Matt Yglesias

43 Responses to “Thought of the Day”

1. Why oh why Says:
   December 2nd, 2008 at 9:49 am

   Conservatives have no clue anymore what they stand for. They can reject Bush as non-conservative, and claim whoever they want.

   And nobody really cares, or has to.

2. Anthony Damiani Says:
   December 2nd, 2008 at 9:56 am

   Truly, we are a center-right nation.

3. Glenn Says:
   December 2nd, 2008 at 9:56 am

   You see, this is one of those situations where the level of generality makes all the difference. If I had told you two years ago that conservatives would say anything and do anything in an attempt to preserve their power, regardless of its relationship to the truth or to their past positions, you wouldn’t have been surprised a bit, now would you?

4. Petey Says:
   December 2nd, 2008 at 10:05 am

   “It would have surprised me — a lot — if two years ago you’d told me that conservatives would be hailing Hillary Clinton’s appointment as Secretary of State as a great ideological victory for the American right.”

   Bizarre.

   Matthew wrote repeated posts asserting that HRC as SoS was a defeat for the left, and now that his right-wing soulmates echo him, he cries foul.

5. Chris Says:
   December 2nd, 2008 at 10:07 am

   Exactly. Whatever they can do to preserve their fantasy world.

6. dannity Says:
   December 2nd, 2008 at 10:09 am

   It’s called moving the center. It’s already happening, and there’s not much they can do about it but enjoy the ride.

7. Adam Says:
   December 2nd, 2008 at 10:10 am

   Bizarre.

   Matthew wrote repeated posts asserting that HRC as SoS was a defeat for the left, and now that his right-wing soulmates echo him, he cries foul.

   I’m not sure this post counts as crying foul, so much as making an observation. I’m also not sure what’s bizarre about it. Two years ago, Hillary Clinton as SoS would have been a huge victory for the left — now it’s a fairly neutral event. The point is that political landscape has shifted enormously — and favorably — in a remarkably short period of time.

8. joe from Lowell Says:
   December 2nd, 2008 at 10:14 am

   The Palinization of the Republican Party predates Sarah Palin.

   Hillary spent the late primaries acting like jes’ plain folks in small towns throughout the midwest, calling that colored fella an elitist and talking ’bout daddy teachin’ her to shewt.

   They’re the white, red-America identity politics party now, and that’s about it.

9. joe from Lowell Says:
   December 2nd, 2008 at 10:17 am

   Matthew wrote repeated posts asserting that HRC as SoS was a defeat for the left…

   Nor, for progressives, vs. the party’s centrist wing. A centrist wing that is now embodies most visibly by the woman who led the last big charge for universal health care, and is renowned for using her global profile to argue for the rights of women.

10. Berken Says:
    December 2nd, 2008 at 10:28 am

    Even Elizabeth Drew in New York Review of Books, usually a bastion of rational thought, keeps hitting that same base reflexive meme . . . the left is disappointed, Obama is centrist, the liberal agenda is being compromised.

    Astonishingly few of the elite seem to be able to think this thing through. We’re getting out of Iraq, getting away from militarism, supporting human rights and peaceful involvement with the world, we’re not letting religious zealots control our world health agenda and we’re going to do something about global warming

    This is as complete a victory for progressives as we could have hoped for. The Beltway tribe just needs to reassure themselves that those noisy, dirty liberals didn’t win anything, then they are going to enact the liberal foriegn policy agenda.

11. El Cid Says:
    December 2nd, 2008 at 10:37 am

    Whereas if Hillary had been the general election candidate, she would have been denounced by the lunatic righties as the biggest black helicopter Yoonited Nashuns socialist ever to step upon U.S. American soil.

12. jeebus Says:
    December 2nd, 2008 at 11:03 am

    Hey, if “center-right” is now defined as Hillary Clinton, I’m down with that.

13. ed Says:
    December 2nd, 2008 at 11:21 am

    This is good news for Rudy Giulini.

14. Dan Kervick Says:
    December 2nd, 2008 at 11:33 am

    Matt has been well aware for some time that Clinton was the neoconservatives’ favorite Democratic candidate, as we can see here and here. Her appointment as Secretary of State is indeed a victory for the right. But an even greater victory for the right is that Obama’s own views on the Middle East have apparently evolved to the point where his appointment of Clinton is no longer viewed as in any way shocking or surprising, or a leap across any significant gulf.

    And the greatest victory of all for the right is that rank-and-file Democrats’ expectations and have been so frequently diminished, their hopes so gradually but steadily recalibrated and adjusted, and their conventional wisdom so expertly massaged, that the appointment of one of the neoconservatives’ favorite Democrats is now being absorbed with pusillanimous equanimity by the thumb-sucking, personality-dazzled Democratic masses, somewhat like death is absorbed by those apocryphal frogs in the pans of gradually boiling water. It’s also being explained away by beltway pundits like Matt who ever drift with the winds.

    It looks like we are now the party of Beinartism, O’Hanlonism and Clintonism yet again. 2004 through 2008? Those years never happened. Who knows who the next appointments will be. Lieberman? Evan Bayh? One of the Kagans?

    The most galling blow is that after spending months pouring words and energy into the defeat of Clinton during the nomination battle, assuring friends that it actually made a difference to our foreign policy, I know see that it will probably make no discernible difference at all.

