Shocked, Shocked . . .
. . . conservatives are, to find out that Obama was a student radical. Funny: plenty of them were, too. But because Obama has been unevenly outgrowing his youthful radicalism instead of stridently repudiating it and ricocheting to the other extreme, he isn’t given credit for moving an inch; he must still be right back there.
Uneven outgrowing, however, presents serious problems of its own.
This was my comment at Anchoress:
I’m shocked, shocked, to discover that he was a student radical — so were many of today’s repentant neoconservatives, and some of them were shriller than young Obama. His juvenilia means no more than anyone else’s. Do you want to be held to and hanged by yours?
The question is where he stands now. I do not think he’s remained a secret radical; I think he’s genuinely evolved towards the center. My fear is that he’s a work in progress and doesn’t know yet WHERE he stands, so his views are a contradictory jumble from all along the spectrum.
A “contradictory jumble” should not be mistaken for a mature synthesis. My own biggest fear about Obama remains what it always was: he wasn’t ready to be president. He is green and uncured.
Ambiance 
wj said,
July 7, 2009 at 11:32 am
There is, it seems to me, one primary path that someone can take as they mature: They can go from being a radical to being a moderate (albeit, perhaps, with leanings one direction or the other). Alternatively, they can fail to mature.
And there are a fair number who apparently cannot handle that level of maturity. Some of them remain wedded to the radicalism of their youth. But others, and they are some of the loudest voices in politics, simply replace one flavor of radicalism with it’s mirror opposite. Thus all of the extreme conservatives who, if you check, were extreme leftists in their youth. (There may well also be some people who were extreme conservatives when young, and then grew to be extreme liberals. But I haven’t stumbled across them.)
One of the defining characteristics of the extremists, in my experience, is that they cannot believe that anyone grows out of extremism. Either someone made a dramatic switch, or they never changed at all. Which means that someone, like Obama, who did not make the dramatic reversal must not have changed at all — because moderation is unthinkable.
PatHMV said,
July 7, 2009 at 1:03 pm
wj… Hillary Clinton. Not that she’s an “extreme” liberal, but then I don’t think that plenty of former campus radicals I’ve seen have become “extreme” conservatives. Anyway, our Secretary of State was an ardent “Goldwater Girl” in 1964.
As for our President, certainly one’s views change over time. But they are still substantially shaped by our early experiences, one way or another. Sometimes those old views make it hard for us to say no to our old friends, friends whom we have perhaps outgrown, but to whom we retain some affection and loyalty, for old times’ sake. That can have an impact in all sorts of decisions we make. The idea that it has no meaning is silly. It may not have enough meaning to matter, in the grand scheme of things, but it has meaning.
And frankly, there are plenty of people who weren’t young radicals at all, who chose to never smoke marijuana, to never sleep around, to never do all sorts of wild and crazy things that you’re “supposed” to do in your youth. That says something, to me, about their stability, the predictability of their beliefs. Again, it’s not an absolute thing, but it is of some relevance.
And, I think, if you once advocated for some truly radical stuff, then you have an obligation to repudiate it, to disclose to those of us you want to vote for you and support you what your current thinking on the subject is, and why. If you were a skinhead follower of David Duke when you were in college, then I want some concrete information to establish that you’re no longer a rabid racist today, not just some vague reassurances that you’ve grown and become more moderate.
karen said,
July 7, 2009 at 1:10 pm
i doubt ~moderation~ is a word that describes Obama, wj(IMhO). That would take a bit more humility and a shift in the endgame of his political aspirations. That’s called ~reaching across the aisle~ w/out mockery. Adolesent.
If he hasn’t budged from his ideals- that doesn’t mean he hasn’t grown. It just means he’s narrow-minded… and i duck in expectation of a hurled stone:0).
wj said,
July 7, 2009 at 4:46 pm
Pat, I was thinking that what I hadn’t seen was extreme youthful conservatives becoming extreme liberals. Mrs Clinton, while further left than me, doesn’t really qualify.
FYI, I fit your paragraph 3 pretty exactly. And I fit it while attending Berkeley in the late 1960s! It’s the person, not just the environment.
I agree that someone who was an extremist needs to show that he’s seen the light of moderation. But actions speak at least as loudly for me as proclamations. Others may argue, as I think perhaps Karen is, the those actions might be just an effort to get to the same extreme ends but small steps. But, to some degree, acceptance of small steps is the mark of the non-extremist. Not least because, by taking small steps, you allow for the possibility that real experience will show up flaws in your original vision. An extremist doesn’t accept that there could be such flaws.
amba12 said,
July 7, 2009 at 4:52 pm
extreme youthful conservatives becoming extreme liberals
Some of those raised rigidly evangelical who later became atheists might qualify.
PatHMV said,
July 7, 2009 at 6:09 pm
wj, agreed, but it’s hard to tell the difference between that and a cunning ideologue who knows how to slip the camel’s nose under the tent, so to speak. Are President Obama’s “small” steps (and I don’t think that most of them actually qualify as “small” by any stretch) reflections of sober moderation, allowing for the possibility that real experience will show up flaws in his original vision, or are they intended to be the first step down a very slippery slope, wearing down the opposition one tiny step at a time? “Hey, this next step’s no big deal, it’s only a teeny tiny little bit more than that last step!”
karen said,
July 8, 2009 at 12:51 pm
yes, wj. Like the moderation (in little steps) of abortion Obama represents. I heard via NPR that new research w/embryos will now be the law– w/the explicit permission of the ~parents~ of the frozen specimens in question for use. How totally juxtaposed from a WH w/Snowflake children as guests of honor. Just a step beyond international funding of abortion, don’t ask/don’t tell(jk– i mean parental notification;0))and all of the other relaxations of the stricter rules W put into place to protect life.
This ties in so perfectly w/your newer Obama/Palin post, amba. I agree w/it pretty much except for this:
“Obama and Palin are both magnetic screens for projection, both positive and negative. A broad range of people can see in Barack or in Sarah what they want to see. ”
It isn’t ever what i see, it’s what i hear from them, in their own words– not the emastication of talking heads. Hmmm, i looked up that word only to not see it in Webster’s. Did i make it up-dig it out of a crevice existing only w/in my brain?
MASTICATE!!!!
Forgive my rambling…emasticate could be a combo of masticate& emasculate– wherein the press or any other proclaimed ~expert~ could chew facts up in such a way as to empty truth of her facts and those who proclaim it, thus robbing them of power. Like ~Palin *quit* her job- as opposed to resigning, like Obama did(although i believe he was still an acting Senator on his 2 yr campaign trail, no?) i hate double standards.
trooper york said,
July 12, 2009 at 5:20 pm
The experiance of black politcal lfe mirrors that of the Irish. You have two types of politicans.
Amiable hacks who get elected as front men while their bosses loot the treasury.
William O’Dwyer, Jimmie Walker, David Dinkens, David Patterson.
Out and out crooks who loot the tresuary their ownselfs.
Michael Curley, Boss Hauge, Marion Barry, Coleman Young.
Products of the big city machine are jus the same old, same old.
Obama is just Jimmie Walker rite large.