Center-Right Nation Watch

Clues Obama Won't Govern Center-Right

OurFuture.org Staff — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 09:24:10 -0800

Should progressives beware? Has Barack Obama suckered them into supporting a President who will really govern from the “center-right”? The short answer is no.

Since November 4th there has been growing protestation from right wing intellectuals that America is really a “center-right” nation and that Obama’s victory does not indicate that the electorate has rejected the “center-right” value frame that has defined American politics for the last thirty years.

This line of argument has now extended to the contention that while Obama may have won the nomination and election with the strong support from the left of the Democratic Party, he really intends to govern from the “center-right.” Even the New York Times ran a front-page analysis last Saturday concluding that Obama’s recent cabinet choices, “suggest that Mr. Obama is planning to govern from the center-right of his party, surrounding himself with pragmatists rather than ideologues.”

Both of these arguments are complete baloney.

Right wing pundits can comfort themselves with the fantasy that America is a “center-right” nation but it just ain’t so. In fact, all of the polls show that the November election represented a complete repudiation of right wing Bush-Cheney top-down economics and their Neo-Con foreign policy. Over 80% of voters indicated they wanted fundamental change. The polling shows massive majorities in favor of policies that would guarantee health care for all. It shows overwhelming support for policies that give tax relief to middle income Americans and increase taxes on the wealthy. Polls show complete rejection of neocon notions about “preemptive” war and unilateralism. And Americans strongly favor bold government action to stimulate the economy – not the failed laissez-faire economics that have lead to the current economic meltdown.

The fact is that normal people have supported policies like health care for all and bottom up economics for decades. They’ve known for years that economic policies that have lowered their incomes and siphoned off all of our growth to the top 2% were not in their interest. Now the market collapse, potential bankruptcy of the country’s biggest firms, and obvious failure of Neo-Con foreign policy have finally forced even the country’s punditry and

Not only have “center-right” policies proven themselves a complete failure, their intellectual and moral basis has collapsed. How many more bailouts does someone need before he stops believing that the unfettered “free market” will always lead the “private sector” (meaning those who control giant corporations and Wall Street Bankers) to act in the public interest. How many times can corporate CEO’s emerge from their private jets with tin cups in Washington before people begin to question the “center-right’s” claim that the private sector is inherently more efficient that the public sector. Let’s face it, it’s getting pretty tough to justify why Wall Street’s “masters of the universe” deserve to be paid hundreds of millions of dollars while middle class incomes tank; or why a CEO should make more money before lunch on the first day of the year than his minimum wage worker makes all year long.

Obama ran a campaign that clearly and unequivocally described priorities that will turn American in a fundamentally progressive direction. His cabinet picks indicate that he will surround himself with people who have experience and can competently manage the government. They also indicate his absolute commitment to unifying the country to make change. But they do not in any way diminish the fact that America is demanding -- and Obama intends to enact -- a sweeping progressive program the likes of which we have not seen since the New Deal.

Political consultant, activist and author Mike Lux will publish a book early next year that surveys the history of progressive change in American history. He concludes that progressive changes happen in big batches. Change doesn’t happen incrementally. I think of it as the “Drain-O” theory of history. At key points in history the pressure for democratizing, progressive change overwhelms the forces of the status quo. Then, as the pipes are suddenly cleaned out, massive numbers of progressive changes can finally flow. America is about to experience one of those periods. How much we can accomplish, and how long this period lasts will depend on many factors that we don’t yet know -- and one that we do. It will depend heavily on our success in continuing to mobilize the millions of Americans who elected Barack Obama into a movement to enact his program.

Finally, writers and pundits who focus on Obama’s cabinet picks to show he will govern from the “center right” need to have a look at history. Like Obama, Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln all installed people in their cabinets who they believed to be effective managers who could deliver. They all had their share of outsiders and progressives, but many were old Washington hands. Yet all of these Presidents faced historic challenges that demanded and enabled them to make fundamental change. And all of them were guided by progressive values that were sharply different from those of Bush, Cheney, and Delay. Obama shares and articulates those values more than any political leader since Robert Kennedy died forty years ago.

Barack Obama will not govern from the “center right”, but he will govern from the “center”. That’s not because he is “moving to the center”. It’s because the center of American politics has changed. It has moved where the American people are. It once again resides in the traditional progressive center that has defined America’s promise since Thomas Jefferson penned its founding document over 200 years ago.

Robert Creamer is a longtime political organizer and strategist and author of the recent book, "Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win," available on Amazon.com.

