Personally, I do tend to be partial to the "Three Dimensional Chess" analogy (3DCA). It's apt, I think, because of one particular, namely that nobody knows the rules of 3D chess. It's a fictional game. But we posit that Obama/Spock is a master player, and that he therefore knows what the rules are, regardless of how complicated they may be.
The President isn't dealing with things on "a higher level"; he's dealing with things on an actual level. There is no theory. There are no correct moves in Politics, any more than there are in 3D chess; the idea that there are rules to the game at all is a fiction.
But that's not the analogy we're here to discuss, because for all my affinity for 3DCA, it isn't the appropriate one right now. 3DCA is strategy. This diary is about tactics. So, what analogy is appropriate, right now, going into the Holiday Weekend?...
Has it sunk in yet? The tactical analogy is rope-a-dope.
"Obama just got a shellacking. Obama just capitulated on taxes. Obama's crouched in a defensive posture..."
And then
BOOM
BOOM
BOOM
POW
and you're still in a daze. Just standing there. Hey, isn't that your mother in the crowd? What's wrong with her face? Boy it sure does seem like everything's moving slowly, doesn't it? I wonder what that's all about...
You can see in the kind of slack vacant look that what's happened is the guy hasn't quite realized yet he's been, well, shellacked. For real.
Rewind. Slow mo. What just fricken happened?
Okay, Obama "lost" the midterms. Then there was something about taxes and then suddenly everything gets fuzzy...
There was DADT. Hal Sparks, subbing for Stephanie Miller this week, admirably pointed out that this isn't just getting rid of DADT. It's more historic than that, because before DADT, the policy was no gays at all period. Now that, along with DADT, is officially reversed. Officially, completely, and permanently. Hell, it wouldn't surprise me if Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi or Barack Obama were actually bright enough to write the law in such a way that it undoes some of the damage to the Commander-In-Chief's control over the military that DADT's very existence did, which for me was always the greatest damage it caused.
I think that's worth highlighting, actually, given the political climate around here. Don't Ask/Don't Tell didn't initiate the policy of kicking gays out of the military. Together with President Clinton, Mr. Obama didn't just change our policy on gays in the military, he reversed it. And you know there are already states in the Union where two servicemen or servicewomen can legally marry...
But that's all 3D chess stuff. We get the luxury of examining this at our leisure, now, after the fact. At the time, that was just the first shot. But before anyone could consider what's going on, BOOM for the first time ever the Republican's are giving ground on judicial appointments then BOOM 9/11 responders are g
POW
and Mitch McConnel's Republican Obstructionism FAILS. Mean Joe Biden went in and did some hokus pokus and eleven Republican Senators did what no Republican Senators have done since 2000: defy Mister McLipless. START passes the Senate; the first time a Democratic President has ever gotten an arms reduction treaty passed. Obstructionism disintegrates. (Like a car window, once it cracks it shatters.) Bipartisanship has returned to politics.
I expect we'll have a robust debate about this when we return from the holidays
...and all you're thinking is "You mean it isn't over yet?" as things start to spin...
I'm going to have a great Christmas dreaming about all the things we can accomplish in the coming years with President Obama. Even if three quarters of them turn out to be unicorns farting glitter, it'll still be twice what any other Democratic President has ever managed to do.