Fidel. Long time, Brooklyn. You ever been to the King George Hotel? Seen a street called Grace Court, down by the river? I was just thinking about the old Kunstler this morning. That dude would have flamed this place ! At least he is remembered in some quarters.

I expected a flaming. This is making me uneasy.

All triangulation has accomplished is to move the country further to the right. The premise is that we have no good arguments to make so we'll figure out how to put lipstick on the elephants's arguments and make them our own. We only fool ourselves. All we do is enable the Republicans to win even when they lose.

For me the Iraq War was the last straw though I rally to fight the battles against FISA, etc. knowing in my heart that each battle is as futile as the one before. When you have a party that will sign on to a $3 trillion war and charge it to our children's future, how much worse can it get? Oh, another war with Iran, see Evan Bayh's new bill. I await his choice as VP in the "change" administration.

You are confused between centrism and triangulation, between pragmatism for the sake of policy goals and pragmatism for the sake of political goals. You mistake (means) willingness to compromise with the absence of principle (ends).

Clinton's "triangulation" was explicitly a political tactic to further a purely political goal--to get elected. (it became especially necessary after the failure to get things done in the first 2 years when there was a democratic Congress).

Obama has never promised an ideological (left-right)transformation. (He is not running to usher in the ascendancy of the Left Wing of the democratic party, for example). Quite the opposite. He has said the left-right division, among other factors, prevents us from making progress on the actual problems we need to deal with. One transformation then is to actually get things done. To suspend our purely political conflicts for the sake of material progress.

Your discussion of the health care, and social security issues illustrate your blindness on this issue. You cannot get out of putting actual policy options in political frames rather than in policy terms. You can't separate the two. The republican frame on health care is to do nothing, not to subsidize coverage for everyone who wants it. Their position on Social Security is not to reject private accounts and raise taxes on the highest wage earners. There might have been a time when we looked at those issues and said what is the best answer for our country. Now we just say what can I say to beat the crap out of the other side at the polls. If you do not think that is "transformational enough", fine. I would suggest you study the gas tax issue as the perfect example of doing the right thing not the political thing.

Obama *has* offered a clear transformation of democratic political engagement. Replacing the power of wealthy special interests with the power of civic engagement. E.g transforming electoral finance, making government more transparent

Whether he can accomplish that or not is pretty much up to the people themselves.

I'm pretty sure Clinton wasn't peddling this at all (instead you can make the argument that the DLC project was about getting the wealthy interests on your side). The lofty rhetoric speaks mostly to this transformation, to motivate people to assume the responsibility for making their government responsive to their needs.

Obama *has* offered a clear transformation of democratic political engagement. Replacing the power of wealthy special interests with the power of civic engagement.

By protecting those wealthy special interests? What?

You don't get it. He LIED. How is lying to get the nomination then pandering to the right any kind of change at all? Short answer: It ain't. Your pathetic non-reality based apology for his disturbing behavior is ridiculous. How does Obama differ from the Clintons? Answer: He isn't as honest as they are.

Good grief!

That isn't saying very much, is it.

But hey, don't blame me, i voted for Edwards.

Asking in all sincerity, because maybe I missed the implication, but

when did he forcefully denounce triangulation? I think he's a proud triangulator.

I always took his "new politics" rhetoric to be referring to triangulation or "third way". He does it by dissing red v. blue divide, that's his favorite theme.

It's one of his favorite themes, which he broke out to the national stage in his 2004 convention keynote speech, i.e.,

...the pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an "awesome God" in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America....

a speech which I basically saw as repeating a lot of Bill Clinton's nomination acceptance speech in 1992:

...Tonight every one of you knows deep in your heart that we are too divided. It is time to heal America.

And so we must say to every American: Look beyond the stereotypes that blind us. We need each other - all of us - we need each other. We don’t have a person to waste, and yet for too long politicians have told the most of us that are doing all right that what’s really wrong with America is the rest of us- them.

Them, the minorities. Them, the liberals. Them, the poor. Them, the homeless. Them, the people with disabilities. Them, the gays.

We’ve gotten to where we’ve nearly them'ed ourselves to death. Them, and them, and them.

But, this is America. There is no them. There is only us.

One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

That, that, is our Pledge of Allegiance, and that’s what the New Covenant is all about.

How do I know we can come together and make change happen? Because I have seen it in my own state. In Arkansas, we are working together, and we are making progress....

