The fairest measure of Barack Obama at midterm can probably be found somewhere between Roger Hodge's accusations and Jonathan Alter's explanations -- but the deeper issue raised by both authors in a debate last night was how progressives, from the White House to the grass roots, fecklessly ceded ground to the Republican right over the past two years.
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For Alter, the sense of disillusionment among Obama's supporters is merely the latest display of the persistent naiveté that afflicts "movement" progressives, whom he distinguished from more pragmatic liberals like himself. Both kinds are useful and important, and most progressives combine aspects of both. But the movement types, like Hodge, don't comprehend the necessity of compromise, although their venerated icon, FDR, certainly did. Alter objected to the title of Hodge's book because "accusing other liberals of mendacity is destructive to the liberal project in America."
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