"You get to see what's in the package when we've completed the package, and when we've negotiated a little bit more with our colleagues in the House and Senate," Biden said. "Keep in mind that it's really important that this package when submitted to the Hill succeed and pass."
Guessing as to what's in there is inherently uncertain, but the personnel is the best heuristic we have, aside from stated policies during the campaign (many of which have become obsolete when a trillion dollar stimulus and a nasty credit crunch fully flowered). That's what Chris Bowers was doing when he noted the ideological loyalties of the Obama cabinet members. Ta-Nehisi Coates and Ed Kilgore both argue that Chris is wrong. Coates suggests that leaving out White House staffers renders Chris's judgment inaccurate, and furthermore, the DLC tends to overstate its influence with officials. Kilgore, the former policy director of the DLC, credibly points out that the DLC involved a wide variety of politicians in its activities, so having associations with that group is not necessarily indicative of anything in particular. I should also add that Kilgore is one of the few former DLC officials who has really taken the time to understand our arguments, and respond to them with an intellectually curious streak rather than intense defensiveness.
Fortunately, we don't have to throw opinions at each other to settle the argument about Obama's cabinet; Nolan McCarty at Princeton compared voting records of the Cabinet members, and showed that "the evidence is pretty strong that the administration lies considerably to the right of the Democrats in the House, but is reasonably representative of Senate Democrats." Coates's point about senior White House staffers is reasonable; Melody Barnes for instance has no measurable track record equivalent to a voting record. Still, who Obama picks to his cabinet-level appointments can't mean nothing at all.
Here's what aligning with the Senate Democrats signifies in terms of policy sympathies. This is a list of controversial conservative votes from the Senate, broken out by party support.
To support the new Bush-supported FISA law:
GOP - 48-0
Dems - 12-36
To compel redeployment of troops from Iraq:
GOP - 0-49
Dems - 24-21
To confirm Michael Mukasey as Attorney General:
GOP - 46-0
Dems - 7-40
To confirm Leslie Southwick as Circuit Court Judge:
GOP - 49-0
Dems - 8-38
Kyl-Lieberman Resolution on Iran:
GOP - 46-2
Dems - 30-20
To condemn MoveOn.org:
GOP - 49-0
Dems - 23-25
The Protect America Act:
GOP - 44-0
Dems - 20-28
Declaring English to be the Government's official language:
GOP - 48-1
Dems - 16-33
The Military Commissions Act:
GOP - 53-0
Dems - 12-34
To renew the Patriot Act:
GOP - 54-0
Dems - 34-10
Cloture Vote on Sam Alito's confirmation to the Supreme Court:
GOP - 54-0
Dems - 18-25
Authorization to Use Military Force in Iraq:
GOP - 48-1
Dems - 29-22
There are real personnel differences between the administration Obama is putting together and what a left-wing progressive administration would look like. There also seem to be significant policy differences between what you would find on the left-wing of the Democratic Party (or even just House leadership) and in the Obama administration, though perhaps there isn't much daylight between the bulk of the Senate and the Obama administration. And they aren't small differences, with matters of war and peace actually meaning not whether you support 'escalation' or any other bureaucratically stultified word but whether you support state-sponsored organized killing for dubious strategic ends.
It's part of village culture to worship 'consensus', so I understand why there is such fierce reaction against criticism of Obama from the left. But the criticism isn't baseless, it comes from those who really have different ideas about how America should be governed. I know it irritates centrists to no end that we're out here, making these arguments. It isn't though that the Obama people are clever progressives trying to make 'our' agenda seem centrist and achievable. They aren't. On many issues, they simply disagree with us about what they are trying to achieve, and have picked people who will help them achieve their policy objectives.
That's fine. But it's not that Obama is incrementally trying to achieve universal health care and we're asking for single payer tomorrow. Details matter, policies matter, personnel matters, and politics matters. In many cases, incrementalism is a difference in kind, not just a different path to the same place. While antebellum politicians could pander to anti-slavery sentiment by opposing its expansion to territories or new states while supporting slavery in the South, that wasn't ultimately a sustainable political position, nor would anyone today confuse that with taking the abolition line. Compromise for compromise sake simply avoided dealing with the problem. It's possible that today we are in a similarly polarizing position, sitting between a high trust world of localized power production and collective security and a low trust national security state with low wages and a constant race to the bottom. Incrementalism isn't a different path to the same place, it could be a different path to a different place. |
