The End of Barack Obama's Ideology?

Presidential nominees unusually move back to the center of the ideological spectrum at the conclusion of the primaries, but the pace and scope of Barack Obama's centrist repositioning has thrown political observers across the spectrum into fits.

It's to be expected that the netroots would fly into hissy fits over Obama's new centrism. Over the last couple of week's the Illinois Senator's staked out middle-of-the-road positions on patriotic flag pins, the execution of child rapists, urban gun control, international trade (especially NAFTA), and faith-based initiatives.

Obama's also steadily thrown many of his most controversial political and religious associates under the bus, like William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright (and Samantha Power, and Michael Pfleger, and Wesley Clark, and ... well, you get the picture).

Now, with Obama's vote on retroactive immunity for corporations assisting government surveillance programs, even some top party leaders are scratching their heads in dismay: Where is Obama on the ideological map?

The Washington Post has the story:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama put himself on the opposite side of his party's leadership in the Senate yesterday by reversing course to support a compromise intelligence surveillance bill. His vote was the most dramatic in a series of moves toward the middle that have focused new attention on where he stands and where he would take the country.

Obama's vote was not unexpected, as he had signaled earlier that he would back the compromise legislation. But the senator from Illinois found himself at odds with Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) and Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (Ill.), as well as three of his opponents for the Democratic nomination, including Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.).

Just the day before, Obama had denied suggestions that "I am flip-flopping." But in recent weeks, he has softened his once-harsh rhetoric about the North American Free Trade Agreement, embraced the Supreme Court decision overturning a District of Columbia ban on handguns and criticized the high court for rejecting the death penalty for child rape.

After telling reporters last week that he will probably "refine" his position on the Iraq war after he meets with military commanders there this summer, he gathered reporters again to say that he remains committed to ending the conflict and to withdrawing combat troops, conditions permitting, within 16 months, should he assume the presidency.

One factor in Obama's success has been his ability to confound both left and right. But while that may be a measure of a skillful politician determined to win a general election, it has left unanswered important questions about his core principles and his presidential priorities. How well he answers them over the coming months will determine the outcome of his race against Republican Sen. John McCain.

Statements he has made over the past month have ignited a debate about who Obama is ideologically. His current policy positions have convinced some progressives that he is not one of them. Matt Stoller, editor of OpenLeft.com, said that an Obama win in November would be a victory for "centrist government," adding: "Progressives are going to have to organize for progressive values."

Note Stoller's use of the term "progressive," which is essentially the term of choice for the most radical advocates on the political left.

Note, though, that Obama's shift to the center caused nary a ripple among many on the Democratic Party's left side, as the Los Angeles Times reports:

As Barack Obama moves to broaden his appeal beyond loyal Democrats, a chorus of anger and disappointment has arisen from the left. But those voices are a distinct minority because the party has a more pressing concern: winning in November.

On Wednesday, Obama again bucked his liberal allies, voting in the Senate to give legal immunity to phone companies that took part in warrantless wiretapping after the Sept. 11 attacks. Critics chided Obama for the vote -- which put him crossways with dozens of Democratic colleagues, including Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

The vote, a reversal of an earlier pledge, was Obama's latest perceived step away from his party's base on a range of issues, among them the death penalty, gun control and taxpayer money for religious groups.

Reaction has been swift and - aside from the blogosphere and some newspaper columnists - notably mild.

"We're willing to work through this period," said Richard Parker, president of the liberal Americans for Democratic Action, one of the party's most enduring advocacy groups. In the long run, he said, the organization's "serious concerns" about Obama are far outweighed by its disagreements with Republican John McCain.

That Obama has moved so far to the ideological center - essentially coming in from the cold of the ideological left - is a testament to his political skills. But his shifts are dangerous politically, as he's been so solidly steeped in the traditions of socialist ideology and postmodern cultural politics that his current move to the center can only be seen as crassly political or psychologically dissonant.

It is no wonder that Obama enjoyed powerful initial attraction among the most hardline actors on the left of the spectrum. The Illinois Senator's seen as "one of them," essentially a revolutionary in politics, one who will achieve power through non-violent means, but who will nevertheless facilitate a fundamental transformation of the conservative structures of hierarchy and attainment in American life.

The Obama backlash now seen among the netroots is thus completely understandable.

A sustained tour of the left blogosphere is to become submersed in the vile underworld of a nearly unbelievable maelstrom of implacable intolerance, bigotry, and ideological megalomania. It's not just one or two left-wing blogs, here or there: There's an entire radical subterranean establishment that wants nothing less than a wholesale restructuring of American politics, from education to foreign policy to health care to infrastructure to social policy to taxation and beyond.

The FISA debate demonstrated the genuine extremism of the far-left factions. But the big test of their influence lies ahead, during the post-Labor Day political mobilization of the general election campaign. The leftists will stay with Obama, grudgingly, out of sheer hatred for the GOP's governing legacy of the past seven years. But their true agenda is not difficult to discern.

Barack Obama, at this stage of the campaign, will demonstrate how fully he's abandoned his past associations with those on the left - and his indoctrination into state-socialist ideology - by decisively repudiating the extremist agenda of the netroots political establishment.

These people are today's protest generation - the revolution's gone online. If Obama wants to be a man of all the people, he's going to have to call out the left forces for what they truly are: unpatriotic nihilists intent on political retribution and totalitarian power.