Study: "Center-Right Nation" Narrative Spiked Immediately After Election Day

David Sirota — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 14:47:40 -0800

When I wrote my first column about the "center-right nation" and subsequently launched the "Center-Right Nation Watch" series on this blog I predicted that the news media would actually increase its usage of this term after Obama won. I did a Lexis-Nexis search of the term, and was the first to note the trend and make the prediction that "if Obama wins, expect more frantic talk from the fringe about how electing a black man billed as an Islamic Karl Marx obviously means our country is more conservative than ever."

Feeling like I was out on a limb (and remember, this was almost 2 weeks before a group of major progressive pundits belatedly started writing about the trend), I asked a friend out here in Denver who works with a company called Trendrr to officially track whether my prediction was right - and you can see from the results above, it was - more so than I ever expected.

As the graph shows, the use of the exact term "center-right nation" spiked immediately after election day (point "0" is the day my column published, point "1" is election day). You can use this link to track the growth of the "center-right nation" term in real-time.

While it's true - this trend study doesn't tell us how many of the "center-right nation" references are saying this is "not a center-right nation." But a look through Lexis-Nexis shows it's safe to assume that the vast majority of these references are asserting this is a "center-right nation." Indeed, you can watch ThinkProgress's video highlight reel of conservative pundits and reporters insisting that despite the huge Democratic landslide and overwhelming public opinion data to the contrary, America remains a "center-right nation":

So we're not talking about theory anymore - we're talking about empirical fact. The media has exponentially increased the amount of times it claims that this country is a "center-right nation" - at the very same time public opinion data shows the country is a decidedly center-left nation. In short, we have the two hard data points proving that as the country has become more progressive and validated its progressivism on election day, the media has increased its claims that the nation is conservative.

A Media Parable For “The Center”

Norman Solomon — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 07:44:23 -0800

It’s been 16 years since a Democrat moved into the White House. Now, the fog of memory and the spin of media are teaming up to explain that Barack Obama must hew to “the center” if he knows what’s good for his presidency.

“Many political observers,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported days ago, say that Obama “must tack toward the political mainstream to avoid miscalculations made by President Bill Clinton, who veered left and fired up the 1994 Republican backlash.”

This storyline provides a kind of political morality play: The new president tried to govern from the left, and Democrats lost control of Congress just two years later.

But, if facts matter, the narrative is a real head-scratcher.

During the 1992 election year, Clinton had campaigned for the White House under the mantra “Putting People First.” But as economic analyst Doug Henwood was to comment, President-elect Clinton swiftly morphed into the champion of an austerity plan that could have been called “Putting Bondholders First.”

From the outset, President Clinton made clear his commitments to the corporate centers of economic power by choosing such officials as Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen, Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, trade representative Mickey Kantor and Secretary of State Warren Christopher.

Soon after becoming president, Clinton abandoned his few initial stances that might qualify as “left.” He quickly deserted his brief position for gay rights in the military. Under fire for his nomination of progressive law professor Lani Guinier to be assistant attorney general for civil rights, Clinton tossed her overboard.

In sharp contrast, the new president fought like hell for the corporate-beloved trade agreement known as NAFTA. And he spread his wings as a deficit hawk, while his campaign’s pledges of “public investment” fell to earth with paltry line items. Less than five months into his presidency, Newsweek lauded Clinton’s “shift to the right” and urged him to show “the backbone” to stay there.

But none of that has stopped the media’s clucking about the Clinton administration’s early “lurch to the left.” The myth never died, though it was quickly ripe for debunking.

In real time, one of the most astute debunkers was Barbara Ehrenreich. As the only writer from the left with a regular column in a major U.S. newsmagazine (she later got the boot), Ehrenreich wrote a Time piece in mid-June 1993 that directly addressed the nascent mythology. The incoming president’s leftward lurch was “a neat parable,” she noted, “but it never happened.”

Ehrenreich added: “The lurch to the left is like the ‘stab in the back’ invented by right-wing Germans after World War One: an instant myth designed to discredit all one’s political enemies in one fell swoop. ... Maybe it’s been so long that we’ve forgotten what ‘left’ is and how to tell it from right. At the simplest, most ecumenical level, to be on the left means to take the side of the underdog, whoever that may be: the meek, the poor and, generally speaking, the ‘least among us,’ as a well-known representative of the left position put it a couple of millenniums ago.”