I watched Obama as he went on to purposefully lecture Daily Kos denizens in 2005 about triangulation, dis the netroots again in New York magazine in 2006, triangulate the Lieberman/Lamont situation, give a speech on religion in 2006 that caused a blogstorm because it suggested a need to reach out to people of faith, disinvited Rev. Wright on from his announcement to run and told him previously that he might have to distance himself, didn't dump Donnie McClurkin from festivities after gay protests but instead invited a gay preacher to add to the mix, etc.--there are more examples I can come up with if ya want, the frequent use of the "present" vote in Illinois is an example.

I always saw him as preparing himself to follow in Bill Clinton's shoes and the whole tradition of the DLC (what it was originally founded for, if you know its history) as a triangulator or "third way" practitioner, the alternative to the red v. blue divide.

I think that the primary race ended up with him and Hillary as the contenders really threw his long-laid plans to easily slide into the next Bill Clinton for a loop. From all I've read of his decision to throw his hat in, he knew it was risky to run with her in there but he surveyed what might happen after another Clinton administration and didn't think a better opening to run would occur, and correctly interpreted that it was impossible for the a Clinton to run with the "change" theme as well as his could. (Clinton/Gore used "change" as often as he did, if you recall, the comedians made more hay of hearing the word back then than they did this time around.)

I recall a good article interviewing fellow Senators early this year about "what does Obama really believe?" Consensus was basically "heck if I know, just can't tell," because he triangulates so well.

This is why I was so amazed to watch the circus on this blog and similar blogs. So much anomosity about two candidates that could not possibly be more alike.

Granted, Hillary is not Bill. But it's ironic, because she is pretty close, she had more of the latte liberal negatives from her history, but over her term in the Senate, I believe (as a constituent) that she became more Bill-like, and that would have eventually shown in the general if she were the one that won.

They were running as nearly identical triangulators, that's why the race came down to such personal things.

His past modus operandi, everything I've read about him, always appeared to me setting himself up to inherit the Bill Clinton mantle and that of the DLC and "third way." The times and other things didn't work out for him that way. He had to differeniate himself from Hillary, and he did it by playing to his strengths, his inspirational speeches and charisma, by being vague and letting himself be a blank slate so as not to offend those further left until after the primary was over, and by offering a health care position different from hers because she has a failure on her record with the general public in that regard.

He has said the left-right division, among other factors, prevents us from making progress on the actual problems we need to deal with. One transformation then is to actually get things done. To suspend our purely political conflicts for the sake of material progress.

I have to extend apologies to Armchair Guerilla because I posted the above comments without reading his post carefully enough before commenting. I see he has this link:

Obama criticized triangulation.

But I would point out Greg Sargent's summary line there:

One could, of course, interpret Obama's line as criticism of Hillary, not Bill, for triangulating

and it was one statement at one primary campaign stop, and his use of the terminology was in order to trumpet his wisdom about the Iraq war as opposed to Hillary. He always used that to sell himself to the left in a primary situation, and why shouldn't he? I suspect if he was talking candidly, he would say "I am more skillful than her because I know there are certain things you don't triangulate about lightly."

Notice how the A.P. tried to gin it up to make it more exciting as an attack on Bill Clinton's presidency, but Greg Sargent wasn't buying the hyperbole.

He himself never attacked Hillary as hard as several of the other primary candidates would have in his place. Lots of people got snookered into interpreting things as attacks on the Clinton administration by the media, and many spun it that way here, but I didn't see it that much in his campaign. He just picked out Hillary's weaknesses as opposed to him and worked on those.

The Iraq war thing was a great strength for him and he used it. Especially because when you got into "well, ok, but what do we do now about Iraq?" he'd have a hard time making a big show of difference between the two of them.

Got any other examples? I didn't even notice that one when it happened. I am saying that because maybe it is my remembered narrative of the whole campaign that's faulty, maybe I was paying attention to the wrong things, sincerely, that's why I am asking.

Just for your information, triangulate is an old an honorable concept, not one coined by Dick Morris or any other late 20th century hack.

It's basic meaning is to find something by finding several approximations of its location. It has applications in finding signals, such as overcoming the uncertainty of GPS locations, and in finding psychological states such as attitudes, where individuals may be unwilling or even unable to express their actual attitude.

The application in politics, where it means finding the sweet spot where the most voters will support the candidate, really reflects a secondary concern which is a candidate who MAY have no principles.

I realize that most people on this blog are very well informed about FISA, but my mother doesn't know anything about it. Neither does my older brother. I know some, but not enough to debate the issues with authority. My point is, I'm just wondering if anyone here would make a guess as to what percentage of Americans are truly informed on this issue. Just wondering.

