Obama, singing a song to himself

To document our pessimism about the Obamoid government, Michael Barone introduces a new slant on analyzing ideologies in the US"lyrical leftism. Leftists of the past were able to mobilize people in the expansion of the state through war"Wilson and Roosevelt used their wars to take control of wide swaths of the economy. Leftists today are "lyrical" when they repudiate the state's use of force and celebrate diversity. It's just singing in the wind.

This is the "basic contradiction in what the party and the liberal movement stand for," according to Barone.

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Obama's lyrical Left struggles with liberalism The problem for Obama and America's lyrical Left is that dovishness abroad and statism at home don't readily go together. Mobilization in a war effort, as Randolph Bourne taught, tends to create a frame of mind that welcomes regimentation under big government at home. Denigration of military discipline and tolerance of cultural diversity tend to create a frame of mind that resists government ukase and standardization. A big government president, Obama is learning, needs to be a war president first.