Barack Obama is the most left-wing president in American history. That’s why it does not matter if he is a Christian or a Muslim or a Scientologist. The man’s religion is leftism. That’s where his values come from. There’s nothing distinctively Christian about his values.
I saw Bill Clinton on TV Friday afternoon. He looked so happy to be back in the spotlight! The press loved it too.
WaPo‘s Greg Sargent notes that Obama isn’t really “triangulating”—he isn’t “arguing that the left is wrong on policy substance, as Bill Clinton did.” Right. That’s the problem!
Or, rather, two problems. 1) Since Obama’s not in the center because he believes in being in the center, but because he has had to compromise, he’s congenitally vulnerable to the charge of wimpiness, at least from Democrats. “He agrees with us,” they can think—”but did he get all he could? Did John Kyl take him to the cleaners?” What under triangulation is a policy dispute becomes a manhood issue. 2) Meanwhile, because Obama never tells the left it’s wrong on policy, the larger public doesn’t get a very clear idea of where he’d want to take the country, given the chance. He’s managed to piss off the base without necessarily winning over the middle. Many mainstream voters come to suspect, not without reason, that he’s a left-winger at heart, constrained only by reality—especially political reality. They must be very happy they added some new constraints on November 2.
Triangulation is better than what Obama is doing. But the light bulb has to want to triangulate. …
Backfill: I seem to have written a crappier version of Peggy Noonan’s most recent column.
If you suggest, as the president did, that the seemingly moderate plan you agreed to is awful and you’ll try to rescind it in two years, you won’t leave the center thinking, “He’s our guy!” You’ll leave them thinking, “Note to self: Remove Obama in two years.”
