On Jan 14, 2009, at 9:19 AM, raghu wrote:
On Tue, Jan 13, 2009 at 7:06 PM, Michael Smith <[email protected]>
wrote:
Hmmm. Interesting meta-question: Which is the null hypothesis?
The null hypothesis is the non-cynical, "Maybe this is not some grand
conspiracy by Obama to fool progressives who believe in him, but
merely the cautious opening steps of someone who finds himself in a
position of extraordinary power and responsibility and is
understandably anxious not to make a mistake."
The second part is no doubt true, or at least is the parsimonious
assumption. But the first part ("grand conspiracy by Obama") is not
the alternative hypothesis. Rather it is this one:
AFAIK Obama has:
(a) emphasised that people should take his words and actions at face
value, not try to divine motives, etc. As I keep writing here (and
others have pointed out elsewhere) there should be no reason for
"progressives" to be surprised by Obama's words or actions (and not
all "progressives" are -- for example, at the outset, a good part of
the blogistan support went to Edwards).
(b) built a top down organisation (the fact that he raised a higher
than usual amount of money from the bottom does not negate this) that
intentionally shut out other groups.
(c) has built a team that includes Biden, Summers, Gates, Clinton, so
on.
The simplest way to explain all of this is not to look for
"conspiracies" on either side: on the one hand, progressives needn't
feel duped, while on the other, leftists or others need not try to
look into his attitudes and motivations, trying to interpret his
actions in light of those. The default and simplest explanation is
that what he is and what he wants to do is vanilla Enlightenment
liberal stuff (of the highly pragmatic variety). I am willing to
believe that Clinton was much the same, except [depending on how you
look at it] Obama has the advantage of a better climate.
--ravi
--
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