Very thoughtful piece by Joan Walsh at Salon on the state of the Left and Obama's addiction to "compromise" as a value in itself.
While we're thinking about the gulf between pundits, and activists and leaders, it's worth noting Frederick Douglass's point of view on Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. It's complicated, as befits Douglass's passion combined with his long-view pragmatism, which we all should work to combine. In his memoir, Douglass wrote about anxiously awaiting the proclamation in Boston, with a group of abolitionists. Some feared Lincoln might not even go through with it, he admitted, describing the 16th president in words that today he might use to describe our own: "Mr. Lincoln was known to be a man of tender heart, and boundless patience; no man could tell to what length he might go, or might refrain from going in the direction of peace and reconciliation." Douglass and his Boston group rejoiced when word of the proclamation came through. As he wrote at the time, "We shout for joy that we live to record this righteous decree."
Then came some disappointment. "Further and more critical examination showed it to be extremely defective," Douglass recalled in his memoir. "It was not a proclamation of "liberty throughout all the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof," such as we had hoped it would be; but was one marked by discrimination and reservations." Douglass and other black abolitionists also criticized Lincoln's decision to pay black soldiers who enlisted to fight for the Union a lesser wage than white soldiers. They wanted Lincoln, who they admired, to do more, and do it faster.
So rather than Lincoln enjoying journalists and advocates applauding his compromises on slavery and his uneven treatment of black soldiers, he in fact faced criticism and opposition at every step along the way. In fact, it's hard to imagine the long effort to eradicate slavery without an abolitionist movement, pushing harder, advocating tougher tactics, even sometimes violence, along the way. Obama seems to either misunderstand or reject political models in which passionate partisans push for bold change, and force or enable their leaders to resist capitulating to the other side.
Well worth reading the whole piece.