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Greenwald misreads Obama

July 2, 2008 By dev Comments are Off

Some very smart liberal bloggers are up in arms about Obama’s perceived move to the center — perhaps with some justification, although Glenn Greenwald’s beef with the Obama patriotism speech borders on dishonest:

[Obama] defended his own patriotism by impugning the patriotism of others, specifically those in what he described as the “the so-called counter-culture of the Sixties” for “attacking the symbols, and in extreme cases, the very idea, of America itself” and — echoing Jeanne Kirkpatrick’s 1984 RNC speech — “blaming America for all that was wrong with the world”;

I’d expect far better from Greenwald. Here is what Obama said:

Still, what is striking about today’s patriotism debate is the degree to which it remains rooted in the culture wars of the 1960s – in arguments that go back forty years or more. In the early years of the civil rights movement and opposition to the Vietnam War, defenders of the status quo often accused anybody who questioned the wisdom of government policies of being unpatriotic. Meanwhile, some of those in the so-called counter-culture of the Sixties reacted not merely by criticizing particular government policies, but by attacking the symbols, and in extreme cases, the very idea, of America itself….
[…]
Most Americans never bought into these simplistic world-views – these caricatures of left and right. Most Americans understood that dissent does not make one unpatriotic, and that there is nothing smart or sophisticated about a cynical disregard for America’s traditions and institutions.

Greenwald ignores Obama’s clear rejection of right-wing attacks on dissent and has a cow over what, in context, is a perfectly reasonable description of some would-be insurrectionists on the ’60s left. The same exact take on the ’60s can be found in The Audacity of Hope, published long before Obama was calibrating his way to the presidency. His patriotism speech was an admirably honest presentation of his thinking on the subject. Greenwald’s refusal to accept one word of criticism of any segment of the left, even in the context of a nuanced historical argument, says more about the state of liberal and left-wing culture than it does about Obama.
Greenwald knows full well how indebted Obama is to the social justice struggles of the ’60s and earlier, and how he’s taken every opportunity during the campaign to affirm and align with that legacy. That doesn’t mean Obama is being devious when he portrays the people involved in those struggles as complex, or in some cases not worthy of admiration. 

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