11 ms·

The headline might as well be a more Onionesque "After gaining power, politician turns out not to actually hold the strongly principled views he expressed while

The headline might as well be a more Onionesque "After gaining power, politician turns out not to actually hold the strongly principled views he expressed while campaigning". I'd be surprised if Obama holds any of the views he expressed during his campaign. A campaign is a marketing effort intended to install a team of people in power. Generally speaking, the vast majority of power holders agree that aggressive spying is a good idea. This is closely related to their strong preference for maintaining the status quo across the board. We should not be surprised that Obama did not reverse any of Bush's controversial decisions because they were not actually controversial among those with power or with the potential to gain power. Generally speaking, when an issue is touted as being highly controversial between the major parties, it consists of 98% solid agreement and 2% hyped up disagreement. The disagreement and the "fray" are part of the choreographed propaganda undertaken by powerful interests to create the illusion of dissent.

rayiner 13y ago
Talking about "majority of power holders agree" is so disingenuous. See: http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/05/poll-public-supports-nsa-spying-on-their-email-neighbors-and-foreign-leaders http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/05/poll-public-supports-nsa-sp... ("As we’ve written about before, the American public has widely supported the NSA’s activities before and after the scandal. I’m no fan of the secretive spying, but if the government appears to be acting slowly on surveillance reform, it could be because they’re responding to constituents."). And this is a poll of people. If you polled likely voters, who skew older (i.e. more who lived through the cold war), you'd see even healthier margins in support of the NSA. Also, it's a bit of historical revisionism to paint Obama as extremely anti-surveillance. Yes, he opposed certain of Bush's programs, but look at the whole picture. He's answer to "what would you have done instead of going into Iraq?" was "I would have hit Afghanistan harder!" He was a candidate who was self-conscious about the perception of Democrats as being "weak on security" and campaigned to avoid that label. And on his second go, he campaigned as "the guy that killed Osama." He's been quite consistent as someone who wants to project a lot of U.S. military power abroad, and in the grand scheme of things the NSA is part and parcel of that.
- grandalf 13y ago
  Most Americans learn about the issue from media stories created by firms owned by powerful interests, so public opinion is not surprising. If you look back at the early coverage of the Snowden leaks in the NY Times, the story was reported but the paper dutifully prepped a character assassination attack on Snowden himself, while intentionally suppressing the story of James Clapper's perjury and while also avoiding suggesting that Obama owed the public an explanation.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - tptacek 13y ago
    This might or might not be true, but it is also among the oldest arguments in all of propaganda: the will of the people can't be trusted, because it's shaped by malignant elites. Often, it continues on to say that until we can fix that problem, we all need to be governed by this other group of benificent elites.
    - grandalf 13y ago
      That's not really the argument I'm making b/c I do ultimately believe it's the public's own responsibility. But nonetheless, short-term framing of issues is influenced by media, and that's often enough to nudge things quite significantly.
- untog 13y ago
  Yes. Taking on the government is the wrong fight when they are (at least broadly) representative of public opinion. The fight should be educating people on the dangers of NSA spying, something that I haven't really seen anyone try to do. All commentary comes from the perspective that "NSA = bad" is already a given.
  - grandalf 13y ago
    Hmm. How can the public have an opinion about a secret program? If a leaker revealed that the government had a secret underground concentration camp below the Arizona desert would you view that to be the result of dutiful fulfillment of public service?
nsns 13y ago
"A campaign is a marketing effort intended to install a team of people in power." You've just described the current crisis of representational democracy.
- brd 13y ago
  Any campaign will be a marketing effort in any context. The crisis is that the marketing effort is the only data point that most of the voting population considers prior to the vote. Without an informed population there is no incentive for honest campaigns.
  - aaronem 13y ago
    You can turn that argument around just as easily; without honest campaigns, there is no incentive for an informed population, because there is no meaningful chance for popular support to elevate a candidate running an honest campaign to the same heights attained by those to whom all weapons are friends.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
    - brd 13y ago
      Politicians are public figures by definition. There is plenty of information out there to make informed decisions with or without the existence of honest campaigns. The only reason there is "no meaningful chance for popular support" of an honest candidate is because the voting population doesn't reward it; and perhaps more importantly, the voting population doesn't punish dishonesty.
      - aaronem 13y ago
