This Is Different, You See.

Jason Kuznicki

Jason Kuznicki is a research fellow at the Cato Institute and contributor of Cato Unbound. He's on twitter as JasonKuznicki. His interests include political theory and history.

Related Post Roulette

21 Responses

  1. North says:

    It’s just cowardice, astonishing levels of gutlessness. He’s actually against this damned thing unless Congress gives him cover. Has no one shown him the polling on this? I honestly don’t understand Obama’s incoherence on this. What on earth is he thinking?Report

    • Jaybird in reply to North says:

      @North, “God Bless America? GOD DAMN AMERICA!!!”Report

    • Mike Schilling in reply to North says:

      @North,

      Exactly. The main reason I supported Obama over Hillary was that I knew the Clintons were gutless. Is there any Democrat who isn’t?Report

      • North in reply to Mike Schilling says:

        @Mike Schilling, Oddly enough Mike I would have thought Hillary would be better.
        A: she hates republicans and probably would have relished a fight.
        B: she didn’t have the “new hope, new way of politics” nonsense to the degree that Obama did.
        C: she had very strong support from the gay community and the Clinton team’s always been big into rewarding allies.

        But certainly while I cynically expected that Obama’s shtick was just marketing I’m quite astonished on just how deep down the marketing went.Report

      • Simon K in reply to Mike Schilling says:

        @Mike Schilling, The Clintons are gutless in a much more tactically intelligent way. They don’t do anything unless they know it will be popular enough to embarass the hell out of people who oppose it. But they’re experts at presenting things in a way that makes their opponents look bad. That’s the Clinton version of triangulation – you work out where there’s hight ground, stand on it, and throw rotten vegetables at the people below you until they cooperate. If someone else is already on the high ground, you pretend to be friends with them then push them off. Its not very pretty, and its certainly not principled, but it is at least smart and it gets things done.

        The Obama version lack the tactical nous – He’s finding the high ground, attempting to stand on it and then getting pelted with rotten fruit until he had to back down.Report

        • Simon K in reply to Simon K says:

          @Simon K, This (the Obama version of traingulation) is a basic misunderstanding of the role of the Presidency in making legislation. The President is there to set the terms of debate the legislators have to deal with. If he doesn’t do that – if he “respects congress’s prerogatives” – he can’t do anything and they spend all their time squabbling.Report

    • Simon K in reply to North says:

      @North, The Obama Administration – we don’t do anything we can’t get every Democrat in the house and at least one Republican in the senate to agree with up-front.Report

  2. gaylib says:

    “What on earth is he thinking?”

    Occam’s razor: he is a bigot and a homophobe.Report

  3. I was thinking about this one yesterday in the context of racial integration of the military. When Lincoln allowed blacks to serve in the Union army it gave them momentum towards full citizenship as many felt they could no longer deny it after they had fought on the Union’s behalf. 80 years later there was a similar scenario after blacks returned home from WWII which gave momentum to the civil rights movement. In both cases it was a Presidential order which eventually lead to positive changes on the domestic front.

    I won’t speculate on how ending DOMA might strengthen the case for gay marriage, but it will certainly help gays gain acceptance in mainstream society in the longrun.Report

  4. Boegiboe says:

    The comments section at the linked post is interesting reading. Commenter Katja makes a good point about a combination of the right plaintiff in the right court with the right President–three people–being able to overturn Congress. Maybe it is a defect in the Constitution, as she says.Report