Norman Solomon: Obama's Picks and the Ideology of No Ideology

[laststeamtrain]

Norman Solomon
Posted November 25, 2008 | 12:10 PM (EST)

Obama's Picks and the Ideology of No Ideology

On Friday, columnist David Brooks informed readers that Barack Obama's picks "are not ideological." The incoming president's key economic advisers "are moderate and thoughtful Democrats," while Hillary Clinton's foreign-policy views "are hardheaded and pragmatic."

On Saturday, the New York Times front page reported that the president-elect's choices for secretaries of State and Treasury "suggest that Mr. Obama is planning to govern from the center-right of his party, surrounding himself with pragmatists rather than ideologues."

On Monday, hours before Obama's formal announcement of his economic team, USA Today explained that he is forming a Cabinet with "records that display more pragmatism than ideology."

The ideology of no ideology is nifty. No matter how tilted in favor of powerful interests, it can be a deft way to keep touting policy agendas as common-sense pragmatism -- virtuous enough to draw opposition only from ideologues.

<snip>

As for competence, it seems that claims of non-ideology often go hand-in-hand with overblown claims of economic mastery. "Geithner and Summers are credited with expertise in crisis management," economist Mark Weisbrot pointed out on Monday, "but we better hope they don't manage the current crisis like they did in East Asia, Russia, Argentina or any of the other countries that Treasury was involved in during the 1990s with their help. They helped bring on the East Asian crisis in 1997 by pressuring the governments in the region to de-regulate international financial flows, which was the main cause of the crisis. Then they insisted that all bailout money go through the IMF, and delayed aid until most of the damage was done. Then they attached damaging conditions" to the aid.

After all is said and done, the ideology of no ideology is just like any other ideology that's apt to be much better at promoting itself than living up to its pretenses. No amount of flowery rhetoric or claims of transcendent non-ideology should deter tough scrutiny. And Judge Judy's injunction should apply to the ideology of no ideology as much as to any ideology that owns up to being one: "Don't pee on me and tell me it's raining."

<more>

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/norman-solomon/obamas-picks-and-the-ideo_b_146348.html

[jobycom]

1. That's a false dichotomy.

There's nothing that says that an idealist can't use pragmatic means to move towards an ideological goal. That was LBJ's method, and it got Civil Rights legislation passed in this nation five to ten years ahead of when we realistically expected it. LBJ had strong social ideals, but used his pragmatic understanding of government to achieve those ideals.

Pragmatism is the vehicle, ideology is the roadmap.