        > There is plenty of information out there to make informed decisions It's funny you should say that, given the number of people who thought they were making informed decisions to support Obama, especially in 2008, and who have since found so many reasons to feel so deeply betrayed. Short of mind-reading, I'm not sure how you imagine it possible for citizens, almost all of whom have lives to lead which do not revolve around the ambitions of the current crop of politicians, to inform themselves in as accurate and precise a fashion as you seem to consider trivial; for almost everyone, it comes down to a choice among competing sets of analysts, all of whom arrogate unto themselves the mantle of reliable authority, and all of whom have not only equal reason to lie in support of their own desiderata, but equal lack of compunction to dissuade them from such mendacity. (That's why they call corruption corruption; like any rot, it spreads.) As for "punish[ing] dishonesty", I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on precisely what benefit there is in choosing one pack of liars over another. Given the track record of American politicians, and especially of American presidential candidates, favoring one in particular seems less likely to succeed at "punish[ing] dishonesty" than to act as a strong selective pressure in favor of the most skillful and least scrupulous liars available -- something I'd argue was not just perceptible but obvious in modern American politics, except that I think the presidency has been the province of liars since at least as far back as Andrew Jackson.
cjf4 13y ago
The portion of the status quo most related to spying is "Safe and Peaceful", so not sure I blame him.
tunap 13y ago
"I'd be surprised if Obama holds any of the views he expressed during his campaign." His nomination of the original author of the Patriot Act[1] to be his running mate was my confirmation that we were no longer one choice away from a dictatorship. Geitner & Gates' retention was just salt in the wound. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus_Counterterrorism_Act_of_1995 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus_Counterterrorism_Act_o...
psaintla 13y ago
Does it really have to be that cynical? Don't you think it is entirely possible pre-2008 Obama's opinions were formed with the same information as the rest of us and post-2008 Obama received more information (national security briefings) that completely blew away his belief system? I don't agree with much of what the Obama administration has done regarding domestic and international surveillance but I always feel like we should give ALL Presidents a little slack when it comes to these things because they have two burdens that the rest of us do not. Information and the responsibility to act on that information.
- aaronem 13y ago
  Well, to be sure, the job always seems to turn their hair white. On the other hand, I'm easily cynical enough to wonder whether a modern president's staff hairdresser is expected to have an unusual degree of skill with dyes and bleaches.
  - afterburner 13y ago
    Or: Before election: dye hair, look energetic. After election: don't bother dyeing, look like you're settling into the position.
- grandalf 13y ago
  Good point. I used to be more sympathetic to that line of reasoning. It's tightly coupled to the argument for the existence of state secrets... granting the state the power not to act in a fully transparent manner. How might any institution act if it wanted to earn the credibility to behave in a way that was non-transparent to its constituents? A firm might pay out consistent dividends or go public and comply with the additional regulatory requirements. A government might declassify information as quickly as possible to prove that information was classified judiciously (once the classified status was no longer needed). In the US, there is still lots of classified information that is decades old. Clearly the government feels no need to earn its credibility when it comes to what information may be classified and for what purpose (or for how long). For a long time this was fine b/c the public had no good reason not to trust. Things like WikiLeaks and Snowden's leaks have given us insight into the kinds of things that are classified. The most damning in my opinion were the WikiLeaks revelations that information was classified during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars that effectively filters out bad news from the information available to reporters. This is not judicious use of secrecy, it's using secrecy to achieve a propaganda motive. Snowden's leaks reveal more than just the existence of a secret program, they reveal that the program was deliberately extralegal and far-reaching in a way that normal legal and law enforcement processes would never have allowed to happen. It comes down to the question of whether we value (at a basic level) the rule of law, or if we prefer to be ruled by a trusted council of elders that makes secret decisions on our behalf without any kind of transparency or accountability.
downandout 13y ago
I'd be surprised if Obama holds any of the views he expressed during his campaign. A campaign is a marketing effort intended to install a team of people in power. Usually we at least get to learn about candidates' fundamental views before electing them. A pro-life candidate, for example, isn't suddenly going to change that view after taking office. Even the much-maligned George Bush generally acted in keeping with the fundamental beliefs that he told the country he held prior to his election. This is what is so disturbing about Obama and his supporters. He told them bald faced lies about his fundamental views, and is fairly unapologetic about it. Even worse, the vast majority of his supporters are OK with that. They have shown politicians that lying to us is fine as long as the lies are delivered with enough polish. That paves the way for even more egregious activities going forward.
