and enjoyed the experience.
The response here to the President's Question Time (of which, admittedly, I've only seen 20 minutes or so) has been quite interesting...maybe even compelling. The wild swings of a thousand political pendulums that have characterised dkos for the past 6 months either deifying or vilifying Obama just...plain...stopped.
Hello? What just happened?
Let's explore this a little bit. ------------------->
************************************************************************
UPDATE 2: Hey--I've never been on the rec-list before--thanks!
*************************************************************************
(UPDATE: I'm going to clarify my use of the term "moderate" with a comment I posted below:
By "moderate" I don't mean a Washington insider centrist--despite what some people here think. I see him as kind of an academic moderate--somewhat left-of-centre but very open to argument.)
**************************************************************************
It's interesting, watching what happens with activists. Principled folks fixate on certain issues--and may devote minutes, hours, days, lives to these issues. For them, and for many others as well, the ideal elected leaders are the ones who exemplify these issues as well, and ultimately put them into practice. Where this fails, a display of effort and leadership may be enough--"Congress wouldn't budge, but I stated my position, and no one can claim I didn't represent."
As long as that's there, things are alright with the world...the executive still represents you. If things are slow--even if they don't get accomplished--you have legitimate reason to hope for--and expect--better policies.
But what happens when the president disappears? Or if there are backroom conversations (deals???) with the opposing side, that you can't see or control? Or quiet pow-wows with staffers you may not like, and scaled down proposals as a result?
It's easy--and usually wise--to question what we can't control. If we elect someone who we think is a liberal, then he goes to a closed door meeting and emerges with what may be a more conservative policy, things get scary, and dangerous, and it becomes easy to prophesize doom.
And that is where this site lay on the eve of the SOTU and this Question Time thing.
So just what happened? Why are we all fans again? What was in this magical TV broadcast?
What strikes me as pivotal is the fact that, although we keep saying/hearing that the president is back in campaign mode, that's not exactly what's going on. If he were in campaign mode, he'd be speaking to us--saying the same things he did a year ago, we'd all love it for awhile, but then end up in the same omphaloskepsis (look it up!) of political insecurity that we were in last week.
What he did was something different---he spoke to the other side, and only to the other side. And he wasn't ON their side--but on ours, defending the democratic case against republican opposition--highly effectively. "Democratic". "Of the people". Inherent in the word is the idea of the big tent--and it is this group of 300 or so million (even though half may not know it) who was being represented in that question and answer session.
Obama, as he mentioned in that session, "is not an idealogue". While some of us here may be, he managed to use communication to win back much of the left, while remaining an unabashed moderate--in the face of decidedly immoderate opposition. We could SEE him--not the campaigner, as some are saying, but as a president with a grip on policy--something that he has, to this point, erred in NOT presenting to the American public enough.
Just as in a corporate office, the most effective management is with an open door policy. If you can see the manager, and feel that you can walk in the door--or can at least see that they're looking out for you even if not all decisions work in your favour, you become that much more empowered.
The president, folks, is still a moderate. He's not going to pull out of Afghanistan, has demonstrated personal insecurity with gay marriage, has been willing to compromise on health care reform more than many would like, has given too many chances to Wall Street and the financial bigwigs.
He's also been in one year, and a damn hellish year at that. This may be a signal of his growing stability in the role as president, and a strengthening of his leadership.
There you have it. Last night, you saw a moderate on TV. And, liberal as you might be, disagreements as you might have, you enjoyed the show and felt inspired by it. Maybe, just maybe, there's grounds for some optimism--not unicorn/pony/flying carpet optimism, but optimism in the only way possible in a divided country--slow movement in the right direction, on behalf of you.