Stephen Ducat at HuffPo:
Obama's resort to the triangulation of the old politics is an admission of a much more serious limitation. It tells us that he does not believe in his own ability to reframe certain key issues in a way that makes a progressive stance the one that is obviously the most moral. It shows that he does not feel up to the task of rendering some liberal principles intellectually clear and emotionally compelling.
His limited ability to exercise moral leadership leaves him with no choice other than to accept Republican frames on issues. So, on the FISA bill, for example, loss of privacy and immunity for criminal telecom companies become a trivial price to pay for protection from unfathomable and pervasive Evil.
If only someone had thought to escalate the issue that Obama's framing could become a problem!
Hell, to see that could only be accomplished with 20/20 hindsight! If there had been folks sharing that kind of vision, there would now be waves of repentant people apologizing to them for having turned an aggressively deaf ear to their warnings. You know, just like all the people who were wrong about the Iraq War have since made a full-time job of apologizing to the DFHs
who were ostracized for getting it right. That's just the way human nature is, isn't it?
Anyway, as recently as April, Ducat fantasized that Obama might "get it" on framing.
But even though Obama never came through, Ducat was happy to take the FITH on The Hopeful One's greatest framing success: framing the Clintons as racists.
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Or maybe something else
If he lied about the core theme of his campaign -- that is, change, he's a guy you can count on to not play political games with his promises -- what else is he lying about? Does he believe in anything at all?
"Does he believe in anything at all?"
beyond getting elected to a higher position, we've seen no evidence of anything at all.
That last link
for "racists" isn't working.
Bill Clinton for First Dude!!!
He who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not is a slave.
- Sir William Drummond
How ironic
The link to "racists" is what really worked best for Obama.
Anyway, fixed. Thanks!
All on the record
The only upside to the decline of PB1.0 is that their absurdity is all on the record. It won't be difficult for historians to document the absurdities of the so-called progressives.
Only tyrants rig elections.
shorter Chris Bowers
solidarity please
bowers is foolish--
they sent Clark out as surrogate to say exactly what he did--and then Obama gets be all upright and moral by condemning it--just like McCain does when one of his surrogates says something that he can't say himself...it's always part of the campaigns.
I disagree
Clark didn't say anything the Obama campaign wanted him to say. Do you think they wanted the media narrative to be about Clark's comments, or would they have preferred a focus on Obama's latest Greatest Speech Evah?
Clark got dropped by the Obama campaign due to poor sound byte control.
IMO, this isn't an elevating moment for the Obama campaign.
Now can we say
"We told you so and you called us racists"??
Go Global!
Simple answers to simple questions
No.
Part of the Obama Rules is that only Obama supporters are permitted to speak of Him. That even goes for one-time supporters.
[x] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Mahatma Gandhi
Gary Trudeau...
...got it right
on triangulation
i have listened to folks talk about "triangulation" for 15+ years.
in my view,
virtually all that talk has been bullshit. not one columnist, one poster, or one commenter in one thousand that has displayed any sense of how that concept was employed.
"triangulation" has become a shibboleth, nothing more.
using it indicates that one is anti-clinton, bill clinton that is.
from my observation, those who use the term in political conversation have a low level of political understanding, a high level of political moralism, and a very high level of political animosity toward the most successful democratic president we have had in nearly 70 years.
no that success in electing competent presidents was ever a democratic value -stevenson, mcgovern, dukakis, obama.