Over the last week, the true nature of Obama's political project has come into much clearer view. He is out to build a new and enduring political establishment, located slightly to the left of center but including everyone except the far right. That's certainly a bracing idea, since Washington has not seen a liberal establishment since the mid-1960s.
"Liberal establishment," of course, sounds terrible to many ears, and Obama would never use the term. But those who led it in its heyday accomplished a great deal, from Medicare to food stamps to Head Start to federal aid for schools. Its proudest achievements were civil rights laws that paved the way for the election of our first African American president.
And it is no accident that the Vietnam War was that philosophy's undoing. Fearful that a communist victory in Vietnam would revive the far right's critique of alleged liberal weakness, Lyndon B. Johnson -- whose aspiration was to be a great domestic social reformer -- went into Southeast Asia with guns blazing. We know the result.
For the left, which is unhappy about Obama's decisions on such issues as preventive detention, Cheney's outlandish explosion was a reminder of how much better Obama is than the guys who came before. While civil libertarians grumbled about parts of Obama's speech, much of the left concentrated its fire on Cheney.
The center and near right, in the meantime, could have the satisfaction of dismissing the over-the-hill Cheney and comment knowingly on how basically "sound" and "realistic" the president's plans really were.
And in the next phase of his security efforts, Obama hopes to bring civil libertarians and moderate conservatives to the same table to work out rules on detainees. These would be more protective of their rights than Bush's were but tougher than the ACLU might have in mind.
The establishment Obama is trying to build would make the country better -- more equal, more just and more conscious of the government's constitutional obligations. The far right is being isolated, and Republicans are simply lost.
That bears repeating: "The far right is being isolated, and Republicans are simply lost."
That's a good start, and for now it's good enough for me. I realize that nobody, but nobody, is going to get everything they want out of this President, but whatever he does will be a vast improvement over the Dark Age from which we are emerging.
Also see P.M. Carpenter's analysis of and comments on Mr. Dionne's op-ed.
No comments:
Post a Comment