More than 15 years after Barbara Ehrenreich wrote those words, the tall tale of President Clinton’s lurch to the left is still in the air. Warning Democratic politicians against being “liberal” or moving “left” remains a time-honored—even compulsive—media ritual. But as Barack Obama fills key economic posts in his administration, the left-leery and corporate-friendly press is likely to be quite content.

Norman Solomon’s books include “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death,” which has been adapted into a documentary film of the same name. He was an elected Obama delegate to the Democratic National Convention.

Mandate Watch: NAFTA Reform? Psych!

David Sirota — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 12:55:50 -0800

What do you do after a huge number of new swing-district Democrats win office promising to reform NAFTA? Apparently, if you are D.C. Democrats, you do this:

Obama May Delay Nafta Overhaul, in Victory for Caterpillar, GE

Nov. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Barack Obama, who threatened during the presidential campaign to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement unless he could renegotiate it, may delay reworking the accord...

Nafta is a powerful symbol because of its unpopularity. More than half of American voters polled in June by Rasmussen Reports favored renegotiating the agreement...

“We saw more candidates campaigning on fair trade than in anytime in history,” said Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, a critic of the Bush administration’s free-trade agenda. “It’s become a national priority.”

Obama joined Hillary Clinton in Ohio earlier this year in holding out the prospect of withdrawing from Nafta unless Canada and Mexico agreed to renegotiate...At a July campaign event, he described the changes he was looking for as “tweaks.”

I forget - is this 2008? Or did I accidentally turn on my flux capacitor and send myself back to 1992? Is this "Change We Can Believe In?" Because it seems like Changeiness.

"Center-Right Nation" Watch - Hoover Institution Admits It's a Center-Left Nation

David Sirota — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 13:01:58 -0800

The Hoover Institution is one of the major conservative think tanks in this country, so this op-ed in the Washington Post today is pretty incredible for its honesty:

Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review, in Outlook last week: The United States "is indeed, as conservatives have been insisting in recent days, a center-right country." On election night, former Bush guru Karl Rove opined on Fox News, "Barack Obama understands this is a center-right country, and he smartly and wisely ran a campaign that emphasized it." And it's not just conservative pundits and operatives singing this song. Take Newsweek editor Jon Meacham, who wrote an Oct. 27 cover essay entitled "America the Conservative," which argued that Obama will have to "govern a center-right nation" that "is more instinctively conservative than it is liberal."

The only problem: It isn't true. Or at least, not anymore.

Here's the stark reality: It is now harder for the Republican presidential candidate to get to 50.1 percent than for the Democrat. My Hoover Institution colleague David Brady and Douglas Rivers of the research firm YouGovPolimetrix have been analyzing data from online interviews with 12,000 people in both 2004 and 2008. It shows an overall shift to the Democrats of six percentage points. As they write in the forthcoming edition of Policy Review, "The decline of Republican strength occurs by having strong Republicans become weak Republicans, weak Republicans becoming independents, and independents leaning more Democratic or even becoming Democrats." This is a portrait of an electorate moving from center-right to center-left.

Read the whole admission here. It's dead-on.

Karl Rove's Bad Advice

Bill Scher — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 06:21:17 -0800

Looking at the same data I did when diagnosing the conservative "secular problem," Karl Rove concludes:

Then there were those who didn't show up. There were 4.1 million fewer Republicans voting this year than in 2004. Some missing Republicans had turned independent or Democratic for this election. But most simply stayed home. ... There were also 4.1 million fewer voters who attend religious services more than once a week. Americans aren't suddenly going to church less; something was missing from the campaign to draw out the more religiously observant.

Rove's recommendation is for Republicans to do more "to draw out the more religiously observant" -- in other words, suck up more to Christian conservatives.

But that is a very narrow, politically foolish reading of the data.

I had also noted that the secular vote had become larger than the weekly churchgoing vote. But Rove ignores three other key pieces of data.

1) Obama earned more support from weekly churchgoers than past Democratic candidates.

2) McCain earned less support from secular voters than George W. Bush.

Obama built a stronger religious-secular coalition by offering ideas that appeal to both camps, not by crude pandering on religious matters.

Bending over backwards to pander to conservative Christians will only further worry secular voters that conservatives don't properly prioritize issues that are most important to good governing.

But trying to come up with conservative ideas that can appeal across religious lines is a much harder task than staying in the conservative comfort zone of telling their base what they want to hear.

And 3) Obama got 8.5 million more votes than McCain in beating him 53% to 46%. Squeezing 4.1 million more votes out of your base doesn't solve your problem.

