Pundits on Obama: Stay Left or Go Middle?
02/23/2010 by Peter HartOn NBC's Chris Matthews Show on Sunday (2/21/10), the main topic of conversation was a familiar one for Beltway media: Will Obama finally go to the "center"? Or as the show's website puts it, "The Crucial Crossroads: Will Obama Push His Agenda, or Move to the Middle?"
Matthews kicked things off by announcing that "the week began with that stunner from Sen. Evan Bayh, more evidence the president is losing the power of the center that got him elected." How Bayh's sudden decision to leave the Senate relates to Obama isn't obvious, but the point is perfectly clear: Obama needs to move to the right. As Matthews put it to panelist Savannah Guthrie of NBC News:
Savannah, six months from now, the experts tell us, around July 4, the All-Star Game, people make up their minds for November. Is the White House aware or thinking right now they've got to choose, go down the center and cut some deals with the Republicans, or stay with the hard liberal agenda?
It's hard to fathom how one could witness the White House's political strategy of the past year and conclude that it was pushing a "hard liberal agenda." But it's an article of faith in the press corps. Thus panelist David Ignatius of the Washington Post could speak of Obama wanting to move to the "radical center," whatever that is supposed to mean.
When the discussion turned to healthcare, the fact that the White House would talk about rising premiums caused Matthews to lament: "But that sounds like, again, you're going back to the old liberal front against the conservatives. You said it again, they're trying to pin the conservatives down. It sounds like he hasn't decided to go to the center." He added:
How did he think he could move to the left in terms of big healthcare, a big government role on a lot of fronts, financial regulation, without enraging the center-right? How did he think he could do that?
Again, there is no plausible way of seeing the White House's health care plan as being "left." They never seriously considered single-payer, and they did not support the public option--a generally popular policy the corporate media derided as too far left. Their relatively mild positions on Wall Street regulation don't fit the bill either.
Matthews, once more:
How can you be a man of the--a leader of the progressive movement, really do things that enlarge the role of government in the healthcare field, for example, and in financial regulation, and still make the country in this "Kumbaya," we all get along mood? If you change, it bothers people.
That would be a difficult question to answer, since the premise makes little sense to anyone but a corporate pundit.
Diggit
del.icio.us
reddit
Yahoo
Facebook
StumbleUpon
February 23rd, 2010 at 12:05 pm
I thought it was the "left of center" promises made "that got him elected", didn't you?
But Matthews is right in saying that "If you change, it bothers people."
Lying tends to put folks off.
February 23rd, 2010 at 6:02 pm
The Economist has been known to describe itself as belonging to the "radical center," if that's illuminating.
February 26th, 2010 at 4:01 pm
No one who critically listened to Obama or looked at his voting record made the mistake of thinking he was progressive. Obama's a triangulating centrist, a la Clinton.
It's annoying to see the villager media furthering the illusion that Obama is somehow a figure of the left. Matthews might as well just jump in bed with Hannity.
February 26th, 2010 at 5:22 pm
I see Matthews is continuing his intellectual featherweight process. Obama a liberal? His policies liberal or progressive? Matthews and cronies are totally off the mark and thereby not really worth commenting on except that their have the power of an audience.
What part of bait and switch by Obama does Matthews not understand? How is it that triangulation has eluded his immense intellect? Is Matthews so far out of it that he thinks the DLC positions are actually left wing?
Old Chris has rendered himself totally irrelevant with this opinion. He has no idea what he is talking about. Use you satellite feed money for another program, Democracy Now comes to mind if you want the truth. Matthews just does not have the mental horsepower to pull his own program off.
February 26th, 2010 at 5:30 pm
Obama has led so far- as Center left.- he was never a far left guy . Extremists scare us and cause many toxic problems.
We saw that under Bush- Cheney who led from the far right . Last 30 years – under Reagan Bush policies
from 1981 – 2008 and beyond – of deregulation put us on the road to this global meltdown
That along with Bush' s 2 long profit driven wars – lied into Iraq- 2 huge tax cuts
None of it paid for NONE OF IT Bush Cheney left us a 1.3 triilion deficit as well.
For the record in 2000 – Bill Clinton left W a 30 billion surplus & millions of new jobs .
February 26th, 2010 at 6:26 pm
LOOK! A liberal!! This all distracts from Obama as willing (or DEM blackmailed) BushCompany White House-slave, handled by Gates or vice versa! It matters little in the halfascist Amerika of the moment.
February 26th, 2010 at 6:42 pm
Obama is far right look how far over he is bending to appease the Republicans, and Demo publicans. The financial melt down came from deregulation and he and his group of advisors have done nothing to "reregulate" the financial sector. The war(s), he has done nothing except follow Georgie's War Plan. Torture, we aren't investigating anyone. The "Lawyers" who wrote the papers that allowed torture got off scott free, ones still a judge. Obama has even given the OK, to the CIA which will probably hire Blackwater, to assassinate US CITIZENs if they are involved in helping a terrorist group. What happened to the Constitution and Bill of Rights, innocent till proven guilty? What scares me about that is that it is up to interpretation on whether or not the person is really guilty, it should be left up to a civilian court.
I am very afraid for my country.
February 27th, 2010 at 2:13 am
The Republicans have succeeded in pulling the Democrats so far to the right that the center now looks "far left" to many. Obama is far from a "liberal" – ask any real liberal – myself for instance. He is making the mistake that Clinton did and trying to be a "Centrist" – a losing proposition for Democrats. The young people of today are far more liberal than Obama and he is rapidly turning them off.
February 27th, 2010 at 9:27 am
It's a "hard ball" to crack that says that Obama is a leftist liberal. He wasn't even a liberal in his campaign, more, I think, just plain common sense, in stark contrast to the previous lunatic-right-fringe administration of Dick Cheney and George W. Bush. And I agree that he is significantly in the mold of the Clinton "centrist" Democrat (centrist is always a code word for right-leaning because conservatives/Republicans dominate the framing of the Washington policy punditocracy with the crucial help of corporate media), numerous Clinton policy "successes" were actually bending over backwards for big business conservatives. And Republicans impeached Clinton anyway! This fact should burn into all Democratic minds how the Republicans roll.
February 27th, 2010 at 6:35 pm
Would anybody care to parse the following quote?
"How can you be a man of the--a leader of the progressive movement, really do things that enlarge the role of government in the healthcare field, for example, and in financial regulation, and still make the country in this "Kumbaya," we all get along mood?"
Liberal media gets away with anything.
February 28th, 2010 at 10:25 am
Left = of, by, for the people
Right = of, by, for the corporations, also "people" by America's current laws. But slavery was once America's law of the land. History shows we can change the laws of the land.
March 2nd, 2010 at 3:07 pm
[...] to political rehabilitation. This only makes sense in a Beltway media that views Obama as too far to the left, and in need of Emanuel's pragmatic centrism to pull him back to the [...]
March 2nd, 2010 at 5:02 pm
[...] to political rehabilitation. This only makes sense in a Beltway media that views Obama as too far to the left, and in need of Emanuel's pragmatic centrism to pull him back to the [...]
September 4th, 2010 at 9:10 pm
[...] http://www.fair.org/blog/2010/02/23/pundits-on-obama-stay-left-or-go-middle/ [...]