Obama To Liberal Critics: I’ve Got No Ideological Beef With You
One interesting thing about the big speech on the economy that Obama just concluded: He offered the most sustained response I’ve heard to criticism of his economic plans from the left.
Also noteworthy: He went out of his way to argue that he isn’t ideologically predisposed against bank nationalization and aggressively rebutted claim that his administration has at times been ideologically predisposed towards letting Wall Street execs off the hook.
Obama brought up the liberal critique — his administration has been too timid in dealing with the banking system, should have favored nationalization, and that his team coddled Wall Street. He then said, according to the prepared remarks:
So let me be clear -– the reason we have not taken this step has nothing to do with any ideological or political judgment we’ve made about government involvement in banks, and it’s certainly not because of any concern we have for the management and shareholders whose actions have helped cause this mess.
Rather, it is because we believe that preemptive government takeovers are likely to end up costing taxpayers even more in the end, and because it is more likely to undermine than to create confidence. Governments should practice the same principle as doctors: first do no harm. So rest assured –- we will do whatever is necessary to get credit flowing again, but we will do so in ways that minimize risks to taxpayers and to the broader economy.
Obama then went on to tout his administration’s plans to use government money as an incentive to get private investors to clear way “toxic” assets.
The merits of his argument aside, it’s striking that Obama went out of his way to tell liberal critics that he has no ideological beef with the solutions they’ve been suggesting or with their critique of his plans. This isn’t a point Obama really needed to make. He could have said that he viewed his prescriptions as more practical than theirs and left it at that.
In a sense, this throws a bit of a wrench into the claim we keep hearing that “Obama is a pragmatist, not an ideologue.” Obama, in a way, is rejecting this frame. He merely has a substantive disagreement with his liberal critics about what would work and what wouldn’t. He’s not rejecting their ideas because they are mired in ideology and his aren’t or because he’s a pragmatist and they’re too far to the “left.”
Full text here.
The homepage of this blog is here. RSS feed here. Twitter feed here. Email me here.
Have to zip out before I get a chance to read his speech. But I’ll make the point that Obama not only seems to be giving a nod to the arguments made from the left (smart) but also, by noting publicly this sphere of disagreement which sits left of him, he creates a perspective of relative centrism (equally smart).
Greg, I’m not sure how you reach the conclusion in your last paragraph. It seems more as if Obama is saying that none of this is about ideology. He’s specifically rejecting the notion that he’s ideologically against bank takeovers, which he implies the left has assumed. He’s saying yet again that he’s after what works, which I’d say is pragmatism.
ABC, I’m not saying he isn’t being pragmatic, just that he isn’t buying into the false dichotomy between pragmatism and ideology…
Greg, as in Dianne Feinstein, who wants more gun control, saying this isn’t the time and so deferring action on a belief out of realism? (Not saying Obama believes in nationalization; I don’t know.)
Greg
.
I think the bigger plus I took away from President Obama addressing the criticism from the left is that he made sure that they knew he has heard them and isn’t just tossing them to the side. He just doesn’t agree. I have heard many people railing about how Paul Krugman should be in the cabinet and that President Obama is being advised by the wrong people and this was the first time that he substantially took on that very real criticism out there. I think it was kind of a fig leaf to the base to say “Hey I am not beholden to Wall Street, I just think this is the right way to do it in a way that doesn’t risk even more money”. Say what you want to about any of his policies, the guy generally knows what he is doing when it comes to politics and building support.
.
I thought that was one hell of a speech. But my prediction is the wingnuts won’t even focus on the substance. Instead they will focus on the two or three mispronunciations he made reading the teleprompter. In 5…4…3…3…
there’s a school of thought that holds that you can either be a “pragmatist” or an “ideologue.” this school holds that Obama is a “pragmatist,” unlike his “ideological” critics from the left.
The subtext of this argument is that you can’t be left wing and practical at the same time — that left wing policies can’t, by nature, have practical application.
Obama, by saying he’s got no ideological beef with his critics, is basically rejecting this frame — he disagrees with his critics on the left on substantive grounds, not because he thinks their ideas, by virtue of being liberal, are AUTOMATICALLY not pragmatic…
that make any sense?
I have to say I was a bit troubled with some of what he had to say. I didn’t see it all and haven’t had time to read the whole thing but, I was in part tired of hearing the same old saw horse about health care and social security. Nothing new there. I did find his allusions to religious language…um interesting. The talk about building upon the rock and not the sand and the need for 5 pillars.
I noticed that the markets didn’t particularly like what he had to say. Dow fell during and big time afterward. Of course gold and silver took a cue from it all and started to climb. I’ve been watching it with the tracking widget http://www.learcapital.com/exactprice and during the speech gold turned around and went up. Guess a lot of folk are feeling the need to protect their earnings in the shiny metal stuff.
Greg
.