To put a fine point on it, if you only count the states where Obama received 53% or more, he still gets enough electoral votes to win -- 290, 20 more than needed.

Goosing the Christian conservative base won't get those states back. The conservative "secular problem" still looms large.

"Center-Right Nation": This Is Getting Boring

Rick Perlstein — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 08:00:51 -0800

Eugene Robinson shows how it's nonsense. So do, um the facts:

WASHINGTON (CNN) — It was one of John McCain's closing arguments: "We're getting a glimpse of what one-party rule would look like under Obama, Pelosi, and Reid. Apparently it starts with lowering our defenses and raising our taxes," the Republican presidential nominee said repeatedly on the campaign trail in the final weeks leading up to Election Day.

But a new national poll suggests why a majority of voters didn't seem to buy that argument, as Barack Obama beat McCain in the presidential election and the Democrats made major gains in both the House, under Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and the Senate, under Majority Leader Harry Reid.

In the CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Tuesday, 59 percent of those questioned said Democratic control of both the executive and legislative branches will be good for the country, compared with 38 percent saying such one-party control will be bad.

"That much good will from the public opens a window of opportunity for the Democrats," said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "But the public expects results, and may not listen to excuses for very long if a Democratic Congress and a Democratic White House can't get their act together in time."

The poll also indicates that the public has a positive view of the Democratic Party, with 62 percent saying they have a favorable opinion and 31 percent an unfavorable opinion of the party. For the Republicans, a majority, 54 percent, said they have an unfavorable view of the GOP while 38 percent hold a positive view.

"The public has a positive view of the Democratic Party while the GOP 'brand' is hurting," Holland said. "Overall views of the Democratic Party have gone from 53 percent favorable in October to 62 percent favorable now; the GOP overall has seen a 5-point drop in its favorable rating."

The 62 percent figure is the "the highest opinion of the Democrats in at least 16 years, since before Bill Clinton got elected," said CNN Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider.

"When has the Republican Party image ever been that bad? Answer: When the Republican Congress impeached President Clinton at the end of 1998," he added.

The poll indicates the public is split regarding the top Democrats in Congress. And that's an improvement.

"Democratic congressional leaders, much maligned this fall, have also seen a boost in their approval rating," Holland said. "Nearly half of those polled now approve of how congressional Democrats are handling their job, up from just a third who felt that way a month ago."

Schneider added, "Same thing happens when you ask them about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Good-bad, 50-50, among voters who even know who they are."

It's a different story for the GOP, with just 24 percent approving of how Republican leaders are handling their jobs and nearly three in four disapproving....

The Center-Left Nation

Robert Borosage — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 07:55:05 -0800

Conservatives started spinning even before the dancing stopped on election night. Obama's victory is impressive, but "this is still a center right nation," went the mantra. "This was a good Democratic year, says Bill Kristol, "but this is still a center-right country. Conservative and the Republican Party will have a real chance for a comeback. National Review editor Rich Lowry is less sanguine, but concludes:

"Even in unimaginably challenging conditions for Republicans, the ideological composition of the election was essentially unchanged from 2004. Only 22 percent of voters identified themselves as liberals. The rest were moderates or conservatives. It is indeed, as conservatives have been insisting in recent days, a center-right country. The question is how to appeal to the center again."

Sure, this is a center-right country, but only if you substitute addition for analysis. There are more conservatives than liberals — as there has been for years. So add them to the 44 percent of the electorate that says they are "moderates," and you get a center-right majority.

But do a little analysis. "Moderate" isn't a place holder, as voters who describe themselves that way have attitudes on the issues of the day. And when you look at attitudes, rather than addition, there is no question: Conservatives have had their day. This is a center-left, not a center-right nation.

The Campaign for America's Future joined with Democracy Corps to do a nation wide poll on election eve (for full report and poll go here) and with an expanded sample, we could probe attitudes of voters by political identification. What we found was clear: on both values and issues, moderates line up with liberals to form a strong majority that isolates conservatives.

On national security, does our security depend on building strong ties with other nations or on our own military strength? Liberals say ties with other nations 76-20; moderates 63-31. Conservatives go the other way 51-43.

Should we begin to take troops out of Iraq or stay the course until we reach stability? Liberals 92-7 for getting troops out; moderates 64-33. Conservatives? By two to one — 66-33 — they would stay the course.

Does government regulation do more good or more harm? Liberals believe it does more good than harm by 75-18; moderates by 60-36. Conservatives go the other way, even after the financial collapse, 52-44.

