Little-Acorn
05-10-2012, 03:47 PM
After winning the Presidency in part on the weight of his repeated statements that he didn't support same-sex marriage, one of Obama's last remaining unbroken promises bit the dust yesterday.
Was he pushed into it by his VP's untimely statements on the subject?
Or was it the latest in his long series of attempts to shift the conversation away from failures in the economy, foreign relations, health care, dwindling poll numbers etc.?
Taranto sheds some illumination on the possible reason(s).
-------------------------------------------
http://opinionjournal.com
from BEST OF THE WEB TODAY
Updated May 10, 2012, 4:10 p.m. ET
Why Obama Flipped
Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat has two mommies.
by JAMES TARANTO
Updated May 10, 2012, 4:10 p.m. ET
Last night brought an email from Barack Obama with the subject line "Marriage." It began: "James--Today, I was asked a direct question and gave a direct answer."
What drove Obama to do something so wildly out of character?
Money, for one thing. The Washington Post reported the other day that "about one in six of Obama's top campaign 'bundlers' are gay . . . making it difficult for the president to defer the matter." Lefty Post blogger Greg Sargent added:
Some leading gay and progressive donors are so angry over
President Obama's refusal to sign an executive order barring same sex
discrimination by federal contractors that they are refusing to give any
more money to the pro-Obama super PAC, a top gay fundraiser's office
tells me. In some cases, I'm told, big donations are being withheld.
BuzzFeed.com adds that "many in Hollywood" have "been privately sharing" the view that "the Obama presidency has been a flop. . . . But, as if on cue, Obama may have changed the narrative Wednesday in one bold move--the kind of transformative act those in Hollywood have been waiting for."
Not that there's anything wrong with a politician listening to his financial supporters. Though don't hold your breath waiting for the New York Times to denounce this as an example of the corrupting influence of political money.
One shouldn't discount sheer moral vanity as a motivator either. Yahoo! News's Walter Shapiro speculates that "in moral terms, it is quite possible that Obama could not personally endure further equivocation." Late last night Obama (via his campaign account, @BarackObama) tweeted a photo of himself looking skyward, with a quote from himself: " 'Same-sex couples should be able to get married.'--President Obama." The text of the tweet read simply: "History."
It is possible that Obama's self-love amplifies the workings of the Taranto principle by making him and his advisers especially sensitive to elite liberal opinion. "In the end, people close to the president say, it wasn't a close call," Politico reports:
The core of their argument against Mitt Romney is that he is an
untrustworthy politician with no real core of conviction. Obama's advisers--
who are acutely conscious of the media's criticism despite their professed
contempt for the news cycle--simply couldn't afford to have the president
appear like a coward on the front and editorial pages of The New York Times
and The Washington Post, according to senior Democrats.
You have to love both the cynicism and the self-contradiction of carefully calibrating a major change in position in order to serve the purpose of making the other guy look like a flip-flopper.
(Full text of the article can be read at the above URL)
Was he pushed into it by his VP's untimely statements on the subject?
Or was it the latest in his long series of attempts to shift the conversation away from failures in the economy, foreign relations, health care, dwindling poll numbers etc.?
Taranto sheds some illumination on the possible reason(s).
-------------------------------------------
http://opinionjournal.com
from BEST OF THE WEB TODAY
Updated May 10, 2012, 4:10 p.m. ET
Why Obama Flipped
Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat has two mommies.
by JAMES TARANTO
Updated May 10, 2012, 4:10 p.m. ET
Last night brought an email from Barack Obama with the subject line "Marriage." It began: "James--Today, I was asked a direct question and gave a direct answer."
What drove Obama to do something so wildly out of character?
Money, for one thing. The Washington Post reported the other day that "about one in six of Obama's top campaign 'bundlers' are gay . . . making it difficult for the president to defer the matter." Lefty Post blogger Greg Sargent added:
Some leading gay and progressive donors are so angry over
President Obama's refusal to sign an executive order barring same sex
discrimination by federal contractors that they are refusing to give any
more money to the pro-Obama super PAC, a top gay fundraiser's office
tells me. In some cases, I'm told, big donations are being withheld.
BuzzFeed.com adds that "many in Hollywood" have "been privately sharing" the view that "the Obama presidency has been a flop. . . . But, as if on cue, Obama may have changed the narrative Wednesday in one bold move--the kind of transformative act those in Hollywood have been waiting for."
Not that there's anything wrong with a politician listening to his financial supporters. Though don't hold your breath waiting for the New York Times to denounce this as an example of the corrupting influence of political money.
One shouldn't discount sheer moral vanity as a motivator either. Yahoo! News's Walter Shapiro speculates that "in moral terms, it is quite possible that Obama could not personally endure further equivocation." Late last night Obama (via his campaign account, @BarackObama) tweeted a photo of himself looking skyward, with a quote from himself: " 'Same-sex couples should be able to get married.'--President Obama." The text of the tweet read simply: "History."
It is possible that Obama's self-love amplifies the workings of the Taranto principle by making him and his advisers especially sensitive to elite liberal opinion. "In the end, people close to the president say, it wasn't a close call," Politico reports:
The core of their argument against Mitt Romney is that he is an
untrustworthy politician with no real core of conviction. Obama's advisers--
who are acutely conscious of the media's criticism despite their professed
contempt for the news cycle--simply couldn't afford to have the president
appear like a coward on the front and editorial pages of The New York Times
and The Washington Post, according to senior Democrats.
You have to love both the cynicism and the self-contradiction of carefully calibrating a major change in position in order to serve the purpose of making the other guy look like a flip-flopper.
(Full text of the article can be read at the above URL)