telecom immunity.  This campaign statement made it seem as though any sort of telecom immunity would forever be a deal-breaker for him on any FISA bill, then or now.  He let the lefty bloggers think that his heart was as much in the telecom immunity issue as theirs.  He should not have let that happen.

An error -- a silly error.  I don't think Obama faced much pressure in the primary to run to the left, nor did he, contrary to the fresh narraitve of pundits who seem already to have forgotten the primary campaign.  But the important thing is not whether the telecoms can get out of a lawsuit stemming from the NSA program by proving that they were told in writing that the surveillence at issue was authorized by the president and determined lawful.  (That's what they settled on as a "conditional immunity.")  The important thing is that we have an intelligence regime that permits important intelligence gathering activities while subjecting them to judicial oversight.  This law makes clear that the president may not wiretap whomever he wants whenever he wants until the war on terror is won.  That's far and away the bigger point.  The rest is relatively superficial.  So of course, it dominates the coverage.

- jhildner

July 3, 2008 at 3:21am

there is no perfect place to post this: wouldn't it be worthwhile for the plank authors to start a blog with the corner writers?  

- bradigan

July 3, 2008 at 6:07am

Kos and Co thought they owned him, signed sealed delivered - unbelievably arrogant, no?  Remember JFK's description of the fat left: suicidal bastards.  

- Wandreycer1

July 3, 2008 at 8:30am

Just after spending a few minutes looking around, and just to show (and with much plagiarizing),  he’s another mug, albeit a good mug at that

1. Special interests In January, 2007 the Obama campaign described union contributions to the campaigns of Clinton and John Edwars as special interest money. Obama changed his tune as he began gathering his own union endorsements. He now refers respectfully to unions as the representatives of "working people" and says he is "thrilled" by their support.

2. Public financing Obama replied "yes" in September 2007 when asked if he would agree to public financing of the presidential election if his GOP opponent did the same. Obama has now attached several conditions to such an agreement, including regulating spending by outside groups. His spokesman says the candidate never committed himself on the matter.

3. The Cuba embargo In January 2004, Obama said it was time "to end the embargo with Cuba" because it had "utterly failed in the effort to overthrow Castro." Speaking to a Cuban American audience in Miami in August 2007, he said he would not "take off the embargo" as president because it is "an important inducement for change."

4. Illegal immigration In a March 2004 questionnaire, Obama was asked if the government should "crack down on businesses that hire illegal immigrants." He replied "Oppose." In a Jan. 31, 2008, televised debate, he said that "we do have to crack down on those employers that are taking advantage of the situation."

5. Decriminalization of marijuana While running for the U.S. Senate in January 2004, Obama told Illinois college students that he supported eliminating criminal penalties for marijuana use. In the Oct. 30, 2007, presidential debate, he joined other Democratic candidates in opposing the decriminalization of marijuana.

6. Wright He would no more disown him than he would disown the black community, then he disowned him.

7. NAFTA He campaigned against it while at the same time sending signals that it was just campaign rhetoric and then after ascribed his “against” to over heated rhetoric of the campaign while the video of the statement shows him in a state of imperturbable calm;

8. Public financing He flat out went back on his word and on a written pledge;

9. Guns he took the view before that the DC gun ban was constitutional which entails denying the Second Amendment goes to individual rights, and then he said later the Second Amendment did go to individual rights but allowed for sensible regulation. But the D.C. ban was not regulation. It was a ban;

10. Meet foreign leaders he said he’d meet them in his first year without preconditions and has now recanted that;

11. Debate with McCain anywhere anytime not really;

12. FISA  www.salon.com/.../obama

13. coal to lliquid  www.carboncoalition.org/.../obama-puts-on-his-flip-flops

14. Iraq Out by a time certain regardless of what the commanders say, now what? Packer on Obama, ‘‘He doubtless realizes that his original plan, if implemented now, could revive the badly wounded al Qaeda in Iraq, re-energize the Sunni insurgency, embolden Moqtada al-Sadr to recoup his militia’s recent losses to the Iraqi Army, and return the central government to a state of collapse. The question is whether Obama will publicly change course before November.’’;

15. SCOTUS  Originally extolling a Warren type judicially activist court, he now is sending signals of appointing moderate centrist judges;

16. Meta New style of post partisan politician who will fix a broken Washington, and on and on.

- basman

July 3, 2008 at 11:54am

basman, your 2 and 8 are the same.

...just so you're aware.

- bigfish

July 3, 2008 at 1:09pm

Thanks bigfish.

- basman

July 3, 2008 at 1:53pm

Basman:  Your examples, while numerous, are pretty thin.  They pale in comparison to McCain's recent abandonment of just about every previous position which characterized him as a moderate and a maverick.  He hasn't changed positions on a policy detail or two, or made a policy compromise or two at the margins.  He has thoroughly reinvented himself.  His flip-floppery is, comparatively speaking, epic.  The link in Chait's post lists some 40+ shifts (backed up with further links).  More than the number, though, is the substance and gravity of those shifts.  They go to *fundamental policy orientation*.  I urge you, for the sake of proportion, to contemplate *those* shifts alongside your Obama list.  I don't think the conclusion that they are equal in this regard -- just a couple of pols saying what they have to say to get elected -- is justified by any fair assessment of the facts.