Are you worried that we will fail to make investments we need to create jobs or worry that we will spend too much and have to raise taxes? Liberals worry about not making needed investments 73-23; moderates by 53-44. Conservatives worry about spending and taxes 69-29.

Did you worry more that Barack Obama would raise taxes or that John McCain would continue Bush's economic policies? Liberals by a margin of 58 percent worry about McCain; moderates the same by 29 percent. Conservatives by 46 — 70-24 — worry about Obama.

Should homosexuality be accepted or discouraged by society. Liberals say accepted by 82-17; moderates by 61-28. Conservatives want homosexuality discouraged by 63-31.

When we asked whether Republicans lost because they were too conservative or not conservative enough, or whether they should move to the center or reaffirm their principles and stay on the right, liberals and moderates were clear. They lost because they were too conservative and should move back towards the center. Conservatives, not surprisingly, reaffirmed the faith.

On issue after issue, moderates stand with liberals, not conservatives. This is a center-left nation.

Republicans are not only an aging, monochromatic, regional minority party. They not only must now suffer the circular firing squad that follows defeat. They not only struggle to find a compelling leader or a relevant agenda. They swim against the tide. They are a largely conservative party in a center-left nation. Obama's mandate is clear. And they'd be well advised to get out of the way.

Elite Media Voices Begin Making Our Arguments

David Sirota — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:22:49 -0800

Having been one of millions of progressives who have been out in the wilderness for so long, it's hard to believe I can write this, but I can: It seems the demands for rejecting the "center-right nation" meme, accepting the progressive mandate of the election, Going Big and emulating FDR— the demands we've been all making—are starting to be echoed even in the elite media stratosphere. And that's a damn good thing.

REJECTING THE CENTER-RIGHT NATION MEME

Here's a syndicated column I wrote that appeared in national newspapers on 10/31/08:

Conservatives' contend that no matter how big progressives may win on Election Day, this is nonetheless a center-right nation. Indeed, a LexisNexis search shows this poll-tested term — "center-right nation" — is lately among the Punditburo's most ubiquitous Orwellian buzzwords...The "center-right nation" phrase is being parroted with the propagandistic discipline of Cuba's Ministry of Information.

The proof of this center-right nation? Republicans cite polls showing more Americans call themselves conservative than liberal. While that data point certainly measures brand name, those same surveys undermine the right's larger argument because they show majorities support progressive positions on most economic issues.

Here's the Washington Post's E.J. Dionne today:

Conservatives are trying to stop Obama from pursuing any of the ideas that he campaigned on...Their gimmick is to insist that the United States is still a "center-right" country because more Americans call themselves conservative than liberal. What this analysis ignores is that Americans have clearly moved to the left of where they were four, eight or ten years ago.

Here's the New York Times' Frank Rich on 11/9/08:

We now keep hearing, for instance, that America is “a center-right nation” — apparently because the percentages of Americans who call themselves conservative (34), moderate (44) and liberal (22) remain virtually unchanged from four years ago. But if we’ve learned anything this year, surely it’s that labels are overrated. Those same polls find that more and more self-described conservatives no longer consider themselves Republicans. Americans now say they favor government doing more (51 percent), not less (43) — an 11-point swing since 2004 — and they still overwhelmingly reject the Iraq war.

ACCEPTING THE PROGRESSIVE MANDATE

On the idea that McCain made the 2008 election a referendum on conservatism, here's what I wrote on 10/24/08:

John McCain is doing what no progressive political leader has been able to do in at least a generation, if not more: He's creating a New Deal mandate for the next president, should that next president be Barack Obama...[McCain] has polarized the argument and turned the election into a referendum on the economic Darwinism of the conservative movement...He is framing the choice as one between a Republican presidency to the right of Ronald Reagan on economics or a Democratic presidency to the left of Franklin Roosevelt on economics - and if Obama wins, he will have as powerful an economic mandate as FDR received in the 1932 landslide election, because the voting public will be expecting - no, demanding - far-reaching economic change.

Here's the Washington Post's E.J. Dionne on 10/31/08, titled "Referendum on Trickle-Down":

Economic populism is thriving right now, and if Obama wins, his election would not simply be a non-ideological verdict against the status quo. It would be a clear repudiation of conservative economic ideas and McCain's claim that a more egalitarian approach to growth constitutes "socialism." McCain's attacks on Obama's thinking have been so forceful and direct that they require this election to be seen as a referendum that will settle a long-running philosophical argument.

