Obama's prior behavior regarding healthcare -- previously voiced lofty leftist ideals but production of a pragmatic, tamer policy plan that probably lost him many votes to Hillary -- resulted in my being not-too-shocked/upset at his recent behavior. However rising concerns make me unsure of what to think.
So, HuffPo's headline right now is about how Obama is undercutting his brand by suddenly moving to center on a number of issues, and they discuss two stories on WashPo and LA Times about this very issue.
I did not get upset over FISA at first because my opinion has always been that Obama would explain his stance and it would make perfect sense. I was sort of surprised by the dKos reaction but felt better when Olbermann didn't get upset, but now I am gone from Kos for a couple of days (so excuse me if my ideas are a repitition) and I come back, and I see two KO diaries and lots of comments, and I don't understand Olbermann's position anymore; he is giving a special comment on Monday and I don't know what to expect.
But for all this stuff about Democrats liking clear cut stances on certain issues, like David Sirota is quoted in WashPo as saying, I was thinking, you know, hasn't Obama kinda been nuanced all along? Didn't we see it from him in Healthcare, when all the talking heads on the teevee were like, "Oh Obama just needs to take a hard line on universal healthcare, like Hillary," and Hillary was winning amongst those who cared about healthcare, by double digits, because she just sounded firm and Obama refused to, instead choosing to be all nuanced; and people on Kos weren't always happy with him either, they would sometimes be like "Oh it's Kucinich that's really about this."
But, I don't know, I for one was thinking, well Barack Obama's healthcare plan isn't ideal but whose do you think is gonna actually stand a chance of passing, and improving things? We had known from things he had said previously that he really would have loved truly universal care, we knew he had said good things about single payer if we were started from scratch. But they painted him as a flip flopper when instead he presented a plan that, though not ideal, would probably stand a chance of passing, unlike Hillary's failed plan. The whole time Hillary was stating all these clear cut democratic stances that the audience just loved, I was thinking, "Yeah but can you pull it off? Because it didn't go so well last time." I mean, Obama's not going to be omnipotent and republicans in the government and in the country aren't going to up and disappear into thin air.
His people are responding to all these complaints by saying that he is a pragmatist, that he'd rather "settle for incremental changes in the face of political reality rather than to hold out for the sweeping and uncompromising positions he initially stakes out". Sometimes during debates I worried that his decision to go into these long complicated explanations was resulting in lost votes, while Hillary sounded all strong and clear. But at the same time I was glad that he wouldn't do this, wouldn't simplify things to positions that would make us beam but be difficult to accomplish. So I don't know. By the end of the week I might be worried, but so far I just haven't been shocked. I just thought is showed that he had a mind of his own.
I believe this, have always just believed he was idealistic but thoughtful hence realistic, that while he held leftist ideals, never expected him to build this utopic leftist everything.