Interesting commentary

[eleri]

On Matt Steinglass blog, found via Andrew Sullivan

I missed an excellent post the other day from Spencer Ackerman citing Trita Parsi of the NIAC:

It was important, Parsi said, for any non-Iranian organization wishing to show solidarity with the opposition to ensure that “anything they do is two steps behind the opposition and not two steps ahead.”

I just wanted to point out that this has always been Obama’s MO. He’s always a step or two behind where his supporters want him to be, getting pulled along by their enthusiasm, rather than out ahead of them where he might get cut off. It’s a community organizer’s MO. You never get out ahead of your constituency. Instead you shape the playing field so that your constituency’s desires flow towards where you think they should go, and allow them to carry you along behind them.

Very interesting. I wonder where this fits in to his seeming backtracking on GLBT issues lately. White House officials are reiterating his commitment to GLBT reform, even in the wake of recent dissapointments.

Richard Kim, a senior editor at The Nation magazine says while Obama has disappointed the gay community, he still has some time to make good on his campaign promises. "I think people will wait through the first two legislative sessions,but then after that some of this stuff does need to move to the front,"

From the same article:

White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama will keep his word.
"[Extending benefits to same-sex couples] is a matter of fairness. The president is committed to ensuring that fairness as well as working on and fulfilling other promises that he has made in the campaign around things like 'don't ask, don't tell,' " Gibbs said.

Hmm, interesting... get the GLBT community wriled up and very vocal, and then step up, so it looks like your reacting to the populace, not trying to change things and convincing people it's what should happen?

Hmmm.

Comments

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Maybe, and if so then why the heck not as long as it gets the thing done, but I'd have thought if he were doing that the time to step up would be now when the anger is fresh, not a couple of legislative sessions down the line. I like the other theory I read else-LJ; that the plan is for the courts to strike down the brief, thus making it impossible for the other side to (a) use those arguments themselves, or (b) accuse Obama of destroying the sanctity of "real" marriage.

But yes, it's a perfectly valid way to lead. When a shepherd wants his flock in a pen, he doesn't stride boldly in there and then turn round and say "join me." He stands at the back while his dogs work to create the impression among the sheep that the pen is the safest place to be. Which, of course, it is....but waiting for some wolves to come along and prove that to them would be idiotic. Create some fake "wolves" of your own and use them to get the sheep to go where they'll be safe from real ones? Perfect.

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

That MO also allows the opposition enough rope to hang themselves...why try to out fight what you can out-wit?

and lets face it, Obama is a very savvy politician, who's not afraid of playing hardball should the occasion demand it. On an issue like this, I don't think he'll settle for a technical victory, he'd want out-right discrediting and annihilation of the very concept of discrimination... he'd want the anti-gay lobby to be about as popular as the KKK by the time he's done.

[asim.livejournal.com]

I don't like it. In fact, I hate it viscerally -- which is, ironically, part of why I've not written about it.

BUT. I just finished reading Woffe's book RENEGADE, on Obama and the election. And one thing that got underlined was that, esp. at the beginning, Obama said over and again, that part of what he wanted to do was to get ordinary Americans to stand up for themselves, to learn how to make change themselves. And I can verify, because I was on-and-off involved in the campaign from summer '07, that just about everyone speaking to us underlined that we who were working the campaign, learning about how to organize, learning how to make change, needed to keep working on it after the campaign -- even if it was in directions Obama would oppose! Indeed, these kinds of statements and actions are why I went form supporter to volunteer.

Simply put, the easiest way for us who support GBLT rights to get Obama to move, is to stop whining AT Obama, and to start working to seriously organize for mainstream and media pressure to cause that change. The more room he has to move w/o worrying about the Right exploding, the faster it can happen.
But that's a complaint I've had about the Left, and about how aim for the relativity easy act of pressuring politicos, and then complaining when they don't move, over what, frankly, MLK did -- he moved the media and thereby the people to understand the depths of why Civil Rights were needed, and then worked with politicians to make change happen in an environment more amenable in terms of political capital to make that happen.

Politics is about Compromise, yes, even when there's a history of falling down on the job, and breaking promises. If the space is made to make that Compromise easier, then we can get it faster.

Sorry. This is a long-simmering frustration with me, both in terms of how GBLT folks get used, and in how responses to that use miss how political pressure can be applied to make change happen.

[asim.livejournal.com]

...oh, hey, look. Bunged up my tags.
What I get for writing just after I woke up.

[eleri.livejournal.com]

No LJ before coffee!

Yeah, my brain keeps percolating it around... on one hand it seems kinda sneaky and mean, because of the stress to the GLBT community, and shouldn't leaders y'know, *lead*...

But on the other hand, was there a layer of complacency that happened? "Obama won, we'll just sit back and let him fix things, now". Maybe, in a make lemonade sense, Prop8 winning was good, because it kept the fires lit.

[sine.livejournal.com]

i don't think that getting the lgbt community riled up is what he's trying to do. that community has been pissed off and vocal about "don't ask, don't tell" for a long time and i don't see what he would gain from it.

i've read that he wants dadt to be overturned via legislative channels rather than by issuing some sort of executive order saying, "don't abide by that law." after 8 years of bush, i approve of doing thigns the right way, no matter how badly i want to see them done.

the bill to repeal it (hr 1283) is apparently stalled in the military personnel subcommittee of the house armed services committee. harry reid has said that there aren't sponsors for a similar bill in the senate (though he did then backpedal a bit) and the house doesn't seem tu be in a hurry to get it out of committee.

unless he wants to issue an executive order, obama can't do a whole lot about it right now. i suppose he could be pushing congress harder, but he may be saving that for other issues. he has repeatedly said that he is in favor of repealing it, and there's a statement to that effect on the white house website, so i'm okay with waiting a bit longer in order to have it done in a way that can't be argued with.