Obama Unchained: Luther the Anger Translator No Longer Needed



Actor Keegan-Michael Key plays the part of "Luther, President Obama’s anger translator" at the White House Correspondents' dinner on Saturday, April 25, 2015.

But Obama’s impatience with the stagecraft of the White House press conference went beyond a media-celebrity spanking to hint at a long-overdue rhetorical change. Instead of trimming his arguments to accommodate opposing talking points, Obama seemed to abandon the Clintonian triangulation that’s been strangling Democrats for a quarter of a century to directly push back against the buried assumptions that tilt Beltway opinion to the right.

ABC’s Karl, for example, kicked off the presser by asking if it gives Obama “pause that that Syrian dictator Assad” and “those in Tehran who still shout ‘death to America’” are praising the deal and “yet our closest ally in the Middle East calls it a mistake of historic proportions?” (Karl ignored the Iranian wags who were shouting, brilliantly: “Death to no one! Long live life!”) Obama replied:



And on and on he went, explaining patiently that ultimately the only alternative to diplomacy is war, and answering the most common complaints about the deal...

 “Can you tell the country, sir, why you are content—with all the fanfare around this deal—to leave the conscience of this nation and the strength of this nation unaccounted for in relation to these four Americans?”

 Garrett later claimed, with even more awkward phrasing, that we didn’t hear what we thought we heard: “My question did not suggest that he’s content with the captivity of those four Americans. My question was about the contentment, or the satisfaction, or the realization that it was necessary within the context of this deal to leave them unaccounted for,” he said. “Clearly it struck a nerve. That was my intention.”

The real thrill in Obama’s press conference was his refusal to triangulate on a critical issue. That’s a kind of prison that Democrats have incarcerated themselves in for far too long.

http://www.thenation.com/article/luther-the-anger-translator-no-longer-needed-as-obama-fights-for-the-iranian-deal/