Posted by Jed Lewison on Thu Jul 3, 2008 at 1:59 PM Pacific

Responding to the Greenwald narrative

A couple of days ago, Glenn Greenwald took Barack Obama to task for embracing "polices that are the precise antithesis of the values he espoused in the past" and for "promulgating toxic narratives" about the Democratic Party.

Here's Greenwald's litany, and my responses:

*intervened in a Democratic Congressional primary to support one of the worst Bush-enabling Blue Dogs over a credible, progressive challenger;

RESPONSE: Like it or not, there's nothing inconsistent about Obama's endorsement of Barrow -- he's the party leader, and party leaders support their incumbents. Obama himself (along with most other Democratic senators) supported Lieberman in the 2006 primary. Similarly, Bush and the NRSC supported Lincoln Chafee in 2006 even though Chafee opposed most of the Bush Administration policies.

* announced his support for Bush's FISA bill, reversing himself completely on this issue;

RESPONSE: TPM today put together a timeline of Obama campaign statements on FISA. What struck me was that the two most clear-cut statements in opposition to to telecom immunity were not made by Obama himself, but rather his staff. The subsequent statements spotlighted by TPM indicated his opposition to telecom immunity, but then again, so to did the statement he released announcing his support for the compromise. The question, I think, is whether he personally promised to oppose or filibuster any bill that included telecom immunity no matter what. Such a statement might exist; I haven't seen it. That all being said, I accept the basic premise that this is something of a reversal for Obama, but more because of the logic of his positions than by actual statements that he has made.

* sided with the Scalia/Thomas faction in two highly charged Supreme Court decisions;

RESPONSE: This is at least half-silly. We can debate FISA, but you will never convince me that Obama would have been well-served to oppose the death penalty for the most violent child rapists. On the second amendment issue, though expressed support for the court's interpretation of the right to bear arms, his statement focused on the fact that regulation was still possible. Moreover, it's dishonest to note this without also noting Obama's support for the habeas decision (Greenwald does credit Obama for this, albeit later).

* repudiated Wesley Clark and embraced the patently false media narrative that Clark had "dishonored McCain's service" (and for the best commentary I've seen, by far, on the Clark matter, see this appropriately indignant piece by Iraq veteran Brandon Friedman);

RESPONSE: First, Greenwald's post came on Tuesday as the story was developing, so I'll cut him some slack. Still, before his post, Obama hadn't repudiated Clark; his spokesman had. Subsequent to the post, Obama managed to straddle the issue brilliantly -- I'd submit Obama has played the Clark comments as well as anyone could. He's gotten the best of both worlds.

* condemned MoveOn.org for its newspaper advertisement criticizing Gen. Petraeus;

RESPONSE: Barack's comments on MoveOn.org were 100% consistent with his prior statements. Moreover, it's unfair to attack him for this without also noting that in the very same sentence that he criticized MoveOn.org, he also criticized those who have questioned the patriotism of Bush Administration critics.

In fact, I'm confident that Barack's position is the same as Greenwald's position: that patriotism should not be used as a political weapon.

Should Obama really have left this sentence out of the speech? Does Obama really want to imitate the IOKIYAR mentality?

* defended his own patriotism by impugning the patriotism of others, specifically those in what he described as the "the so-called counter-culture of the Sixties" for "attacking the symbols, and in extreme cases, the very idea, of America itself" and -- echoing Jeanne Kirkpatrick's 1984 RNC speech -- "blaming America for all that was wrong with the world";

RESPONSE: This reading of Obama's speech is both overly broad and overly narrow. It is too broad because he was not defending his own patriotism in the passage Greenwald quotes. (Greenwald is inferring that.) It is too narrow because Greenwald fails to note that the balance of that passage consisted of critiques of the right -- Obama did not single out the left.

* unveiled plans "to expand President Bush's program steering federal social service dollars to religious groups and -- in a move sure to cause controversy . . . letting religious charities that receive federal funding consider religion in employment decisions," a move that could "invite a storm of protest from those who view such faith requirements as discrimination" -- something not even the Bush faith programs allowed.

RESPONSE: As Greenwald notes in an update, this was based on a flawed AP report. Any programs funded by Obama's proposal would comply with anti-discrimination laws. (Other non-federally funded programs in could use religion as a basis for hiring, which makes sense to me. When you're hiring a minister, isn't his or her faith an issue to consder?)

::: ::: :::

So here's my bottom line: with the exception of FISA, Greenwald's list is not very compelling.

And while I appreciate the efforts of those who are seeking to stop the new FISA bill, I do think there is a bit of FDS (FISA derangement syndrome) going on with relation to Obama.

He's just one vote, yet some folks aren't even thinking about Obama in terms of a legislative strategy. Rather, they want to take that one datapoint, and extrapolate a narrative from that one datapoint. Not surprisingly, one of the people doing this also happens to be a McCain campaign blogger. Can you say wedge?