E. J. Dionne: Worried on the Left?

[question everything]

washingtonpost.com

Worried on the Left?
The Disillusionment Story Line Is Overdone

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Friday, December 12, 2008; A27

Oh, my: Barack Obama is still more than a month away from assuming the presidency, and already there are reports about "the left" being dispirited about change they no longer believe in. These fears -- in this case expressed by a rather small number of bloggers and writers -- are aggravated by praise for Obama's transition choices from conservatives who seem relieved that the president-elect is neither Lenin nor Robespierre.

(snip)

As it happens, Obama's team is by most reasonable tests somewhere to the left of the one Kennedy assembled. That's because reality has moved left, particularly over the past six months. When a Republican administration presides over -- let's call it what it is -- the partial nationalization of the finance industry, and when even conservatives are calling for large-scale deficit spending, the very definition of the political center needs to be revised.

But there's another problem with the "disillusioned left" story line. If those looking for a split consulted with the most progressive members of Congress, they would discover a certain serenity about the direction the next president will take. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who proudly describes himself as a democratic socialist, has as much of a claim as anyone to speak for the left. He says those who see Obama as drifting right are overlooking the importance of the president-elect's past as a community organizer and also his "sense of history."

(snip)

Sanders acknowledges "concerns" that key Obama appointees supported financial deregulation in the past. He called them "some of the people responsible for getting us into where we are right now." But Democrats, Sanders says, realize the burden they bear with full control of the government's elected branches: "If they don't begin to really deliver for the middle class in this country, they've got nobody to blame but themselves." Obama's pledge yesterday to push hard for health-care reform suggests that he shares Sanders's view.

(snip)

Like most successful politicians, Obama is a protean figure. His progressive views and cautious instincts send different messages to different people -- which is one reason his approval rating hit 73 percent in a Wall Street Journal-NBC News survey released yesterday. It's also plain that Obama is no left-winger. In the 2008 Democratic primaries, John Edwards was the candidate of the economic left, Rep. Dennis Kucinich the standard-bearer of the staunchly antiwar left. Obama's campaign advisers were moderately progressive, not radical. This means that parts of the political left will have some differences with Obama over the next four years, but it doesn't mean that most on the left are already disillusioned with him.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/11/AR2008121102948.html

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Every once in a while,

E.J. makes sense.

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