And yet, which of these two candidates is being tagged as the flip-flopper?  The narrative is that Obama was a lefty, somehow also pandered to the left during the primary, and now is "fleeing to the center."  This narrative is bogus, because Obama was never a lefty and didn't pander to the left during the primary, and all the more infuriating because it applies so plainly, and on a much larger scale, to *McCain*.  Yet that doesn't get mentioned in news copy as Obama's alleged shifts have been, and in surprisingly strong terms.  (I read a recent NYT news story that unabashedly stated right out that Obama was making numerous moves to the center "designed" to position himself as a general election candidate.  This is pretty incredible.  I'm all for just telling the truth in news stories, but this highly negative characterization was a big leap, wasn't supported with nearly enough facts, and gets the big story basically wrong in failing to take notice of the other guy.)

One could debate most, perhaps all, of the items on your list.  Some I don't know about.  (Cuba, marijuana, immigrant hiring, liquid coal.)  Some I don't care about.  (Cuba, marijuana.)  Some are not policy shifts at all.  (NAFTA, SCOTUS, unions as special interests, Iraq, foreign leaders -- he *hasn't* recanted that.)  Some are based on promises never made.  (SCOTUS, NAFTA, Iraq, debate anytime.)  Some are based on, and justified by, I think, changed circumstances.  (Public financing -- he would be stupid to take it and the point of taking it, to prevent corruption, loses force with his small donor base; FISA -- he compromised on something that doesn't matter that much -- telecom immunity -- to get something that matters a lot more -- effective intelligence gathering with judicial oversight; Wright -- Wright threw him under the bus after Obama went out of his way not to do the same to him, so fuck him.)  The last one isn't a policy shift.

But more important than that debate over each line item is that *even if they were all true*, and they're not, they're penny ante.  Obama has not "dramatically" shifted with respect to basic policy, as has McCain.  Indeed, even his alleged shifts often have little to do with policy and more to do with tarring him as a pragmatist when it comes to campaign tactics.  I'm astouneded that so many editorial boards have taken the public financing thing seriously.  It would accomplish absolutely nothing if were to take public money, except make up for a merited lack of enthusiasm for McCain.  It thought he left himself some wiggle room in his statement from a million years ago, but, Christ, it's so small-bore.  And yet we hear talk of solemn vows.  Ugh.  Apparently, Obama's lack of naivete has disappointed some.  That doesn't mean that he's not unusually honest, principled, smart, and attached to ideals.  It just means that he's not a damn fool.

- jhildner

July 3, 2008 at 4:26pm

How is it an argument that McCain is worse?

- basman

July 3, 2008 at 5:12pm

p.s. on Iraq consider this: www.commentarymagazine.com/.../re-rethinking-iraq-br%E2%80%94-obama-s-war-11263

Sorry gotta' run to a meeting. I'll try to respond in more detail later perhaps and I appreciate your rejoinder.

- basman

July 3, 2008 at 5:18pm

Also--still running--:

1. AIPAC speech walked back from;

2. His ad now saying he fronted welfare reform which he argued against in Illinois when Clinton pushing ot ahead  (at least according to Dick Morris).

- basman

July 4, 2008 at 12:18pm

Hildner:

And this:

www.realclearpolitics.com/.../a_man_of_seasonal_principles.html

and check out his first column linked to in this one.

I agree with him by and large and if you are interested will have at it with you once my dust settles  over the substance of his 2 columns.

Lemme know. I'd be happy to go first.

- basman

July 4, 2008 at 12:27pm

also hildner; if you is still about

I have just read Posner's judgment denying Conrad Black et al their appeal and am 4/5ths of the way through his book on Public Intellectuals. Did he ever teach you? If so, I need to get your impressions of him, and in fulsome detail.

- basman

July 4, 2008 at 4:01pm

And Hildner (you can run but you can't hide :-))

This:

...But that's nothing compared to Obama's most recent comments about the most controversial social issue of them all: abortion.

In a recent interview, Obama appears to back away from his long-stated positions on abortion (and a proposed federal abortion rights law he had co-sponsored), repudiate 35 years of accepted Supreme Court rulings on the issue and embrace a view on abortion restrictions that has been expressed on the Court only by Justices Thomas and Scalia.

Obama's remarks are printed verbatim in the interview, published yesterday in Relevant Magazine. Read them  — there's no mistaking that Obama says he no longer will support what's long been a cornerstone of the abortion rights debate: The Court's insistence that laws banning abortions after the fetus is viable (now about 22 weeks) contain an exception to allow doctors to perform them if necessary to protect a pregnant woman's mental health.

