Mysterious Intellect by E.J. Dionne, Jr.

[babylonsister]

Mysterious Intellect by E.J. Dionne, Jr.

When Obama raises his hand on Tuesday, exactly what can the American people expect?
Post Date January 15, 2009


WASHINGTON -- For the past two years, Barack Obama has made it hard for anyone to pin him down philosophically. So when he raises his hand on Tuesday, exactly what -- beyond the efforts of an eager, data-driven problem-solver -- can the American people expect?

Obama has spent his adult life tilting left while courting conservatives. That's how he won his very first campaign, for president of the Harvard Law Review.

He has been known to call himself a "progressive," and when he occasionally uses the word "ideological" in reference to his own leanings, he clearly casts himself somewhere left of center.

Yet on most of the occasions, his references to ideology are disdainful and dismissive. In discussing his economic stimulus package, he speaks of judging his proposals by how many jobs they produce and how quickly they will move the economy. Other criteria are inadmissible.

There are at least three keys to understanding Obama's approach to (and avoidance of) ideology. There is, first, his simple joy in testing himself against those who disagree with him. Someone who knows the president-elect well says he likes talking with philosophical adversaries more than with allies.

This part of him was once the detached writer and professor who could view even his own life from a distance and with a degree of abstraction. Seen with perspective, after all, the ideological differences in the United States are rather small. We have no major socialist party, and when it comes down to it, even conservatives are reluctant to dismantle our limited social insurance and welfare programs.

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http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=720db8b6-4a47-45a6-b1a4-9b0758f575cd

[Jackpine Radical]

1. This puts an interesting light on both his meeting with the conservatives

the other day and some of his Cabinet appointments. Maybe things are not as dismal as they seem.

[babylonsister]

2. Things seem dismal, but I'm not blaming Obama for that.

If anything, I have high hopes he'll be able to make things less dismal. Here's hoping.

[Jackpine Radical]

3. Well, yes, things are globally dismal, of course.

I meant all the gloom about his centrist/rightist appointments. I guess I could imagine him surrounding himself with people who have major differences with him, who will argue with him so that none of his policies are formulated in echo chambers. One of the things Bush was most criticized for was his inability to tolerate dissent. Obama apparently thrives on it. He's still the one who ultimately sets the policies.