- alexeisadeski3 13y ago
  >Even the much-maligned George Bush generally acted in keeping with the fundamental beliefs that he told the country he held prior to his election. Bush promised a humble foreign policy with no nation building. He had criticized the Clinton-Gore Administration for being too interventionist: "If we don't stop extending our troops all around the world in nation-building missions, then we're going to have a serious problem coming down the road. And I'm going to prevent that." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush_presidential_campaign,_2000#Platform http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush_presidential_cam...
  - downandout 13y ago
    This statement was made pre-9/11 - an event that changed many things. But even this wasn't a dramatic shift in his views. If anything, Bush's reaction to 9/11 reinforced the image he presented prior to his election. Whether you agreed with his views or not, few would argue that his reaction came entirely out of left field. By contrast, this NSA/Obama issue proves that we simply don't know the person that is sitting in the White House right now. We only know that he lied through his teeth to get there.
    - 13y ago
joering2 13y ago
> We should not be surprised that Obama did not reverse any of Bush's controversial decisions because they were not actually controversial among those with power or with the potential to gain power. We are not surprised out of the blue; we are deeply disappointed, as he clearly won elections based on promises he pretty much knew he cannot keep. Similarly this would be like getting into relationship based on trust and someone shows you their big house, their boat, their company, claim they can have children and care about animals, while within a time, it turns out that person is a neutered scumbag that runs a horse-kill house and that house and boat was his friend. And then he tells you "what do you expected honey, I wanted to be with you, this is normal that I lied otherwise I wouldn't win your affections". Sure, plenty of us could do that; its just a matter of choosing one or another side of life: good or bad. If Obama knew he cannot change anything and continue anyways, he's just a scumbag like any other scam artist.
dragonwriter 13y ago
> I'd be surprised if Obama holds any of the views he expressed during his campaign. The evidence during his time in office and the battles he has chosen to fight from the White House suggests that the view he expressed during the campaign about the critical importance of health care reform toward a more universal system is, in fact, one that he holds in office. On a less policy and more meta-political level there are, I would say, quite a few indications that his frequently expressed view that people who want change must "be the change [they] want" and not rely on getting some figure in office and then expecting change to magically happen on its own is also a belief he holds honestly in office.
- mpyne 13y ago
  > I would say, quite a few indications that his frequently expressed view that people who want change must "be the change [they] want" and not rely on getting some figure in office and then expecting change to magically happen on its own is also a belief he holds honestly in office. A view he also expressed during a memorial I attended for the Washington Navy Yard shootings, in regards to gun control for those with mental illnesses. Sadly I think he's right.
fleitz 13y ago
Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
dkl 13y ago
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/ Promises kept: 45% Compromised: 25% Broken: 22% Stalled: 1% In the works: 6% not rated: 1% Your comment resonated with me, then I decided to check the facts.
- angrybits 13y ago
  Yeah you can tell that that those are facts, because it says so right there in the domain name.
  - dkl 13y ago
    Yeah you can tell that that those are facts, because it says so right there in the domain name. Wow, you're adding a lot to this discussion.
  - mpyne 13y ago
    You're one of those "when the facts aren't with you, pound the table" types, eh?
joe_the_user 13y ago
And you throw-in the even more Onionesque: "A review of candidates speeches reveals the apparent 'strong principles' were actually a clever packaging of euphemisms, glittering generalities, rainbow-ruses and Barnum-statements" I think Obama probably holds those small number of positions he unambiguously stated as a Candidate. He like doesn't hold doesn't hold the positions that he seemed to articulate but didn't really, unambiguously assert. Which is of the things people thought he said. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda
afterburner 13y ago
Come on now. He's still a Democrat, with Democratic views, hardly pursuing the agendas the Republicans were pursuing before (for example, trying to get rid of social security; do you remember all the Bush town halls on that?). He's not going to suddenly oppose abortion. First and foremost on his platform was bringing back bipartisanship in Washington. And he sure tried his damndest to do that, trying time and time again to compromise with Republicans, trying to get them on board, trying to meet them halfway. That was him keeping that promise, and it's one I think he fundamentally believes in. He's always trying to build a consensus, not trying to be a firebrand. If others chose to ignore that repeated refrain in his campaigning, then too bad. He also expended nearly all his initial political capital on health care, as promised. And reformed health care. Please let's not forget this, as it's skewered the Democrats more than once in the last 50 years.

