Defining the Centre

I got a chuckle out of this entry in Ezra Klein's blog at The American Prospect.

Rarely have I been as happy with a column I so thoroughly disagree with as I am with Ruth Marcus' piece today. Her central thesis - that Obama is somehow governing with a "moderate tilt" and not as an "unreconstructed liberal" - is pretty absurd on its face. We're barely two months into the new administration, and already a withdrawal from Iraq has been announced, an $800 billion stimulus package has been passed, S-CHIP has been expanded, stem cell restrictions have been lifted, and Guantanamo has been shut down. Say what you will about that, but it's a pretty solidly liberal policy agenda.

But by God, I hope writers like Marcus use their soapboxes to present it as centrist. They win, obviously; they, as paragons of the centrist DC establishment, are able to link themselves with a very popular president. Obama benefits as well, being able to credibly claim that he's forging a middle ground. But in the end, this sort of framing is good for progressivism. If a president whose first budget includes universal health care, a cap & trade system, and a massive increase in federal education spending qualifies as "moderate", then it's safe to say that the national political center is shifting strongly to the left, which can only be a good thing. Who knows, if this line of argument keeps up we might actually be able to have a robust debate as liberal about what kind of social democracy we want America to be, rather than defending the notion of social democracy itself.

I think it is funny. My interpretation is that Americans have been so "worked over" by ideologues pretending to not be ideological and by flaks proclaiming a post-ideological era that the great unwashed have lost track of left and right. But I rejoice with Dylan Matthews that this centrist "cover" will help move a progressive agenda forward for the US. The rest of the world, unfortunately, needs an American that is aligned with it and sees the same "reality" and doesn't put on the blinkers of right wing ideology.

A secondary issue: I may be old fashioned, but I find it odd to have your "brand", in this case the label "Ezra Klein" slapped all over the page when in fact the real worker who provided the content is one Dylan Matthews. Odd... either name the blog "Ezra Klein and Friends" or give Dylan his own blog. Why put poor Dave to work to raise the fame and glory of Ezra?