Since Dickerson asked the question, Obama has (1) given a hawkish speech before AIPAC, (2) announced his support for the FISA “compromise” that looks awfully similar to previous versions he had opposed, and (3) expressed his disagreement with the Supreme Court decision rejecting the death penalty in cases of child rape.

1. Everyone gives hawkish speeches before AIUPAC. Obama had to give an especially strong one because of the reputed large number of Jews who distrust him. However, one his foreign policy is pretty clear: he'll talk to anyone, with suitable preparations. He's been pounded on that since one of the early debates. Of all the candidates, he probably has the greatest cachet among Arabs and is the most likely to make positive progress on the Palestinian issue. Being a hawk on Israel is hardly triangulating. Triangulating between what?

2. The FISA bill is not worth getting defeated over. What we need to do is prevent that massive invasion of very limited privacy. The government illegally obtained trillions of packets of information, each packet containing two telephone numbers, a time and date, and a length of call. The odds that any of us got looked at is minuscule. Of course the invasion was wrong. Congress can hold hearings next year, with a real power of subpoena, to find out what happened. Perhaps the Justice Department can prosecute the telecoms. Monetary judgments against the telecoms -- almost all of them -- will just result in higher rates for us. Where's the triangulation in extending the FISA court (and he won't ignore the law like Bush), fighting for repeal of immunity, and not giving the Republicans an issue. Obama did not propose this bill, as Clinton did in his triangulation. His only involvement is his vote. Why do you think this suggests that Obama will propose triangulating legislation as president.

3. The rape of children disturbs most Americans, even though it probably occurs quite a lot. The issue is completely irrelevant to Obama or any president. He can't possibly triangulate on anything here. This is solely a state matter. So Obama was asked his opinion. He could have been Dukakis calmly opposing the death penalty for the man who (hypothetically) raped and murdered his wife. If he supported the decision, there's no way he could explain his choice to most Americans. He does favor the death penalty so there's no moral problem. This was a lose-lose situation. He chose to offend you and not lose bunches of votes. So what. The court decided and no one can change that.

Two of your examples involves talk, which is hardly active triangulation. The third example involves one of the hundreds of compromises lawmakers make.

Blue-listed. Man these low-lives are workin' overtime. One day you help a pic establish himself, the next it's afraid its clones won't hug it. Fidel, my ass.

Since Dickerson asked the question, Obama has (1) given a hawkish speech before AIPAC, (2) announced his support for the FISA “compromise” that looks awfully similar to previous versions he had opposed, and (3) expressed his disagreement with the Supreme Court decision rejecting the death penalty in cases of child rape.

Thanks to everyone for the recommendations, comments and lively discussion.

"...but those who believed Obama would somehow rise above the fray are either naïve in the extreme or deluded."

Realism is a notorious trap for quitters and pessimists with no vision. If Bill Gates was realistic, he would have accepted it when experts told him he was unrealistic to believe that Americans would ever want computers in the home. We would not know the names of Martin Luther King, Gandi, George Washington and many others if they had beens so quick to accept other people's definitions of what is realistic.

You've just called millions of Americans deluded for having the AUDACITY to HOPE for Obama's promises of CHANGE. Maybe that's extreme? I say it is dangerous to lower expectations to avoid disappointment, because low expectations just perpetuate the status quo and bring even greater disappointment.

Now that Obama has the nomination, too many have come out to lower Obama-expectations. If "the times make the man," then we need to raise our expectations, not lower them. In a healthy democracy, it would seem active voters can "make the man," so let's think carefully before we lower our expectation and start talking about what's "realistic."

Here is an audacious notion: Bush and both parties in Congress got away with mass destruction much due to the fact that voters had been complacent for decades and expecting our democracy of the people to run itself--not to mention the daily doses of corporate media koolaid meant to keep voters in a fog. Perhaps many just figured somebody else was keeping watch and nothing too outrageous would ever happen.

But during this election process, more voters have started to pay attention, much thanks to Edwards and Obama. That attention has caused many voters to become more informed which enables voters to see how audacious and incompetent most of our representatives have become. More informed voters will be much better able to spot representatives who need to go and that's where change begins.

The term "common sense" comes to mind. Yes, many voted for Bush twice, but that was not based on knowledge, it was due to blind, lazy trust. Things have changed: more voters are now taking steps to become more informed.

Obama is welcome to lead his own movement, but it could turn out he's not as hopeful as he claimed. So this voter has the audacity to hope that we voters will lead by putting pressure on Congress and Obama until "the times" make competent men and women out of our representatives.