rayiner 13y ago

Talking about "majority of power holders agree" is so disingenuous. See: http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/05/poll-public-supports-nsa-spying-on-their-email-neighbors-and-foreign-leaders http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/05/poll-public-supports-nsa-sp... ("As we’ve written about before, the American public has widely supported the NSA’s activities before and after the scandal. I’m no fan of the secretive spying, but if the government appears to be acting slowly on surveillance reform, it could be because they’re responding to constituents."). And this is a poll of people. If you polled likely voters, who skew older (i.e. more who lived through the cold war), you'd see even healthier margins in support of the NSA. Also, it's a bit of historical revisionism to paint Obama as extremely anti-surveillance. Yes, he opposed certain of Bush's programs, but look at the whole picture. He's answer to "what would you have done instead of going into Iraq?" was "I would have hit Afghanistan harder!" He was a candidate who was self-conscious about the perception of Democrats as being "weak on security" and campaigned to avoid that label. And on his second go, he campaigned as "the guy that killed Osama." He's been quite consistent as someone who wants to project a lot of U.S. military power abroad, and in the grand scheme of things the NSA is part and parcel of that.

grandalf 13y ago
Most Americans learn about the issue from media stories created by firms owned by powerful interests, so public opinion is not surprising. If you look back at the early coverage of the Snowden leaks in the NY Times, the story was reported but the paper dutifully prepped a character assassination attack on Snowden himself, while intentionally suppressing the story of James Clapper's perjury and while also avoiding suggesting that Obama owed the public an explanation.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- tptacek 13y ago
  This might or might not be true, but it is also among the oldest arguments in all of propaganda: the will of the people can't be trusted, because it's shaped by malignant elites. Often, it continues on to say that until we can fix that problem, we all need to be governed by this other group of benificent elites.
  - grandalf 13y ago
    That's not really the argument I'm making b/c I do ultimately believe it's the public's own responsibility. But nonetheless, short-term framing of issues is influenced by media, and that's often enough to nudge things quite significantly.
untog 13y ago
Yes. Taking on the government is the wrong fight when they are (at least broadly) representative of public opinion. The fight should be educating people on the dangers of NSA spying, something that I haven't really seen anyone try to do. All commentary comes from the perspective that "NSA = bad" is already a given.
- grandalf 13y ago
  Hmm. How can the public have an opinion about a secret program? If a leaker revealed that the government had a secret underground concentration camp below the Arizona desert would you view that to be the result of dutiful fulfillment of public service?

nsns 13y ago

"A campaign is a marketing effort intended to install a team of people in power." You've just described the current crisis of representational democracy.

brd 13y ago
Any campaign will be a marketing effort in any context. The crisis is that the marketing effort is the only data point that most of the voting population considers prior to the vote. Without an informed population there is no incentive for honest campaigns.
- aaronem 13y ago
  You can turn that argument around just as easily; without honest campaigns, there is no incentive for an informed population, because there is no meaningful chance for popular support to elevate a candidate running an honest campaign to the same heights attained by those to whom all weapons are friends.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
  - brd 13y ago
    Politicians are public figures by definition. There is plenty of information out there to make informed decisions with or without the existence of honest campaigns. The only reason there is "no meaningful chance for popular support" of an honest candidate is because the voting population doesn't reward it; and perhaps more importantly, the voting population doesn't punish dishonesty.
    - aaronem 13y ago
      > There is plenty of information out there to make informed decisions It's funny you should say that, given the number of people who thought they were making informed decisions to support Obama, especially in 2008, and who have since found so many reasons to feel so deeply betrayed. Short of mind-reading, I'm not sure how you imagine it possible for citizens, almost all of whom have lives to lead which do not revolve around the ambitions of the current crop of politicians, to inform themselves in as accurate and precise a fashion as you seem to consider trivial; for almost everyone, it comes down to a choice among competing sets of analysts, all of whom arrogate unto themselves the mantle of reliable authority, and all of whom have not only equal reason to lie in support of their own desiderata, but equal lack of compunction to dissuade them from such mendacity. (That's why they call corruption corruption; like any rot, it spreads.) As for "punish[ing] dishonesty", I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on precisely what benefit there is in choosing one pack of liars over another. Given the track record of American politicians, and especially of American presidential candidates, favoring one in particular seems less likely to succeed at "punish[ing] dishonesty" than to act as a strong selective pressure in favor of the most skillful and least scrupulous liars available -- something I'd argue was not just perceptible but obvious in modern American politics, except that I think the presidency has been the province of liars since at least as far back as Andrew Jackson.