In practice what you are talking about is how the Republicans keep trying to say for instance that President Obama allowed Nancy Pelosi to hijack the stimulus bill trying to make it seem like she is this big San Francisco liberal whereas President Obama is a “centrist”. This is of course after a year of saying he was the “most liberal Senator” in Congress. But yeah I get what you are saying. He is telling the base that he is still one of us even if he isn’t going to nationalize the banks.
Hal
.
The markets opened down over 100 points and has been up and down then. I swear people kill me with that stupid cannard. “The markets didn’t like the speech” Give me a break.
I noticed that also. I am very glad he has reached out to the left. It’s the best answer to Krugman, Stiglitz, et. al., I have seen by him, and it’s important.
Greg, actually he did tell you that the reason he wasn’t doing what Krugman et al wants is because it is not practical.
I mean come on – that’s what he said.
I think he wants to make sure, though, that all the little anarchists who are up in arms because they believe every word Krugman and the rest say, no matter what – and they accuse us of the doing that vis-a-vis Obama, so we’re even – would finally get the message. Obama is progressive but he’s not going to do something that he doesn’t think is practical and he doesn’t think it’s practical to take a machete to a problem an epee might fix.
“Give me a break.”
O word.
We’re going to have so many dead cat bounces in the marke. People take profit and then sit tight until it’s time to buy and take profit again. That’s all they are going to do right now.
BUT – (I’m sorry I can’t get this done in one comment) Goldman Sachs’ announcement last night was the best news I’ve heard or read since last September, as far as the economic crisis goes.
I can’t believe some people are looking for a downside to that news – but some people have decided that making money is a sin against America.
I noticed the DOW reaction too!!!! When he said the word future, it went up, when he said the word past, it went down, right too the second. I’m going to track this for the next eight years and write a book on it.
Since when is it “leftist” to criticize a massive, no-strings-attached give-away of taxpayer funds to businesses which have bankrupted themselves through their own shortsighted stupidity? Shouldn’t conservatives be critical of kleptocracy too?
Tena — I know he disagreed with the “practicality” of his critics’ prescriptions. But he was acknowledging that their solutions, despite being “lefty,” aren’t merely “ideological,” as the traditional news org framing has it. He simply thinks his are more practical than theirs — not that he is somehow LESS ideological than his liberal critics are.
Greg, I agree with the gist of both of your comments, but couldn’t track through in a couple of places. 1) “The subtext of this argument is that you can’t be left wing and practical at the same time — that left wing policies can’t, by nature, have practical application.” There’s a pivot there that I don’t quite follow. To go back to my Feinstein example, if she can hold a left wing position on gun control but be practical about WHEN to try to push for it, isn’t that a very different thing than saying her position on gun control could lead to practical legislation? 2) “He [Obama] simply thinks his [solutions] are more practical than theirs [liberals]— not that he is somehow LESS ideological than his liberal critics are.” But isn’t Obama less ideological if he doesn’t insist on a given policy come hell or come high water? Maybe we need to be talking about what it means to be ideological. To me it suggests being rigid about a given policy even if it sacrifices the ability to achieve certain ends. I don’t insist on that view, but offer it as a point of discussion.
I understand, ABC — I guess my point is that Obama is telling his critics that he doesn’t think that they’re more rigid ideologically than him; he’s just saying that they have a straightforward difference over which solution would work better. In other words, he’s rejecting the idea that being “left” equals being “rigidly ideological” equals being “automatically non-pragmatic.” if that makes any sense…
Thanks for that clarification, Greg. Yes, it does make sense. And I hope that it’s true. One of the things that caused things to go so awry in the eight Bush years was rigid ideological views. I guess I’m asking for a distinction between broad principles–the kind we find in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution–and lockstep positions on policy. If your interpretation of what Obama was saying is right, he’s showing faith in not only the principles of the left, but in its ultimate common sense.
Greg
let it go, will ya? you’re acting a bit worse than those brits when Brown came over here. Obama isn’t making any arguments about how intrinsically pragmatic leftist policies are as opposed to rightwing. he’s just saying that his first priority is do no harm. I don’t know that he ever said or implied that leftwing policies are not realistic just because they’re ideological. (now, im sure he thinks that if you revert to your ideological base every time, you’re gonna destroy this country just like bush). but this isn’t any big revelation. in fact, we knew that he was gonna adopt leftist policies quite a couple of times. He just made sure that everyone knows that he’s just not gonna it everytime, and hes not gonna do it just because there is too much political pressure on him. that when he does, he’ll do it on his own terms. but he’s not trying to rewrite any conventional wisdom or anything. and the left doesn’ t have to be spinning stuff this badly. Krugman plays a vital role. And even if the white house sometimes is irritated by it, krugman makes sure they’re asking the though questions. just leave it at that. and stop looking for approval
Lupercal – I think a lot of your ideas about Obama’s approach sound right, but I’ve always thought it’s great that Greg is willing to dig down with an idea. He encourages a larger conversation. I don’t see that as being about approval, though it might merit it.