The Realist.

Editor,

FDR was a pragmatist.

He never took his eye off the ball he was trying to hit, and he was willing to try any reasonable proposal to see if it worked.

Obama is not a pragmatist.

He is a realist in the sense of a Henry Kissinger.

Obama is convinced that he can't win a pitched battle with the Republicans, and he is afraid that the social and political costs of forcing the Republicans' hand is more than the USA can bear.

So Obama tries to out-think the Republicans, gives them what he thinks they'll take before he sits down at the negotiating table with them.

Granted, rule by the corporations versus self rule by the American body politic has as much potential to cast the USA into civil war as slavery did; but FDR was confronted by a variation on exactly the same theme, and he found ways to hold the corporations off for 50 or 80 years depending on how you count.

Re: "Reconsidering Obama the Pragmatist" (10/14/2012)