You may have noticed that I have been a consistent critic of people on the Left that seize on every illiberal, conciliatory, triangulating thing that Obama says without waiting to see what the policy is. What could be a better example of this than this article in the Los Angeles Times?
Union leaders were taken aback this month when Obama, during television appearances discussing the stimulus legislation, spoke skeptically of “Buy American” provisions in the bill giving U.S. makers of steel and other materials an advantage in bidding for contracts.
Obama told Fox News that the U.S. “can’t send a protectionist message,” and he cautioned on ABC News that the requirements could be a “potential source of trade wars that we can’t afford at a time when trade is sinking all across the globe.”
That language mirrored the criticisms that business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce had used in arguing against “Buy American” rules.
Okay. I can see how those comments might be a concern and a sign that he might be setting up to break a campaign promise. But…
“Buy American” rules remain in the stimulus bill that the president is scheduled to sign Tuesday, but labor advocates were alarmed by Obama’s willingness to insert himself in the debate as a champion of business concerns. They said his stance was far different than during the presidential election, when Obama was trying to win union votes and called for rebuilding America with union-made materials.
Obama’s new language was “a little disturbing,” said Jeff Faux, an economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute, which has received funding from labor unions.
Traingulation isn’t a strategy of saying things that make unions unhappy, it is a strategy of doing things that make unions unhappy. Advocates of ‘framing’ don’t want a Democratic president to ever adopt a way of talking about issues that reinforces the opponent’s view. Obama doesn’t use this strategy. Rather, he makes rhetorical concessions and then does what he wants to do. It’s rhetorical triangulation, not actual triangulation. If he starts losing policy battles then we might grow concerned about this tendency to concede framing around issues to his opponents. But so long as he is winning policy battles, we should relax.
But doesn’t it serve Obama’s purpose perhaps more than anyone’s if it looks like the left is against him? Doesn’t that buy some cred with the right? Isn’t that why he lets these sentiments sit out there?
So in a way, by calling for moderation, are you actually undermining his bluff?
Just asking. I don’t know the answer.
I think Obama is very practical and he isn’t a down-the-line progressive, so there will be areas where he takes policy positions we don’t like. But he basic modus operandi is to sound very reasonable and conciliatory to his opponents’ point of view and then to do the progressive thing.
It’s a total rejection of the Lakoffian model and it has been driving framing advocates nuts for two years now.
I agree re Obama – that’s why I liked him from the start (the start being when I actually did some research into his Illinios state record).
I understand your frustration with some on the left, but I’d also like to point out that:
Here’s the thing, Lisa. There are bloggers and columnists that shade what they write (as opposed to what they write about) because they want to advance a certain agenda. Perhaps they feel like slamming Obama from the Left serves some purpose. It provides cover and makes him look moderate if the Left is visibly unhappy, for example. It moves the Overton Window if the Left is making demands and appears unsatisfied.
This idea not only has merit, it’s undeniably true.
But that doesn’t mean that I am going to shade what I think is the truth of the matter to push some agenda. When I think Obama is wrong (like on his decision to invoke the State Secrets privilege) I will say so. And when I think he is being effective and practical, I will say so.
See, and I think you’re wrong in assuming they are shading the truth.
When they are misrepresenting the truth, they should be called on it. But I think you can move the Overton window left with the facts, no shading necessary.
Yes. You can definitely move the Overton Window with facts, but it helps to organize. Facts alone didn’t help much in the last thirty years, as we lost more than we won and factual arguments were defeated by cheap rhetoric and superior message organization on the other side.
But there is absolutely nothing wrong with pointing out that the Democrats are pursuing a policy on x that is wrong and using facts to point out why it is wrong.
The LA Times article, however, is about how members of the Left are dissatisfied with the speed and policies of the Obama administration. One example they use is the Buy America provisions in the stimulus package. The problem is, he is going to sign the bill with those provision in it. See my point? What’s factual about the criticism? That they didn’t like what he said? So what?
But my point is that the union people also probably had some great things to say about Obama, that the writer of that article chose not to include, because they’re trying to pit the left at war with itself.
We shouldn’t bite.
Paragraph 1: Ding, Ding, Ding!
I would add, that the criticism from the strawman ‘Left’ does not have to be of any particularly high quality.
In fact, the more far-out (yet plausibly believed) the better.
As RHS mentioned, the effectiveness and even availability of this tool (not the only, not the best, but very useful) is lessened by harping against it to the point it’s practitioners have to lay the whole deal out explicitly.
There is a function for the strawman left. But its practicioners are not going to maintain their credibility if they use strawmen.
Defending against the progressive blogosphere losing its reputation for factuality serves a function, too.
And let’s face it. Who exactly does the blogosphere have credibility with, anyway? I have a few writers I read and, for the most part, trust. Very few.
If people are giving credibility to the blogosphere and just following the way the wind blows, which is how it appears to me, our problems are much bigger than who is president.
The ‘Liberals’ strawman is extremely effective and can remains so after many, many discrediting events because the Right Wing media machine DEPENDS ON ITS EXISTENCE AND WILL BEND OVER BACKWARDS lending it credibility as the main voice of opposition to right wing ideas and will resurrect it any way. Perfect.
If, in fact, you ‘accidentally’ over do it and ‘kill’ the ‘Damn Liberals’ strawman, you kill the Repug’s currently most effective rhetorical tool. Lord knows that would suck, right?
It’s win-win to have an excessively vocal and strident Left Wing extreme.
You have to make a point of connecting the right wing and left wing versions of this strawman, and you always have put yourself in the position of reasonable alternative.
Hence the rhetorical triangulation, hence the ‘Far Left’ din, hence the palpable, but hard to quantify, increase in effectiveness in steering policy. No?
