Thursday, December 18, 2008

The Obama Theory of Change

I find myself agreeing a fair bit with A. Serwer's more-charitable-than-most-but-not particularly-charitable interpretation of the decision to turn the mic over Rick Warren for the inauguration. In general it seems to go along with Barack Obama's "theory of change", which involves an awful lot of coddling de-fanging the opposition by not saying many mean thing about them, claiming that they're respectable human beings, and then going ahead and implementing your agenda anyway. Now, it's not clear that any of this will work, but before people start pining for the brawling Clinton years, lets recall that Bill Clinton had kind things to say about Tom DeLay's support for increased funding of special needs adoptions.

2 comments:

corvus said...

I think the main beef I have with Sewer's take is his reading of the Lowery pick, which is that it is a necessary gimme to the black civil rights generation. This basically posits the two choices of preachers as playing to two distinct, limited interest groups. I think this is wrongheaded; the picks are meant to be seen as balancing religious contributions to the ceremony between the right and the left. Obama said as much earlier today. In that context, I think the choice is much more acceptable, though of course I would prefer he just go all out with progressive pastors. Or, hell get a Catholic priest with you need to represent right-wing views on social issues. Biden's Catholic, call it his pick. I digress. Basically, I think that even Sewer is wrong. John Cole has by far my favorite take on the issue.

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Anonymous said...

Religion is wrong-headed to the point that no one who is a true believer can speak without saying something that is contradicted by reality. Why not let the most popular worshippers spout their bile as that will keep people who insist on believing in things that are not true happy.