.... to a much greater extent than Clinton, [Obama will] be
triangulating with semi-pacifists who, while they may not
want to "damn" America, almost invariably blame it first.
Barack Obama and the art of self-triangulation
Power Line
Hillary is the nominal Clinton in this year's presidential race, but it's Obama who increasingly bears the resemblance to Bill. Aspects of that resemblance have been apparent for some time. Both have a physical presence, the gift of gab, and non-pedestrian minds. And recently it's become clear that, like the former president, Obama is fundamentally unserious about vital issues, including even those pertaining to war and peace. For both men, issues are not at root substantive problems to be addressed on their merits, but formal matters to be navigated and, to the extent possible, manipulated.
Bill Clinton raised this approach to a high art through "triangulation." But years before he and Dick Morris were triangulating at Newt Gingrich's expense, Clinton was self-triangulating. How else to explain his statement about how he would have voted on the first Gulf War: "I would have voted for [the war resolution] if [the vote] was close, but the Democrats had the better arguments"?
As Peter Wehner has shown, Obama's lack of seriousness about the second war with Iraq has been just as shocking and far more sustained. Obama began as an opponent of the war, only to state in 2004 that "there's not that much difference between my position and George Bush's position at this stage." By 2005, we had entered a new "stage." With the war increasingly losing support, Obama became a critic but not to the point of advocating withdrawal; in fact, he argued that we had a responsibility not to withdraw. But by 2006, as he prepared for his presidential run, that responsibility was forgotten as Obama switched again and became a proponent of withdrawal. But even now he self-triangulates, as when he talks about sending troops back into Iraq if al Qaeda establishes a base there.
As Robert Novak has demonstrated, Obama is also self-triangulating on the issue of gun control. In 1996, he said in response to a questionnaire that he favored banning the manufacture, sale, and possession of hand guns. For several years thereafter, he was on the board of a Chicago-based foundation that takes aggressive gun control positions. Lately, though, his views have become more nuanced. Parting company with hard-line gun control advocates, Obama contends that the Second Amendment's right to bear arms applies not just to militias but to individuals as well. However, he also insists that this constitutional guarantee does not preclude local "common sense" restrictions on firearms. But when asked several times by Novak how he applies this set of principles to the District of Columbia's gun law, the constitutionality of which the Supreme Court is now considering, Obama declines to answer. Perhaps he feels the District has the better arguments, but would vote with the Court's conservatives if it were close.
It's overwhelmingly likely that deep-down Obama is a solid leftist. That's how he was raised and educated, and that's where he started on the war, gun control, and a host of other issues. How else, for that matter, could Rev. Wright's black liberation theology have appealed to him? But Bill Clinton was a leftist deep-down too - a draft-dodger with contempt for the military; a protégé of Sen. Fulbright on foreign policy; a hard-core McGovernite in 1972. Yet as president Clinton didn't govern consistently from the left. Instead, he continued to triangulate. Will it be this way if Obama is elected?
The question isn't easily answered, but even if one concludes (as I'm starting to) that Obama is as unprincipled as Bill Clinton, there's plenty of room for concern. Recall that the Clinton presidency did not become centrist on domestic issues until Clinton paid a heavy price in 1994 for tilting left. His starting point was a version of his default leftism. Thus, in a best case scenario, Obama might well push a hard left domestic agenda, and with far less Congressional resistance. In a worst case scenario, he won't pay a heavy price in 2010 for doing that which, other things being equal, he'd rather do.
Recall too that Clinton never became serious about foreign policy. Instead, refusing for eight years to acknowledge that the world is a dangerous place, he declined to take on al Qaeda and other jihadists, focusing instead on apologizing for past U.S. "offenses" plucked from a laundry of 1960s-era radical talking points.
Here we might expect better from Obama, who has some concept (as the Clintons now do) that there are those with the thirst and the potential capability to do us great harm. But "some concept" is not the same thing as deep understanding. Thus, it's easy to see Obama triangulating with his party's left on the one hand and security hawks on the other. The result may well be incoherent.
Ultimately, whatever advantage Obama may have over Bill Clinton by virtue of having observed the world for the past eight years will probably be offset by the fact that, to a much greater extent than Clinton, he'll be triangulating with semi-pacifists who, while they may not want to "damn" America, almost invariably blame it first.
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