A reasonably evenhanded biography of Barack Obama, published last year, describes him as “an exceptionally gifted politician who, throughout his life, has been able to make people of wildly divergent vantage points see in him exactly what they want to see.” The biographer, David Mendell, reports that “the higher he soared, the more this politician spoke in well-worn platitudes and the more he offered warm, feel-good sentiments lacking a precise framework.”
Now, less than four months before Election Day, with growing disquiet among significant portions of Obama’s progressive base, the current negative reactions can’t be dismissed as potshots from the political margins. Even the New York Times, in a July 4 editorial headlined “New and Not Improved,” has expressed alarm: “We are not shocked when a candidate moves to the center for the general election. But Mr. Obama’s shifts are striking because he was the candidate who proposed to change the face of politics, the man of passionate convictions who did not play old political games.”
But on July 8, Obama made a valid point — even if it wasn’t exactly the point he was trying to make — when he disputed “this whole notion that I am shifting to the center” and argued: “The people who say this apparently haven’t been listening to me.” Overall, his career as a politician has embraced conciliation and compromise rather than pushing against centrist corporate agendas...
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