I just don’t see the long or short term benefit of another strategy at this point, but you have to be able to change your game and I want to be convinced.
Certainly anyone who needs/cares to have their reputation in good standing for professional reasons cannot assert themselves as a voice for the strawman or echo what people expect of the strawman.
I see their job to not complain about the strawman, but rather take him ‘seriously’, repeat his points, combat and defeat them in the public forum with your ‘Team Obama’ or ‘Independent Journalist’ hat on.
While that may be part of a grander strategy, it would not be a violation of their valued objectivity, yet it would be a service.
“But so long as he is winning policy battles, we should relax.”
Can’t have that. Seriously. One of the great things that’s happened over the last 8 years or so is the building of the LW pundit infrastructure. We now have ‘liberal’ radio, teevee shows, tons and tons of blogs and blogs allowing people to post their own diaries/ blogs within blogs, etc plus the LW magazines. There’s an entire LW industry- doing what they do best- complaining.
And all of these writers have to write about something, and since Bush is gone, what are they gonna write about now? Answer: their ‘concerns’ about Obama. Since he was elected, every utterance is dissected ad nauseum into great fears that he’s gonna screw us. (TALK ME DOWN!!!!!) Even though there was no record of him actually making any policy decisions, it didn’t stop the concern trolls….they could express concern over his cabinet picks, for example.
It seemd to me, all of this overwrought ‘concern’ is a way to fill columns and airspace and earn a paycheck. Nothing wrong with that. But until Obama does something to piss me off, I see little point in preemptive bitching/anger/concern. But then, I don’t have to earn a living doing it.
What is the stressor that ‘relaxing’ relieves? What will improve upon relaxation?
Doesn’t this form of rhetorical triangulation depend on some form of critique from BOTH extremes of a debate to provide the other two points of the triangle?
Obama should be measured on his deeds and Unions are very happy with the results so far. Al Giordano breaks down some of the early successes.
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/john-judis-and-what-army
You can’t have an American stimulus package without stimulating the rest of the world to some extent. Even American cars are built with some foreign parts. People make money and they buy electronics that are made in China. You go to the grocery store and some of that produce you buy was grown across a border. And there’s no way you can get around this because a whole lot of consumer items, whether you eat them or play with them, just aren’t made in America.
Now, even though not buying American takes away from direct stimulus of the American economy I am not against that.
But it was an uneven playing field for most Americans before this current Depression, and it will be uneven afterwards. If we turn this Depression around so that America can run up more huge trading deficits while American labor is undersold, who benefits? The international corporatists, not labor around the world and certainly not labor in America.
So the “Buy America” provision is just a figleaf which doesn’t do much except maybe calm down some American workers and get some foreign trade partners a little nervous. It doesn’t address the absolutely enormous problems that, if I may reach back and pluck an expression, “WORKERS OF THE WORLD” have been facing and will face to an even larger extent in the future.
Capital, we have seen, can be moved around the globe in ways that can make your head spin. The means of production can and have been relocated over and over in order to find the cheapest workers. Labor cannot cross borders, organizing is heavily regulated or outlawed so that more profits accrue. As long as this game of international keepaway is played most of us will be royally screwed, over and over. And coming out of the Depression will not stop this process.
I thought the Buy-American provisions were kept in despite Obama’s attempts to have them removed, though I believe his effort to do so wasn’t a full-court or anything like that.
there is nothing in the bill that Obama could not have removed if he wanted to except for the provisions that Specter, Collins, Snowe, and Nelson insisted on. The AMT was Nelson’s price, for example, and Specter needed the amendment for NIH spending. The Buy American provisions and the curbs on executive pay were put in there with the administration’s consent despite their protests to the contrary.
Ah that makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.
Do what I do, not what I say is surely a curious way for a president to proceed. I understand that it’s the actual policy that matters but won’t at least some unfocused individuals be taking him at his word?
We elected him to produce results, not words. They should take him at his results, understanding the nature of the game, and not the sentiment that he expresses in order to disarm his opponents. Failure to understand the nature of the game will definitely lead people to some incorrect conclusions, kind of like watching a football game and concluding that the quarterback and center must be lovers…
That’s my point, not everyone is going to understand the game. It might be laziness, lack of time/interest or some other reason entirely. This will be lost on some individuals. And I suspect that it will be more than just a few isolated individuals.
I think the real problem is that everybody wants everything, NOW, “immediately, if not sooner.” And if not, they at least want to hear it loud and clear. And if they don’t, then it means betrayal.
And yet, even if the person in office is their friend, that is not the best way to proceed, politically.
Not that I’m capable of doing this, but if I were to write a novel about a guy gifted with such incredible political skills that his very election represented the popular repudiation not only of heretofore unbreached national prejudices, but also of the same sophisticated disinformation machine that defeated several previous democratic candidates, as well as the foiling of a near-fascist takeover of the country — and who, on day one after inauguration, found himself facing one of the most daunting combinations of serious national problems that any president has ever had to deal with — if I were to write a novel about such a character, I would show him tackling these problems in a gradual and graduated way, like an incredibly complex juggling act, or an exacting game of chess, until his political capital, his alliances were stronger, and his enemies were definitely weaker. Otherwise, I’m afraid that either the happy ending would not be believable, or indeed the ending would not be a happy one.
Those who expect everything, NOW, and are not getting it, feel themselves betrayed. They certainly have a flare for drama, but what they need is some perpective.
The real problem is that much of the “criticism from the left” is either deliberate concern trolling on the part of the MSM, naive relays of the same (e.g. Digby) or frustrated mandarin whining from people who think that they should be controlling the message (Sirota, OpenLeft …).
YES!!! Exactly right.