cjf4 13y ago

The portion of the status quo most related to spying is "Safe and Peaceful", so not sure I blame him.

tunap 13y ago

"I'd be surprised if Obama holds any of the views he expressed during his campaign." His nomination of the original author of the Patriot Act[1] to be his running mate was my confirmation that we were no longer one choice away from a dictatorship. Geitner & Gates' retention was just salt in the wound. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus_Counterterrorism_Act_of_1995 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus_Counterterrorism_Act_o...

psaintla 13y ago

Does it really have to be that cynical? Don't you think it is entirely possible pre-2008 Obama's opinions were formed with the same information as the rest of us and post-2008 Obama received more information (national security briefings) that completely blew away his belief system? I don't agree with much of what the Obama administration has done regarding domestic and international surveillance but I always feel like we should give ALL Presidents a little slack when it comes to these things because they have two burdens that the rest of us do not. Information and the responsibility to act on that information.

aaronem 13y ago
Well, to be sure, the job always seems to turn their hair white. On the other hand, I'm easily cynical enough to wonder whether a modern president's staff hairdresser is expected to have an unusual degree of skill with dyes and bleaches.
- afterburner 13y ago
  Or: Before election: dye hair, look energetic. After election: don't bother dyeing, look like you're settling into the position.
grandalf 13y ago
Good point. I used to be more sympathetic to that line of reasoning. It's tightly coupled to the argument for the existence of state secrets... granting the state the power not to act in a fully transparent manner. How might any institution act if it wanted to earn the credibility to behave in a way that was non-transparent to its constituents? A firm might pay out consistent dividends or go public and comply with the additional regulatory requirements. A government might declassify information as quickly as possible to prove that information was classified judiciously (once the classified status was no longer needed). In the US, there is still lots of classified information that is decades old. Clearly the government feels no need to earn its credibility when it comes to what information may be classified and for what purpose (or for how long). For a long time this was fine b/c the public had no good reason not to trust. Things like WikiLeaks and Snowden's leaks have given us insight into the kinds of things that are classified. The most damning in my opinion were the WikiLeaks revelations that information was classified during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars that effectively filters out bad news from the information available to reporters. This is not judicious use of secrecy, it's using secrecy to achieve a propaganda motive. Snowden's leaks reveal more than just the existence of a secret program, they reveal that the program was deliberately extralegal and far-reaching in a way that normal legal and law enforcement processes would never have allowed to happen. It comes down to the question of whether we value (at a basic level) the rule of law, or if we prefer to be ruled by a trusted council of elders that makes secret decisions on our behalf without any kind of transparency or accountability.

downandout 13y ago

I'd be surprised if Obama holds any of the views he expressed during his campaign. A campaign is a marketing effort intended to install a team of people in power. Usually we at least get to learn about candidates' fundamental views before electing them. A pro-life candidate, for example, isn't suddenly going to change that view after taking office. Even the much-maligned George Bush generally acted in keeping with the fundamental beliefs that he told the country he held prior to his election. This is what is so disturbing about Obama and his supporters. He told them bald faced lies about his fundamental views, and is fairly unapologetic about it. Even worse, the vast majority of his supporters are OK with that. They have shown politicians that lying to us is fine as long as the lies are delivered with enough polish. That paves the way for even more egregious activities going forward.