    Thanks for making me look like a putz, Barack. The next time you decide to call forth your army in 2012 to fight off some Democratic challenger, maybe I’ll just stay home.

15. Vincent Says:
    December 2nd, 2008 at 12:52 pm

    You’re a soothsayer now, Kervick? Not even going to give Obama a chance to prove you wrong? Didn’t even pay attention to his press conference that he would be the one setting the agenda that people like Clinton are supposed to follow?

    Having concerns about the man is fine but giving up on him so quickly would seem to indicate that you never paid that much attention to his actual polices and goals at all.

16. An Outhouse Says:
    December 2nd, 2008 at 1:16 pm

    I think its because conservatives just dig chicks.

17. Dan Kervick Says:
    December 2nd, 2008 at 1:40 pm

    Of course, Vincent, Obama has a chance to prove me wrong. Every incumbent leader I have ever criticized for any perceived policy preference has had a chance to prove me wrong. That goes without saying. But this is the way things look to me right now.

    I paid extremely close attention to foreign policy statements and positions articulated during the campaign – and before. I read all the major speeches and policy statements. And I was never under any illusions that Obama was going to bring the kind of foreign policy to the US that would satisfy me personally. I’m a somewhat alienated misfit, and my personal values just don’t find champions within the US foreign policy establishment. That’s life. But I was convinced that there were at least three or four stark differences between Clinton and Obama, and that in those areas Obama had the position I preferred.

    But I think there can be no doubt now that Obama’s positions have evolved since 2006 and 2007, and those former differences with Clinton have now mainly melted away. I now see no really substantive differences between the Obama agenda, such as I still understand it, and the Clintonian foreign policy I worked to defeat. Now, the foreign policy concerns that motivated me to oppose Clinton so strongly just might not be that important to other Democrats. That’s their prerogative. But for me they were important.

    Anyway, why does it matter whether I “give him a chance” or “give up on him”? My meager role as a nobody citizen is just to bang my head against the wall, and defend and argue for the policy directions I would prefer. That’s all. I’m getting a bit tired of the Tinkerbell Doctrine that seems to suggest that our role is to clap real hard and believe, believe, believe.

18. max Says:
    December 2nd, 2008 at 3:19 pm

    Matthew, you really do need a copyeditor. Here lemme fix your post:

    It would have surprised me — a lot — if two years ago you’d told me that conservatives would be hailing Hillary Clinton’s appointment as Secretary of State as a great ideological victory for the American white.

    See? Much better!

    max
    ['Pretty soon - commercials with a near extinct hillbilly in his native costume, a single tear running down his cheek!']

19. Jasper Says:
    December 2nd, 2008 at 3:44 pm

    But I was convinced that there were at least three or four stark differences between Clinton and Obama, and that in those areas Obama had the position I preferred.

    Dan Kervick: then you should be elated that your favored candidate won. Or, to put it another way, is there something in the constitution that prevents the president from, you know, giving orders to the secretary of state?

20. Dan Kervick Says:
    December 2nd, 2008 at 4:36 pm

    Sorry, Jasper. But I find the notion that Hillary Clinton is now going to make herself over into a submissive follower of presidential orders to be fanciful. The presidency is not a dictatorship, and US foreign policy will be formed through a collaborative process of interaction between the White House and the key cabinet departments.

    But my central point is that Obama’s position in the head chair doesn’t matter a whole lot anymore anyway, since there are no longer the stark differences between Obama and Clinton that there once appeared to be.

21. MattC Says:
    December 2nd, 2008 at 4:38 pm

    Conservatives are

    hailing Hillary Clinton’s appointment as Secretary of State as a great ideological victory for the American right.

    Oh please. At best conservatives are simply pointing out that Obama is a lot more centrist than he painted himself to voters.

    Anyone that thinks appointing Hillary, former Clinton administration figures and Bob Gates represents “Change we can believe in” obviously hasn’t had their expectations managed down yet.

22. N Says:
    December 2nd, 2008 at 5:56 pm

    Dan Kervick,

    Gallup poll from today: 94% of self described Democrats approve of Obama’s presidential transition, and 89% of Democrats approve of his selection of Clinton. Given that some of the anti-Clinton Dems are probably so-called “conservative Democrats” with leftover antipathy from the 1990s, I’d guess that “Democrats who disapprove of Obama’s selection of Clinton because she’s not leftist enough” may make up somewhere around 3% of the overall US electorate; maybe less. I wonder how that compares to the percentage of the population that believes that Obama is literally the Antichrist. If anything, the latter may be significantly higher.

    I’m sorry that it hurts your feelings, but tiny and marginal political subcultures can’t reasonably expect to determine the course of national policy in the USA – not even if they’re a tiny and marginal political subculture that you happen to belong to.

23. Richard Steven Hack Says:
    December 3rd, 2008 at 1:00 am

    In foreign policy issues, there never was clear daylight between Obama and Clinton on any issue except whether to “negotiate” with Iran – as Obama thinks of “negotiation” (read: conduct a blockade of Iran which is an act of war in itself).

    Dan Kervick is perfectly correct. All you clowns who voted for Obama are now going to get “Bush Lite” foreign policy.

    Which happens to be exactly what I was saying all during the campaign – that Obama’s foreign policy was WRONG.

    Matt, of course, is clueless, so he continues to think Obama is going to “negotiate” rather than expand the military AS HE SAID HE WOULD DO and start new wars.

    Sucker. Inability to read as well as type.

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