Greg Sargent on Glenn Greenwald: Are Obama's "New" Politics Really New?

Glenn Greenwald has an interesting post about the Rick Warren mess, which he uses as a jumping off point to argue that Barack Obama's "new" politics isn't really new at all.

Greenwald's basic point is that Obama's efforts to placate the right by picking Warren -- and the effort to get the left to scream that pundits have claimed was behind the decision -- isn't really different from the bait-the-left politics that Democrats have practiced for decades now. And they simply haven't worked.

As proof, he points out that Bill Clinton all but perfected the art of baiting the left and throwing cultural bones to the right, and all he got to show for it from Republicans was "hatred so undiluted that it led to endless investigations" and "accusations whose ugliness was boundless."

That's true. But there is an important way that Obama's politics is new, and the landscape is different from 1992 in key ways that give him an opening to use his own brand of politics to disarm the right and potentially clear the way for big progressive achievements.

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Old Attacks Will Fail

Add all this up, and here's the bottom line. The GOP and the right -- even if they're not co-opted by Obama's rhetoric and remain virulently hostile -- simply won't have the political latitude to obstruct and attack Obama with 1960s-style culture-war tactics, as Clinton's enemies did with attacks on his patriotism, pro-gay rhetoric and general godlessness. The crisis has raised the stakes for Obama's success, and Obama's "new politics" argument -- that it's imperative we move past old emotional disputes -- may prove an effective shield, and even a deterrent, against such tried-and-true Republican attacks, making him that much more effective.

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/12/are_obamas_new_politics_really.php

The one question I always return to when I hear this -- and we've been hearing it a lot to explain the Warren selection -- is this: in what conceivable sense is this approach "new"? Even for those who are convinced this will work, isn't this exactly the same thing Democrats have been doing for the last two decades: namely, accommodating and compromising with the Right in the name of bipartisan harmony and a desire to avoid partisan and cultural conflicts? This harmonious approach may be many things, but the one thing it seems not to be is "new."

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When have Democrats not been eager to accommodate the Right, to sacrifice their ideological beliefs and partisan goals in pursuit of post-partisan harmony, to jettison the "Left" in order to attract the Mythical, Glorious Center? When haven't they done exactly that? Isn't that everything they've been doing for two decades now, what has defined the Party at its core? In what conceivable way is this new, and why does anyone expect that it will generate different results now?

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We'll see soon enough, won't we? I agree that declaring Obama to be a fake and a failure is wildly premature and unwarranted. He's still not even inaugurated yet.

But placing one's faith and trust in him and lavishing him with praise that he hasn't earned yet is every bit as irrational, counter-productive and wildly premature. Obama is entitled to be praised for genuine convictions once he actually demonstrates that he has them, once he can point to results achieved as a result of pursuing them. That's how all politicians should be judged. Faith and proof-free trust are not appropriate or healthy for the political realm.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/12/19/obama/index.html