GOING BIG

On the "Go Big" idea, here's what I wrote on 11/7/08:

The election became a choice between continued conservative rule and a progressive agenda as far-reaching as the current crises...Obama rose on a promise to eschew triangulation — and he won because America realized invertebracy and sail trimming will not solve problems. Voters rejected Clinton-style incrementalism in the primary, then scorned conservatism in the general election, meaning Democrats' best response to Bill McKay's "what do we do now?" question is a two-word answer: Go big.

Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly now points out that Paul Krugman, Dionne and even Fareed Zakaria (!) have subsequently said exactly the same thing.

EMULATING FDR

In calling for an Obama administration to be bold and progressive in the FDR mold, here's the last line of my column on 10/31/08:

[Obama will have] the very mandate for "direct, vigorous action" Roosevelt described in his 1933 inaugural address. Should a President Obama try to capitalize on it, he will have nothing to fear but fear itself.

Here's the last line of the 11/7/08 column by the New York Times' Paul Krugman:

[Obama] has the political mandate; he has good economics on his side. You might say that the only thing he has to fear is fear itself.

Now, I point all this out not to pat myself on the back for (nor lament) writing columns that were later parroted by other columnists, sans acknowledgment. The fact is, I can't claim any kind of exclusive ownership over my columns' message because they only echo what so many of us have been saying for so long now. And even in the Jayson Blair era, I tend not to ascribe bad faith to fellow progressives, and instead subscribe to the "great minds think alike" principle that says like-minded people can honestly (i.e. not plagiaristically) arrive at the same conclusions.

And that's the whole point here. Though the Braindead Megaphone (as George Saunders calls it) may be telling us that Obama's election proves America is more conservative than ever and that therefore he must govern like a Rockefeller Republican, there are an increasing number of Establishment voices saying what we, the progressive movement, have been saying for a while now: That this is a progressive country in need of a boldly progressive president. And I say the more voices that chime in and make that point, the better.

"Center-Right Nation" Watch: AP Says Green Cmte Chair Threatens Green Legislation

Bill Scher — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 05:58:30 -0800

Check this second paragraph from an Associated Press story about the House battle to head the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which would play a critical role in any global warming legislation:

Obama has said he wants to act quickly on climate change. But crucial bipartisan support could be tested if liberal California Rep. Henry Waxman succeeds at unseating Chairman John Dingell of Michigan, the panel's top Democrat for 28 years and a key ally of automakers and electric utilities.

In other words, if House has a chairman like Waxman who actually wants the strong global warming legislation Obama called for during the campaign, then that would put the legislation at risk.

But if the House has a chairman who is "a key ally of automakers and electric utilities" like Dingell, who spent all of the last Congress being a thorn in the side of congressional leaders who wanted strong global warming legislation, then that would be great for Obama to "act quickly" with "crucial bipartisan support."

That literally makes no sense.

The article is also highly misleading by implying that Dingell and Obama share the same global warming position:

Last month Dingell and Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., unveiled a draft global warming bill based on dozens of hearings and white papers for reducing greenhouse gases by 80 percent by 2050 _ a reduction in line with what Obama has proposed.

Technically true, but there are lots of devils in the Dingell-Boucher details that make hitting the target dubious.

Further, Dingell's ally Boucher said in a recent interview that "The first way we can control program costs is by not charging industrial emitters." That is in direct opposition to Obama's stated position (PDF file) of having "all industries pay for every ton of emissions they release, rather than giving these valuable emission rights away to companies on the basis of their past pollution."

Of course, the fact that Dingell now supports any global warming bill at all is a major move leftward for him. But that only underscores the ridiculousness of the AP article.

Dingell moved because he was pushed to move by a strong progressive wind generated by the public and the congressional leadership.

Maybe Rep. Waxman would make it harder for good legislation to get passed by alienating right-leaning congresspeople. Or, maybe Waxman would help write good legislation that would generate enthusiastic support and pressure other politicians to hop on the bandwagon.

Maybe Rep. Dingell would eventually prove a useful ally in getting strong legislation passed. But let's not forget, these past two years he's already been the chairman! And strong legislation did not pass.

On what evidence should reporters presume Dingell's chairmanship is inherently beneficial?

America's progressive majority has long been supportive of strong action to avert a climate crisis. There is no basis to presume that having a committee chairman whose record has long been in line with the progressive majority is in any way a political setback to Obama's agenda.

Click here for more posts covering the "Center-Right Nation" Watch.