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.