Slow and deliberate and unprovocative manner

I've written a lot about my grumpiness with Obama. I think he's a wimp, too willing to compromise, not willing to stand up for the progressive cause, not bringing the creators of the financial collapse to justice, and perhaps a bit too beholden to possible corporate backers. There is also the matter of continuing some of the human rights abuses of Bush. The only reason why I plan to vote for Obama this year is he isn't GOP (and I'm much more interested in defeating the GOP). I'll let you browse my writings for other complaints.

Andrew Sullivan, writing the cover story for Newsweek, thinks I -- and liberals in general -- don't appreciate what we have. As for conservatives, they don't understand Obama either. Thus Obama will likely beat them in November.

Sullivan is conservative and gay, but not the kind that would be a member of Log Cabin Republicans. However, he understands that we can't let the current GOP win. It's good to have Obama ready to take them on.

Sullivan goes over Obama's record and says the prez. actually accomplished a great deal in three years and there is much in these accomplishments for the country to appreciate. In just gay issues, support for gay marriage has increased dramatically (but what did he do to make it happen?), DOMA won't be defended, gays now serve openly in the military, federal gov't hiring policies now protect gay workers, and the State Department has made gay rights a part of human rights.

Obama achieved some of those gains by not caring who got the credit and doing it in a way that can't be easily undone. On gays in the military:

But what he was doing was getting his Republican defense secretary and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs to move before he did. The man who made the case for repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” was, in the end, Adm. Mike Mullen. This took time—as did his painstaking change in the rule barring HIV-positive immigrants and tourists—but the slow and deliberate and unprovocative manner in which it was accomplished made the changes more durable. Not for the first time, I realized that to understand Obama, you have to take the long view. Because he does.

And on Obama's method of operation:

And what have we seen? A recurring pattern. To use the terms Obama first employed in his inaugural address: the president begins by extending a hand to his opponents; when they respond by raising a fist, he demonstrates that they are the source of the problem; then, finally, he moves to his preferred position of moderate liberalism and fights for it without being effectively tarred as an ideologue or a divider. This kind of strategy takes time. And it means there are long stretches when Obama seems incapable of defending himself, or willing to let others to define him, or simply weak. I remember those stretches during the campaign against Hillary Clinton. I also remember whose strategy won out in the end.

As for upholding the progressive cause, Sullivan says Obama never pledged to do that.

Sullivan has some good points, and it is good to see a summation of Obama's record and an explanation of what Obama is trying to do. However, I'm not completely convinced. Sullivan doesn't provide an explanation of what is going on with those human rights abuses.

Attack and demean love

The Calif. Supremes will hear oral arguments in the case to overturn the marriage ban on March 5. They must issue their ruling within 90 days. As part of the hearings those in favor of the ban want the Supremes to rule to invalidate the existing 18,000 same-sex marriages. There is now a video urging the Supremes (actually targeting the citizens of Calif.) not to "divorce" gay couples. Andrew Sullivan says it well (and has the video):

In the end, the marriage debate is about whether it is in the interest of society as a whole to attack and demean couples who are constructing loving, committed strong relationships, with the help of their friends, families and government. Whatever else it is, the attempt to break up these relationships, to deny and invalidate the hopes and dreams they aspire to, is both cruel and deeply hostile to any conservatism that seeks to bring people together around the shared values of family, fidelity and responsibility.

Counting the cost and misjudging morality

Edmund Burke was an English-Irish statesman and philosopher who is seen as the father of modern conservatism (the original political meaning, not the religious meaning nor the twisted Bush meaning). He supported the American colonies in their dispute with King George III. He wrote this about the American Revolution:

A conscientious man would be cautious how he dealt in blood, he would feel some apprehension at being called to a tremendous account for engaging in so deep a play, without any sort of knowledge of the game.

Burke wasn't opposed to war, but felt war should be waged to reduce the loss of blood, treasure, and reputation without corresponding gains. This calculation is most important if the cause is weak and is on foreign soil. People, even presidents, make mistakes and that in itself isn't a reason to criticize them. But a thoughtful conservative (or anyone) will recognize when things go wrong and will work to correct them. While Bush does not understand that concept and Cheney has a complete disregard for democratic accountability, there are others who recognize their error of their earlier support for the Iraq war. Andrew Sullivan, writing at Slate, is one of those. His reasoning for his change of view include these points:

Sullivan was for the war partly from historical narcissism. He had lived through the Cold War and felt the walls of tyranny would fall if we had the will and gumption to use our military force. But the military force to get rid of Saddam is not the same as building a stable government in its place and the cost of doing so was not considered.

Sullivan chose war through narrow moralism. His personal tally of the pros and cons of the war did not include that war itself is a monster with possibly evil consequences that should be weighed.

Sullivan says he is guilty of unconservatism, not being conservative enough in not understanding the depth of the divide between Sunni and Shiite.

Sullivan says he misread Bush, who campaigned in 2000 as a unifying moderate Republican. The missed attribute wasn't incompetence, but morality. He did not see that Bush would use 9/11 to tear up the Geneva Conventions and use torture and lie about it.

I certainly never believed that a war I supported for the sake of freedom would actually use as its central weapon the deepest antithesis of freedom—the destruction of human autonomy and dignity and will that is torture.

Sullivan didn't see the effect the war would have on Iraq. He also didn't see the effect Bush's lack of morality would have on America.

The original Slate article is here.

Commentary (including about Burke) with extensive quotes from the Slate article is here.