The handwringing around the progressive blogosphere regarding Obama's Fox News appearance, including Open Left and our own bonddad, seems a bit like Captain Renault being shocked, shocked to discover that there is gambling going on at his establishment. (h/t to Paul Rosenberg for that.) Stoller is calling Obama's campaign right-wing enabling liars and bonddad is vowing to never vote for Obama again.
To which I have to ask: which Barack Obama have you been seeing these last four years?
At the core of Obama's political philosophy is the belief that real divisions should not stand in the way of conversation. He has always believed that it is right and necessary for us to speak to folks on the other side of the aisle, to speak with our enemies. That to do so is a sign of strength, of problem-solving, and that it can be done without having to compromise any of our own values in the process.
I don't agree with this strategy. At all. But I respect it. I understand it. And I made my peace with it long ago when I came around to openly supporting Obama's candidacy at the beginning of the year. For progressives to suddenly complain about this suggests they either haven't been paying attention to Obama's core values, or have conveniently decided to only remember them now in order to beat him over the head.
In one of his autobiographies Obama recounts an episode in 1987, when he was a community organizer in Chicago, that crystallized this thinking for him. He had led a group of tenants to confront their landlord about whether he had tested their building for asbestos. Obama felt sympathetic to both the landlord and the tenants, understanding that the landlord was himself strapped for cash and struggling to make his own ends meet. Obama tried to talk with the landlord, tried to understand where he was coming from, instead of getting in his face with confrontation. And eventually a satisfactory resolution was produced.
That has been Obama's way ever since. He believes that there are issues on which we can achieve positive, even progressive outcomes by going over and talking to the people we assume are our enemies. To Obama there is no downside to this action - if they turn us down, well, we're no worse off than before. If they decide to work with us, wonderful. In some cases it can even wrongfoot the opposition by making them look like the uncooperative side, and makes us look like the better folks.
We can quibble with this concept, and we would be right to debate the hell out of it. But that is Obama's way and it always has been. It was at the core of his groundbreaking 2004 DNC speech.
The pundits, the pundits like to slice and dice our country into red states and blue States: red states for Republicans, blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states.
We coach little league in the blue states and, yes, we've got some gay friends in the red states.
There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq, and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq.
We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.
I wasn't sure I liked this at the time he said it and I'm still not sure about it now. But that is who Obama is.
When Obama suggests going to Tehran to meet with Ahmedinejad, he's saying the functional equivalent of "I should go on Fox News." His appearance on Fox News is directly and completely consistent with everything about his political attitudes and values. So are we going to celebrate it when he promises it in foreign policy but denounce it when he does it here at home?
As I said above, I made my peace with this long ago. It's an interesting model and I am willing to give Obama the chance to try it, even though it is surely not how I would do it. If we truly support Obama, then we need to do so with open eyes. We need to not suddenly discover outrage about an attitude he has always had, an attitude we praise in other situations.
Obama's visit to Fox News is consistent with everything he believes in. And I think he should earn our support and praise for it. Even if - especially if - it is not how we would have done it. To support Obama's campaign is to accept this aspect of his politics. I have done so. Have you?