Some people interpreted my piece on Obama’s supposed naïvety in a way I didn’t intend them to. I also feel like I was a bit unfair to Ed Kilgore. I didn’t mean to single him out or suggest that he’s stupid. I chose Ed’s column rather arbitrarily, and it certainly wasn’t the worst of its type. So, let me be clear about what I didn’t mean in that post.
I did not mean that bloggers should refrain from predicting continued gridlock in a second Obama term, as if we could hide that probability or somehow prevent it from occurring if we were simply to remain silent about it or give a false analysis about the likely future facing our country. Bloggers should tell the truth as they see it, not engage in spin as if we are some adjunct of the Democratic Party. Our job is to educate and entertain our readers, not to be dishonest mirrors of the right’s media empire.
I did not mean that bloggers shouldn’t ever question or criticize the administration’s rhetoric or strategy.
What I meant to say was rather simple. A lot of people on the left, including in the blogosphere, take a very surface level view of what the administration does and why they do it. In this particular case, many people came to the same conclusion. If the president really believes that the Republicans will behave better in 2013 after suffering defeat, he’s naïve. And from that simple conclusion came an outpouring of criticism that varied in type and harshness depending on the particular voice. But I think people should pause when they hear something that makes the Obama administration look naïve and ask themselves why they are sending that particular message. Why would Obama say that he hopes the GOP will behave better when he really ought to know better?
And the answer is that Obama has to have a theory of how he’ll break the gridlock. If he doesn’t have a theory for that, then he’s stuck saying, “Vote for me, and I’ll give you four more years of this dysfunctional bullshit.”
And, when I call people stupid, what I’m saying is that they are acting naïve themselves when they take the president literally here. Sure, I think he (and all of us) hopes that the GOP will be a more willing partner in a second term. But he’s not stupid. He knows that the GOP is unlikely to moderate.
So, what I’m saying is, like so many times before, make your criticism of the president fair and constructive. Don’t beat him up when he’s being smart because that makes you look stupid.
