Cole finds a very wrong-headed explanation for Obama’s centrism. There’s really too much there to get to all of it (you could write a novella on the subject, to be honest, but this has got to take the cake: ”Obama understands the threat of climate change, but like the exceptional con artist he is, what happens to others he does not know, or what happens in the future, is irrelevant to him.”

The reason Obama has acted so timidly on climate change is not entirely clear to me, but ascribing outlandish and sinister motives is unnecessary. I think there are likely two major reasons for it. First, Obama’s team is deeply afraid of being outspent in this year’s election, and sweeping climate rules could have the effect of persuading oil barons to flood even more money into Republican coffers. Which is not exactly a craven reason per se, though you have to think that the oil barons aren’t stupid enough not to get this strategy. The second is Obama’s natural caution, perhaps mixed with concern over what impact new regulations would have on a still-recovering economy. Now, I couldn’t care less about the latter because of the importance of the climate issue, but the Administration has been known to think in these terms before.

In other words, while sometimes you do get a Gunther Guillaume, most of the time a simple examination of a politician’s motives and notions will suffice. Obama’s no conservative, he’s a liberal. But part of liberalism is the assumption of basic goodwill on the part of all people, a belief that reason will win over even the most hardened skeptic with enough effort, beliefs which can drive a leftist absolutely crazy. Certainly, Obama’s faith has not been substantiated over the past few years, and the obvious reaction would be to label Obama as dangerously naive. But really, it just demonstrates the shortcomings of certain provisions of liberal thinking. As someone who doesn’t really believe in the existence of a free marketplace, either of goods and services or of ideas, or that humans can all be reached by the power of reason, I have no real inclination to try to think of Eric Cantor or Roger Ailes as decent, conscientious people who just have different beliefs from mine. Makes more sense to think of them both as hardheaded cynics who will never come around so long as money and power keep them in their position. But Obama believes those things, at least to some extent, because of his liberalism. The idea that Republicans can be reasoned with is catnip for liberals, but dangerous folly at best for lefties. I’m more a social Democrat than a liberal, as is Stoller I suspect. And it really is a matter of outlook when you get down to it–a social democrat is going to see things in terms of class and privilege in a way that a liberal just doesn’t. So while Stoller is pretty much completely wrong in his perspective on Obama, I find that I related to his point of view perfectly well. It’s a failure of communication, ultimately. Obama’s no leftist, and while the terms are used interchangeably in America there are real differences in outlook. Which explains why Obama has managed to hold onto most liberals throughout his presidency, while actual lefties have been hostile for so much of it.