'I have repeatedly said that I think it's entirely appropriate for states to restrict or even prohibit late-term abortions as long as there is a strict, well-defined exception for the health of the mother. Now, I don't think that 'mental distress' qualifies as the health of the mother," Obama said. "I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there are real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term. Otherwise, as long as there is such a medical exception in place, I think we can prohibit late-term abortions."

Wow....

From this:

blogs.abcnews.com/.../obama-sounding.html

- basman

July 5, 2008 at 11:57pm

Basman:  Don't know if you're still around.  I was occupied all weekend.  Sorry for a late response.

Some of this stuff -- debate over Obama's supposed flip-flopping -- makes me want to blow my brains out, so I'm reluctant to even touch it.  It's such trivial garbage -- totally burying the lead.  What's the lead?  Take your pick.  The basic differences between these two candidates on policy of every kind?  McCain's dramatic reinvention of himself, dwarfing anything Obama has switched on?  On the second point, the real issue is not to tag McCain with the flip-flopper label for its own sake, but rather to make clear that the McCain of today is *not* the moderate non-partisan independent maverick of yesterday.  The point is to avoid the situation where the electorate is tricked into voting for a radical conservative agenda under the cover of reputed sanity.

The fact that Obama's flip-floppery is the narrative of the moment is profoundly stupid and perverse.  I'm not going to debate every instance that's raised.  Every politician will have a record that a biased pundit or bored pundit or political opponent can turn into a record of switches and reversals and unprincipled pandering.  Sometimes the charges have some merit; other times they don't.  Frequently they focus on the small-bore -- elevating a different tone in a speech to a policy reversal, or a pragmatic compromise to a policy reversal -- and miss the big picture.  That's certainly the case with Obama.  The media is bad at determining which is which because it's largely comprised of lazy idiots.  My guess, actually, is that Obama lost the press a little bit with his declining of public money, the other side has settled on this flip-flopping line of attack, and the press, with its glib disillusionment, has decided to pick up on it, helped along by the persistent media bias in favor of two absurd propositions both of which are highly unlikely to be true: (1) everyone's the same, and (2) everyone's a corrupt cynic.

The abortion thing is not a "wow."  The characterization of his statement in the passage you quote is absurd.  Thomas and Scalia want to overturn Roe and permit states to outlaw abortions entirely.  To say that Obama's position resembles theirs is a crock of shit.  He said that he's always favored the health exception to laws restricting late-term abortions but doesn't think "mental distress" -- which, obviously, could swallow any otherwise constitutional restriction on late-term abortions -- qualifies.  This is not outside the mainstream of Democratic or liberal politics.  The welfare reform thing is likewise b.s. -- go to Obama's website where it's debunked.  I don't know what AIPAC position he is supposed to have backed away from.

I've mentioned the press's motivation for making this the story.  The obvious motivation of the other side is to make Obama into an unknown who could do anything -- probably something communist and/or Muslim and/or excessively black.  The irony is that Obama -- in terms of fundamental policy orientation as well as position on the left-center-right spectrum -- has been remarkably consistent throughout his career.  He was never a lefty.  He never espoused radical positions.  He has always worked with Republicans and has been eager to listen to them.  He has always urged that the other side might have a point.  He is agnostic on means, and has a tendency to shun partisan orthodoxy.  His goals on domestic policy, meanwhile, are firmly grounded in the Democratic traditions of liberty and economic security.  Some, including George Will -- although he was skeptical and condescending -- have noticed that some of his advisors and Chicago colleagues suggest that he will seek to ensure the latter without encroaching on the former.  He takes seriously the serious-minded and compelling conservative critiques of liberal policies past, and, far from simply triangulating or compromising, adopts those critiques to the extent he agrees with them.  As Sunstein writes over on Open U., he doesn't care where an idea comes from -- Republican or Democrat, even Reagan or, gasp, Bush.  (The earned income tax credit, which is very much up Obama's street, after all was a policy of Republican origin.)  Meanwhile, he does not accept the conservative conflation of liberty with neo-classical economic orthodoxy and selfishness generally.  He doesn't view an appeal to a sense of community and common purpose as in opposition to American ideals, as conservatives do, but as an expression of those ideals.  A look at his policy shop and his policy proposals -- as detailed in this magazine and elsewhere -- reveals that he's not by disposition or by principle or any other measure left-wing.  So the story that he is compromising his values today with his advocacy of supposedly "centrist" positions -- which is critical to this flip-flopping, running-to-the-center narrative -- is twice wrong.  First, it mistakes little things for big things.  Second, it's often wrong on the little things.

- jhildner

July 7, 2008 at 2:36pm

jhildner:

I owe you one. My wife just showed me how to book mark stuff and I apparently had bookmarked this site or whatever it is w/o knowing it. So she gave me lesson # 2 today and here you is.

If you are here and are interested in continuing for a bit along these lines, I'd be happy to try to answer you more seriously and fully. Or we can leave it or something else for another day. Unfortunately in making my quick comments on the fly, I really didn't get my mind around anything and I appreciate the  your  longer response.

So lemme know.

- basman

July 16, 2008 at 12:42pm