Consistency

One of my problems with Larry Johnson's No Quarter is that he attacks Obama for the sake of attacking. The posts on his site will slash from the right one day, from the left the next. Granted, this schizophrenia stems, in part, from the fact that he employs multiple writers. Still, consider this piece. LisaB approvingly quotes a Washington Post article which, in turn, disapprovingly quotes these words from Mr. O's speech:

“You will not see your taxes increased a single dime. I repeat: not one single dime. In fact, the recovery plan provides a tax cut . . . and these checks are on the way.”

To which the Post responds:

So much for summoning the country to sacrifice. Obama has been no more willing to ask average Americans to pitch in, even once the recession is over, than Bush.

(The WP meant to write "than Bush was." A major newspaper should take greater care.)

Lisa, it seems, agrees with the WP's contention that Obama should demand greater sacrifice. And I presume that Johnson agrees with Lisa.

So where does this stance leave us? We find ourselves in a classic damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't situation:

1. If Obama does lower taxes, NQ will say that he is "unwilling to ask for sacrifice."

2. If Obama had asked for higher taxes, NQ would have called him a socialist.

In fact, Johnson's site has damned the President as a socialist on previous occasions, as have plenty of other blogs. Thus, No Quarter offers both Option 1 attacks and Option 2 attacks, even though the two options are mutually contradictory.

Oh, but it gets worse: LisaB makes a head-snapping ideological switch within the same post. She goes on to quote (again, approvingly) Forbes:

Christopher Buckley, David Gergen and David Brooks. All three used to insist that Obama was some species of centrist or moderate. Now that Obama has proposed the most massive expansion of government in the history of the republic, each has recognized that just conceivably he might have been mistaken.

Okay, now we have Bam-Bam the bolshie, hoisting the red flag while working through a rap version of The Internationale. Just a paragraph ago, he was insufficiently FDR-ish; now he's gone beyond FDR-land and on into Marxville.

Which is it?

Before you say it: I am not getting soft on Obama. I am asking for political consistency, of the sort that one finds on (for example) The Confluence, a site which has always criticized our president from a left-ish perspective. That's my perspective as well, and I really cannot give even a tenth of a damn about anything David Brooks has to say.

To my way of thinking, Obama's stimulus package will probably fail because it is not sufficiently aggressive, and because Geithner favors the interests of the Wall Street crowd over the interests of the average citizen. In my view, Obama should nationalize the banks outright, offer HOLC-style relief to homeowners, and initiate massive government jobs programs. The problem is not that Obama has resurrected the Keynes/FDR legacy; the problem is his betrayal of that legacy.

I'm troubled by those who assail half-measures as extremism. I'm also troubled by irresponsible bloggers who try to squish together a left-wing and a right-wing critique. The two viewpoints are distinct and cannot intertwine.

I ask, in short, for consistency.

Yes, Tabatha? I see your hand raised. You have something to contribute...?

Ah. No, Tabatha: Emerson did not say "Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." That is a commonly heard misquotation. He said "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." In the hobgoblin hierarchy, a foolish inconsistency can be even more dangerous.