Below, Ramesh makes a very good point about how the “the policy and the rhetoric are at war with each other.”
One could say the same about the presidency and the policy. I was struck by how Obama — like his pre-spinners — kept hammering the claim that he was behaving like every president before him. From the Washington Post’s transcript:
The actions I’m [sic] taken are not only lawful, they’re the kinds of actions taken by every single Republican president and every single Democratic president for the past half century.
(I’m assuming that “sic” is due to a transcription error.)
Here’s the problem. This is the way this president and his fans always sell his policies. They mock, ridicule, snark, smirk, wink, and guffaw at any notion he’s a radical or an ideologue when the action he wants to take is under debate. It’s just a modest this, a pragmatic that, an incremental the other thing. But once it’s a fait accompli, it’s a Big F’ing Deal — to borrow a phrase from the vice president. Right now, what Obama wants to do is par for the course for every president. Why, it would be weird if he didn’t give 5 million people amnesty. But I have no doubt that in the minutes, days, or, at the most, weeks to come I will be getting emails from the DNC telling me this a bold, historic, revolutionary piece of legislation executive action. And if not the DNC, then Salon & Co. will make that case for the DNC.
Obamacare was sold under similar circumstances. It was “modest,” “reasonable,” “incremental,” right up until it was passed. Then, suddenly, it was proof positive Obama delivered on his promise to fundamentally transform America.
In other words, everyone is an idiot for thinking Obama is doing anything radical right up to and until he does it. Then, suddenly, it’s “All Hail Obama for His Great Leap Forward!”