alexeisadeski3 13y ago
>Even the much-maligned George Bush generally acted in keeping with the fundamental beliefs that he told the country he held prior to his election. Bush promised a humble foreign policy with no nation building. He had criticized the Clinton-Gore Administration for being too interventionist: "If we don't stop extending our troops all around the world in nation-building missions, then we're going to have a serious problem coming down the road. And I'm going to prevent that." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush_presidential_campaign,_2000#Platform http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush_presidential_cam...
- downandout 13y ago
  This statement was made pre-9/11 - an event that changed many things. But even this wasn't a dramatic shift in his views. If anything, Bush's reaction to 9/11 reinforced the image he presented prior to his election. Whether you agreed with his views or not, few would argue that his reaction came entirely out of left field. By contrast, this NSA/Obama issue proves that we simply don't know the person that is sitting in the White House right now. We only know that he lied through his teeth to get there.
  - 13y ago

joering2 13y ago

> We should not be surprised that Obama did not reverse any of Bush's controversial decisions because they were not actually controversial among those with power or with the potential to gain power. We are not surprised out of the blue; we are deeply disappointed, as he clearly won elections based on promises he pretty much knew he cannot keep. Similarly this would be like getting into relationship based on trust and someone shows you their big house, their boat, their company, claim they can have children and care about animals, while within a time, it turns out that person is a neutered scumbag that runs a horse-kill house and that house and boat was his friend. And then he tells you "what do you expected honey, I wanted to be with you, this is normal that I lied otherwise I wouldn't win your affections". Sure, plenty of us could do that; its just a matter of choosing one or another side of life: good or bad. If Obama knew he cannot change anything and continue anyways, he's just a scumbag like any other scam artist.

dragonwriter 13y ago

> I'd be surprised if Obama holds any of the views he expressed during his campaign. The evidence during his time in office and the battles he has chosen to fight from the White House suggests that the view he expressed during the campaign about the critical importance of health care reform toward a more universal system is, in fact, one that he holds in office. On a less policy and more meta-political level there are, I would say, quite a few indications that his frequently expressed view that people who want change must "be the change [they] want" and not rely on getting some figure in office and then expecting change to magically happen on its own is also a belief he holds honestly in office.

mpyne 13y ago
> I would say, quite a few indications that his frequently expressed view that people who want change must "be the change [they] want" and not rely on getting some figure in office and then expecting change to magically happen on its own is also a belief he holds honestly in office. A view he also expressed during a memorial I attended for the Washington Navy Yard shootings, in regards to gun control for those with mental illnesses. Sadly I think he's right.

fleitz 13y ago

Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

dkl 13y ago

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/ Promises kept: 45% Compromised: 25% Broken: 22% Stalled: 1% In the works: 6% not rated: 1% Your comment resonated with me, then I decided to check the facts.

angrybits 13y ago
Yeah you can tell that that those are facts, because it says so right there in the domain name.
- dkl 13y ago
  Yeah you can tell that that those are facts, because it says so right there in the domain name. Wow, you're adding a lot to this discussion.
- mpyne 13y ago
  You're one of those "when the facts aren't with you, pound the table" types, eh?

joe_the_user 13y ago

And you throw-in the even more Onionesque: "A review of candidates speeches reveals the apparent 'strong principles' were actually a clever packaging of euphemisms, glittering generalities, rainbow-ruses and Barnum-statements" I think Obama probably holds those small number of positions he unambiguously stated as a Candidate. He like doesn't hold doesn't hold the positions that he seemed to articulate but didn't really, unambiguously assert. Which is of the things people thought he said. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda

afterburner 13y ago

Come on now. He's still a Democrat, with Democratic views, hardly pursuing the agendas the Republicans were pursuing before (for example, trying to get rid of social security; do you remember all the Bush town halls on that?). He's not going to suddenly oppose abortion. First and foremost on his platform was bringing back bipartisanship in Washington. And he sure tried his damndest to do that, trying time and time again to compromise with Republicans, trying to get them on board, trying to meet them halfway. That was him keeping that promise, and it's one I think he fundamentally believes in. He's always trying to build a consensus, not trying to be a firebrand. If others chose to ignore that repeated refrain in his campaigning, then too bad. He also expended nearly all his initial political capital on health care, as promised. And reformed health care. Please let's not forget this, as it's skewered the Democrats more than once in the last 50 years.