Ernie : You said-- two different definition of the word pragmatic. Voters use it to mean overcoming political differences to find common ground that will actually help people.
Politicians use it to mean crafting legislation in a way that every affected interest group gets something in return I don't think these are exclusive. As well, there is a third at least implicit definition contained in the old maxim, "politics is the art of the possible." In other words, if it can't be done politically, it isn't pragmatic. To which we can add a corollary, if it gets done in such a way that powerful motivation is generated to undo it, it isn't pragmatic, either. Obama probably sincerely thought he was pragmatic as well as centrist. Worse, so did everyone he knew. As Halperin said, the WH inner circle has been incredibly insular from the outset. Not the first, by any means, but especially problematic under circumstances in 2009 / 2010. Other insular admins, by way of comparison, Nixon, Carter, and, to considerable extent, but how much I just don't know, George W. In each case the outcome was failure. ---------------- A few models of how things might be different, even if, in each case there was much room for improvement and even with these good processes in place there sometimes was failure anyway -- JFK, after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, studying what went wrong, why he got such bad advice, and totally revamping inner circle procedures so that dissent was encourages without retribution ( dissent within limits ) . At the same time he cultivated good relations with the press, held frequent press conferences in which he took questions from journalists ( in stark contrast to both W and BHO ). LBJ who created an office of liaison with Congress headed by the best political mind of that era, Larry O'Brien RR, who, on arriving in DC, met personally with just about every important figure in both houses of Congress, who at least minimally worked with the opposition, I think he was friends with Tip O'Neill, too. Bubba, think Dick Morris, who, whatever criticisms anyone makes, understood politics extremely well and helped Clinton create a Left-but-with-some-openings- to-the-Right political policy. Bubba was a friend, to some extent, of Newt, also. Has Obama as much as thought about any of these approaches ? In the days after his election and maybe the first 2 or 3 months of his admin, there is some case to make that he did, at least in terms of rhetoric, but after that ? I don't see any, do you ? Billy ========================================================= message dated 10/14/2010 [email protected] writes: Sent from my iPhone On Oct 14, 2010, at 17:30, [email protected] wrote: > But instead of adopting a pragmatic approach, > some now, the rest later, he chose to go for a grand package. When I lived in Sacramento, someone explained to me there were two different definition of the word pragmatic. Voters use it to mean overcoming political differences to find common ground that will actually help people. Politicians use it to mean crafting legislation in a way that every affected interest group gets something in return. This is a real disconnect, and one reason politicians think voters are fickle. To reform politics, we may literally need a new language. Obama probably sincerely thought he was pragmatic as well as centrist. Worse, so did everyone he knew. :-(= -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
